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The NATO soldiers and the Polish resistance fighters attempt to gather vital intelligence to inform their next moves—both from a locked security room and from local witnesses to Soviet operations. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/2xj4JayM2Kk Get BONUS CONTENT every week at http://jointhenaish.com, including the Mission Debrief, our exclusive We Shouldn't Be Alive companion where we discuss and break down the latest episode, plus ad-free episodes, exclusive podcasts, and more. Come see us LIVE in a city near you at https://www.glasscannonnetwork.com/tour Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It's November of 1983, the closest the world came to nuclear war, some may argue even closer than the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Yet the Able Archer 1983 exercise incident is relatively unknown by comparison. A series of events that started with the Soviet shootdown of a Korean Air Lines plane, ended with not one but two almosts, when it came to accidental nuclear war. This included a simulated nuclear release authority request that may have been seen in Moscow as the prelude to a first strike. How these events unfolded was a result of heightened Cold War tension, antagonism, and miscommunication. Brian Morra was a US Air Force intelligence officer who had a front row seat to this, and sits down with guest host Dr. Mark Jacobson to discuss how the world came to the brink of nuclear war. Subscribe to Sasha's Substack, HUMINT, to get more intelligence stories: https://sashaingber.substack.com/ For more information about the International Spy Museum, visit: https://www.spymuseum.org/ And if you have feedback or want to hear about a particular topic, you can reach us by email at spycast@spymuseum.org. This show is brought to you by N2K Networks, Goat Rodeo, and the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. This episode was produced by Flora Warshaw and the team at Goat Rodeo. At the International Spy Museum, Mike Mincey and Memphis Vaughan III are our video editors. Emily Rens is our graphic designer. Joshua Troemel runs our SPY social media. Amanda Ohlke is our Director of Adult Education and Mira Cohen is the Vice President of Programs.
In Episode 485 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Yale political scientist Ian Shapiro—author of After the Fall—about how the widespread optimism of the post–Cold War era gave way so rapidly to the fractured, combative politics of today, why American unilateralism hollowed out the very international institutions the US claimed to champion, and what it will take for mainstream democratic parties to recover their legitimacy in the populist era. The first hour traces the critical decisions of the 1990s and early 2000s that Ian believes set this unraveling in motion: the choice to enlarge NATO eastward and invest meaningfully in Russia's post-Soviet transition, and the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia as the first major military action taken without UN Security Council authorization. They then turn to the unilateral invasion of Iraq as the seminal rupture in the international rules-based order, followed by the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, which delivered a parallel blow to the elite consensus that had governed Western countries since the onset of the Cold War. The second hour opens with the 2011 intervention in Libya and the doctrine of the responsibility to protect, which Shapiro argues was cynically deployed to topple Muammar Gaddafi, leaving behind a failed state and further discrediting the international norms it was meant to uphold. From there, they trace the cascading fallout across the Middle East and Europe—through Syria and Ukraine—to the present moment, before turning to the central political question of the age: whether mainstream parties can deliver an industrial policy and a model of inclusive growth capable of addressing the economic grievances and insecurities driving the populist revolt across the democratic world. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you'd like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed today's episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, CastBox, or via our RSS Feed Writing us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Join our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at https://hiddenforces.io. Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 06/25/2026
Five prisoners are kept awake for fifteen days in a sealed chamber — and what the researchers find when they open the door no longer wants to be set free. A blockbuster film series trails a string of real-life deaths its cast can't explain. On the back roads of Maryland, a half-goat figure waits for teenagers who wander too far. And one ordinary night in El Paso, a couple walks out of their home — dishes still in the sink, cat unfed — and is never seen again.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/russiansleepexperiment/READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3rr9mhjxFEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: The Russian Sleep Experiment *** The Poltergeist Film Curse *** The Goat-Man of Maryland *** The Patterson Family Disappearance *** The Legend of the LeprechaunCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding00:01:06.939 = Show Open00:01:55.409 = The Poltergeist Curse00:06:21.074 = The Goatman of Prince George's County00:14:07.417 = The Lore of the Leprechaun ***00:16:55.345 = Vanishing of the Pattersons00:27:39.437 = The Russian Sleep Experiment ***00:43:05.653 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“The Russian Sleep Experiment”: http://bit.ly/36mHCc9"Leprechaun: One Of The Most Famous And Powerful Creatures Of The Irish Faerie Folk" (link no longer available)“The El Paso Vanishing (What Happened To The Pattersons?)”: http://bit.ly/2JHq3cW“Maryland's Goat-Man Is Half Man, Half Goat, and Out For Blood”: http://bit.ly/2pEciVw“The Poltergeist Curse?”: http://bit.ly/36oH857(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: July 22, 2018Weird Darkness travels from a cursed Hollywood film set to a Maryland goat-monster, the cobbler-fairies of Irish legend, a vanished El Paso couple, and a blood-soaked Soviet sleep laboratory where the test subjects no longer wanted to be set free.It opens with the deaths that shadow the Poltergeist films, beginning with Heather O'Rourke, who played Carol Anne Freeling from the original 1982 release through both sequels and died at twelve in San Diego in February 1986 during surgery for a bowel obstruction later traced to a congenital intestinal flaw. Dominique Dunne, who played older sister Dana Freeling, was strangled in 1982 by John Sweeney outside her Hollywood home, and Sweeney served just three years and seven months. Julian Beck, the gaunt preacher Kane of Poltergeist II, died of stomach cancer in 1983, and Will Sampson, who played the shaman Taylor, died after a heart-lung transplant — four deaths that fed a curse legend later thickened by JoBeth Williams' claim that Steven Spielberg used real human skeletons as cheaper props and by Sampson's own ritual cleansing of the set.From there the episode crosses into Prince George's County, Maryland, where the Goatman has stalked local legend for decades. One origin story sets him at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, a half-man, half-goat creature born from a USDA experiment gone wrong; another makes him a herdsman driven mad after teenagers slaughtered his flock. University of Maryland folklorist Barry Pearson traces his heyday to the 1970s and the 1971 decapitation of a puppy named Ginger in Bowie, an incident the Washington Post covered and locals pinned on the creature haunting Fletchertown and Lottsford roads, while Beltsville spokesperson Kim Kaplan dryly wonders whether a goatman that old would be collecting Social Security by now.Next the show turns to Irish folklore and the leprechaun, the solitary fairy whose name traces to a Gaelic root for a small body or a shoemaker. Standing two to three feet tall in a green or red coat and buckled shoes, he works as a fairy cobbler who stitches only a single shoe and never a pair, guards a hidden pot of gold, and trades three wishes for his freedom when a human manages to catch him. He lives in cave networks reached through rabbit holes and the hollow trunks of fairy trees, and damaging one of those trees is said to draw a lifetime of bad luck.From the green hills of Ireland the episode moves to El Paso, Texas, where William and Margaret Patterson left their home at 3000 Piedmont Drive on March 5, 1957 and were never seen again, dinner dishes still in the sink and their cat Tommy left without food. The owners of Patterson Photo Supply vanished without packing a suitcase, their associate Doyle Kirkland turned up driving William's Cadillac with a thin story about a vacation, and a telegram from Dallas signed with the wrong middle initial named Kirkland as William's replacement at the store. Decades on, caretaker Reinaldo Nangre claimed he had cleaned blood from the garage and found a piece of scalp on the boat propeller before dying in a car crash, and Sheriff Leo Samaniego floated the theory that the couple were Soviet spies photographing Fort Bliss, leaving a disappearance that was declared a death in 1964 and has never been solved.The episode closes in the late 1940s, when Soviet researchers sealed five political prisoners in a chamber and kept them awake for fifteen days with an experimental gas-based stimulant, promising freedom in exchange for thirty sleepless days. Paranoia set in after five days, screaming after nine, and when the chamber was opened on the fifteenth the soldiers found four men still alive amid their own torn-out organs, having eaten their own flesh and blocked the floor drain with it, fighting any attempt to remove them and begging for the gas rather than sleep. One subject, pinned for surgery without anesthetic, wrote only the words "keep cutting," and as the last of them was shot through the heart he claimed to be the madness that lurks in every sleeping mind, choking out that he was so nearly free.
Almaz: The Secret Soviet Spy Station in Space. Guest: Anatoly Zak. Zak describes the top-secret Almaz program, military space stations camouflaged under the "Salyut" name for reconnaissance. These "spy satellites with men" took high-resolution photos of NATO bases. The program was eventually discontinued because robotic satellites proved more effective and less taxing on human crews. 41959
Shaun didn't leave Illinois, he defected from a Soviet state! Dan Perkins discusses his new co-authored book The Democrat Murder of America: Demagoguery in the First Degree! And Shaun talks to filmmaker Chris Burgard about his new documentary Remember the Alamo: Don't Sharia My Texas, coming to theaters on America's 250th birthday!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sanjana takes the stand as the self-proclaimed number one age-gap defender, arguing that the trope is really about power, that demanding moral instruction from romance is a fundamentally conservative impulse, and that “reverse age-gap” is not a thing. Then debut novelist Anna Maria Volkova joins to talk about Games, her romance about an economics grad student and a Soviet-born Wall Street banker: why his Russianness specifically matters to the story, the Hollywood villain problem, and what it looks like when a man shaped by political catastrophe becomes romantically persuasive. And: Tyler and Sanjana do a month-in-media check-in that includes both Cancer Ward and Kennedy Ryan. On age gaps: why power is the whole point, when the trope works versus when shock replaces substance, and why the demand for capital-M Moral fiction is more conservative than it sounds. Anna Maria Volkova is the author of Games, a debut romance about desire, grief, and neoliberal capitalism (out June 30). Referenced: Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid. The month in reading: Score and Reel by Kennedy Ryan, Long Island Girls by Gabrielle Korn, Pool House by Mary H.K. Choi, In Every Possible Way by Alicia Thompson, The Very Definition of Love by Sophia Benoit, The Paris Match by Kate Clayborn, and Whitney, My Love by Judith McNaught. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Space X might collapse the US economy, Rocket Lab is running war drills for interceptions ins space, Trump is loaning billions to start up nuclear sites for data centers, massive earthquakes hit in three locations around the world within 30 minutes of each other, and Donald Trump's daughter just started a revolution in a former Soviet satellite state!All of this and more on this episode of the Cajun Knight Live!To join us every Wednesday night at 9 pm cst go to patreon.com/CajunKnightBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/cult-of-conspiracy--5700337/support.
The Supreme Court has ruled that because Thomas Jefferson liked to party we can all get high and still have guns. The stupid Reflecting Pool saga has reached a late-stage Stalin level of Soviet farce, with show trials and a total war mobilization to destroy some algae. Then, Trump officials are now saying thoughts about Israel's government that left-wing protesters got beaten half-to-death for expressing, so things must be going well in the Middle East.This episode is sponsored by ZBiotics. Go to https://www.zbiotics.com/SKEW now. You'll get 15% off your first order when you use SKEW at checkoutWeekly Skews is brought to you by Leesa. Go to Leesa.com for 30% off select mattresses PLUS get an extra $50 off with promo code SKEW, exclusive for our listeners. Weekly Skews is brought to you by Fast Growing Trees. Visit https://www.fastgrowingtrees.com/skew and use the code SKEWWeekly Skews is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. If you believe religious freedom is supposed to protect everybody, not be weaponized to turn away good families, visit https://www.au.org/crooked to learn more and become a member today.
Summary: Syria taunted Nasser that he was hiding behind UN troops; the Syrians and Palestinians were the only ones fighting against Israel. Nasser, looking to improve his image in the Arab world, and justify Soviet belief in him, carried out on May 15, 1967, six acts that collectively made war in the Middle East inevitable. Credits: Arab-Israeli War 1967 Real Time History Egypt Blockades the Straits of Tiran | Six Day War - Part 3 of 12 | Unpacked Israel's 'Operation Focus': Inside One of the Most Successful Air Campaigns in Military History CBC News Learn more at TellerFromJerusalem.com Don't forget to subscribe, like and share! Let all your friends know that that they too can have a new favorite podcast. © 2026 Media Education Trust llc
I met the graphic artist, Victoria Lomasko, about 10 years ago when she was a resident at the City of Asylum in Pittsburgh. I emceed an event with her back then. So I was happy when Victoria recently returned to the city to give a few talks at the University of Pittsburgh. Of course, the Eurasian Knot dragged her into a studio for an interview. A lot has changed for Victoria over the decade. Her graphic novel, Other Russias, represented the marginals of Russian society, and she won a Pushkin prize for the work. She got invited to speak, to show her art, and teach. She then went to Belarus to chronicle the mass protests. More art. More shows. But then Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The invites dried up as everything Russia became toxic. And political art forced her into exile in Germany. These experiences have caused her to question the efficacy of political art, and even her graphic style. Today, she's embraced symbolic art that speaks to her political disillusion and difficulty in representing our current conjecture. Where does Lomasko stand today when it comes to art and politics? Tune in and find out. GuestVictoria Lomasko is a graphic artist and has lectured and written widely on graphic reportage. She lived in Moscow until March 2022 and now lives in exile. She is the author of Other Russias which received the Pushkin House Best Book in Translation award. Her latest book is The Last Soviet Artist published by N+1 Books Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
An assassination in Marseilles plunges the Balkans into turmoil. The Europe-wide battles of Black versus Red make their way onto the streets of Yugoslavia. Pegged as a trouble-maker and pursued by the authorities, the shape-shifting Josip Broz flees to Russia. There he will be re-tooled as a Soviet agent. Dispatched by Moscow, he'll return with a new mission and a new name… A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Neil Barnett, Christopher Catherwood, Richard Mills, Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, Geoffrey Swain, Susan L Woodward. This is Part 2 of 5. Written by Jeff Dawson | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design & audio editing by George Tapp | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay, Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann. You can listen to the next two episodes of the Tito story straight away, without waiting and without ads, by joining Noiser+. Just click the subscription banner at the top of the feed or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Dean's List with Host Dean Bowen – Columbia promotes socialism while ignoring thinkers who defend liberty, free markets, and constitutional principles. John Witherspoon's Princeton legacy contrasts sharply with today's ideological classrooms, while Liza Libes's Soviet family history exposes socialism's true cost and reminds readers why education must recover truth, goodness, beauty, and honest historical memory...
In this episode of Talk Eastern Europe, Adam Reichardt speaks with David Marples and Veronica Laputska, authors of the new Oxford University Press book Belarus: What Everyone Needs to Know, about the country that sits at the heart ofEurope's security.They discuss why Belarus is far more than "Russia's puppet state," how the 2020 protests permanently transformed the Belarusian society, why hundreds of thousands have fled into exile, and whether Alyaksandr Lukashenka's regime can survive if Vladimir Putin weakens.The conversation also examines the Trump administration's renewed engagement with Lukashenka, the continued repression inside Belarus, and what a democratic future mightactually look like.GuestsDavid Marples – University of AlbertaVeronica Laputska – Political scientist and Belarus expertCheck out their book: Belarus: What Everyone Needs toKnow published by Oxford University Press: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/belarus-9780197772959?cc=pl&lang=en& Talk Eastern Europe is the podcast from New Eastern Europe magazine - your trusted source for in-depth analysis and expert perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and the post-Soviet space.Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and all major platforms.Read the New Eastern Europe Magazine Bimonthly publication with exclusive long-form analysis. https://neweasterneurope.eu/become-a-member-of-new-eastern-europe/Support us on PatreonJoin our community for bonus content, early access, behind-the-scenes insights, and access to our exclusive WhatsApp group where we discuss the news in real-time.https://www.patreon.com/talkeasterneuropeSubscribe to the Brief Eastern Europe NewsletterWeekly briefing sent out every Monday with news updates, expert commentary, and our editorial picks - free to your inbox: https://briefeasterneurope.eu/subscribeFOLLOW USInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/neweasterneuropemag/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewEasternEurope/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/new-eastern-europe/
“If your opening position is: your views are beyond the pale, you are deplorable, there is no space for you in democracy — then how on earth do we expect anything other than revolutionary conservatism as a response?” — Maciej Kisilowski For Americans concerned about the fragility of their democracy, Poland offers some reassuring news. Having experienced its own illiberal blip, democracy in Poland now seems amongst the healthiest in Eastern Europe. So what does a democracy only created in 1989 teach America as the old republic braces for its surreal semiquincentennial celebration? The Vienna-based constitutional scholar Maciej Kisilowski is the author of Let's Agree on Poland: A Case Study in Strategic Constitutional Design. In this bestselling 2025 book, Kisilowski argues that Poland is a map of where other Western democracies could go. If they choose to. Poland elected its first illiberal conservative government in 2005. Hungary followed in 2010. Both explicitly served as models for Donald Trump — relatively tamed in his first term, unshackled in his second. Like the United States, Poland is a relatively rich country with per capita GDP growing an astonishing 650% in a single generation. So, Kisilowski argues, the conventional argument that Poland embraced illiberalism in response to economic hardship is mostly wrong. Instead, what triggered illiberalism in Poland was culture, particularly the compressed, accelerated challenge to traditional identity — national, male, religious — that EU accession triggered in Central Europe. Kisilowski, who teaches at Central European University, might have entitled his book Let's Agree to Disagree. Poland's solution to this cultural crisis of identity is what Kisilowski calls “subsidiarity” — genuine decentralisation that allows both conservative communities to remain traditional and liberal cities to become progressive, all within a common democratic framework. He warns both the left and the right that if you tell people their views are somehow foreign, it's entirely rational for them to want to smash their “foreign” democracy. This is the Polish model of a viable 21st century democracy. Ironically, it's a Madisonian warning about the dangers of faction. The “deplorable” gambit always backfires. Péter Magyar's remarkable victory in Hungary — a staunch conservative ending Orbán's 16-year mafia-style illiberal chapter — offers the Hungarian model of Kisilowski's argument. So this July 4, worried Americans might read Let's Agree on Poland. Or reread James Madison. Five Takeaways • Central Europe as the Leading Indicator: Poland and Hungary Before Trump: Poland elected its first revolutionary conservative government in 2005 — sixteen years before the January 6 insurrection. Hungary followed in 2010. Both were explicitly cited as models by the architects of Trump's political project. Kisilowski's argument: what happened in Central Europe is not a regional anomaly but a leading indicator of what happens when open society's challenge to traditional identity is concentrated and rapid rather than gradual. The walls of liberal democratic institutions were weaker in Warsaw and Budapest. They will not hold indefinitely in Washington or London either. • It's Not the Economy, Stupid: The Case Against Materialist Explanations: Poland and Hungary are economic opposites. Hungary was the “happiest barrack” of the Soviet bloc but fared poorly after 1989. Poland was among the poorer countries of the bloc and grew 650% in per capita GDP in one generation, with a Gini coefficient below France's. Same revolutionary conservative politics. Opposite economic trajectories. Kisilowski's conclusion: the materialist explanation — people turn right because of economic hardship — is flatly wrong. The driver is identity: the compressed, accelerated challenge to national, male, and religious identity imposed by EU accession conditionality in a decade. • The Deplorable Problem: Why Exclusion Rationally Produces Authoritarianism: Kisilowski's most politically pointed argument: if your opening position to conservatives is that their views are beyond the pale, they are deplorable, there is no space for them in democracy — then it is entirely rational for them to break democracy. Not irrational. Not manipulated. Rational. If there is no space for me inside the system, I must break the system. That is what revolutionary conservatism is: a rational response to liberal exclusion. The solution is not to validate the views. The solution is to demonstrate that there is a place for those people and their communities within a democratic framework. That is the Madisonian insight. • Subsidiarity as the Solution: Conservative Communities, Liberal Cities, Common Framework: Kisilowski's constitutional proposal, worked out with co-authors from the full ideological spectrum, is subsidiarity: genuine decentralization that allows conservative rural communities to be conservative and liberal cities to be liberal, within a common democratic framework. Budapest, in Magyar's Hungary, should get strong autonomy to pursue the more liberal policies its electorate wants. Warsaw and Kraków should be able to differ. The European Union is, in this reading, the model: different countries, different cultures, one framework. The alternative is winner-takes-all, which always produces a revolutionary reaction from the losers. • Peter Magyar and Hungary: Proof of Concept for the Compromise Strategy: Magyar's extraordinary victory in Hungary — winning a constitutional majority against a 16-year right-wing regime rightly called a mafia state, in elections skewed heavily toward the government — is, in Kisilowski's reading, direct evidence that the compromise strategy works. Magyar is a staunch conservative and former member of the Orbán government. He won because he demonstrated to far-right voters that there was a place for them and their views within democratic Europe. The 2 million liberal Budapest voters who voted for him did so not because they like his conservatism but because he was unquestionably preferable to Orbán. Kisilowski made sure Magyar got the book. About the Guest Maciej Kisilowski is Associate Professor of Law and Strategy at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna. He is co-editor (with Anna Wojciuk) of Let's Agree on Poland: A Case Study in Strategic Constitutional Design (Oxford University Press, 2025). He is a Europe's Futures Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna and a visiting fellow at Harvard Law School. He writes frequently for Project Syndicate, Politico, and The EU Observer. References: • Let's Agree on Poland: A Case Study in Strategic Constitutional Design by Maciej Kisilowski and Anna Wojciuk (Oxford University Press, 202...
Ahead of the July 1 release of Echoes of Wine on SOMM TV, we tell the story of the world's oldest winemaking nation. After enduring 8,000 years of history—and decades under Soviet rule that threatened its traditions—Georgia is experiencing a renaissance. In this episode, we meet a young winemaker from the post-Soviet generation helping restore the country's ancient wine culture while shaping its future for generations to come.Go to sommtv.com to subscribe and look out for our new film July 1st.
Allan Khazak: Immigrant Mentality, Real AdsResults, and Why Millionaires Do Not Appear OvernightAllan Khazak is the founder and CEOof Room Media Group, a performance marketing agency built for service-basedbusinesses that are serious about growth. He also co-foundedretirementexpert.ai, a sales enablement SaaS platform designed specifically forinsurance agents and financial advisors navigating Roth conversions. Allan wasraised in Toronto with an immigrant mentality inherited from his Ukrainianmother and Uzbek father, both of whom came up in Soviet-era communism and movedto North America to give their family a shot at something better. That chip onhis shoulder never left. In this episode of Diversified Game,Allan and Kellen break down the real math behind paid advertising, why mostentrepreneurs fall for shiny-object marketing promises, and what it actuallytakes to build a feedback loop between sales and marketing that driveslong-term growth. Allan also talks about his journey from the corporate worldto entrepreneurship, his time in Colombia learning Spanish, and why complacencyis the silent killer of most business owners. If you are running a service-basedbusiness in insurance, financial services, coaching, recruiting, or consulting,this episode is built for you. Connect with Allan Khazak:Room Media Group:https://www.roommediagroup.comretirementexpert.ai:https://retirementexpert.ai CHAPTERS:0:00 Introduction and Guest Intro1:43 What Room Media Group Does andWho They Serve3:02 Two Biggest MistakesEntrepreneurs Make with Marketing5:12 Professional Skepticism and Howto Vet a Marketing Company8:43 Transparency, Education, and theHeart of a Teacher13:09 Immigrant Mentality and theDrive to Build21:20 Why Sales and Marketing Do NotUnderstand Each Other22:35 What Room Media Group Does NotDo28:39 Hiring, Training, and theHigh-Leverage Skill Most Owners Miss31:24 retirementexpert.ai: The NicheSaaS Built for Advisors34:07 International Markets:Colombia, Africa, and Thinking Bigger40:24 The Truth About Ad SpendMinimums and Unit Economics43:07 Final Words and How to Connectwith Allan SPONSORED BY MILLIONAIREX AIAI tools, automation, andwealth-building intelligence for entrepreneurs and professionals.Visit: https://www.millionairex.ai DIVERSIFIED GAME PODCAST | HOSTED BYKELLEN COLEMANWebsite:https://www.diversifiedgame.comConsulting: https://www.cprfirm.comInstagram | Twitter | YouTube:@KellenColeman SUGGESTED VIDEOS:Heather Parsons | Summit CFO |Financial Strategy for Business OwnersDesiree Riley | MasterMindCooperative | Building Cooperative WealthL. Kevin Morrison | Morrison GroupLLC | US-Africa Business Strategy RELATED SEARCH PHRASES:performance marketing agency, paidads for insurance agents, how to scale Facebook ads, marketing for financialadvisors, Roth conversion software, immigrant entrepreneur mindset, sales andmarketing alignment, how to vet a marketing company, unit economics for servicebusinesses, GoHighLevel alternatives #DiversifiedGame #AllanKhazak#PaidAds #MarketingStrategy #InsuranceMarketing #PerformanceMarketing#EntrepreneurMindset #ImmigrantHustle #UnitEconomics #ScaleYourBusiness#MillionaireXAI #KellenColeman #RoomMediaGroup #RetirementExpertAI #DGP DGP&x%
Slovakia Today, English Language Current Affairs Programme from Slovak Radio
On 21 June 1991, the last transport carrying Soviet troops crossed Czechoslovakia's eastern border, bringing to an end the 23-year military presence that followed the Warsaw Pact invasion of August 1968. Today, we look back on the events that shaped an entire generation with historian Peter Jašek from the National Memory Institute (ÚPN). Together, we trace the story from the invasion and subsequent occupation to the withdrawal of Soviet forces in the wake of the Velvet Revolution. Drawing on archival recordings, we also revisit the memories of key figures from the period, including Michael Kocáb, who served as deputy chairman of the parliamentary commission overseeing the withdrawal of the Central Group of Soviet Forces from Czechoslovakia.
The war made life in the Soviet Union very difficult. Even by Soviet standards, the government took an unprecedented degree of control over the allocation of labor and of food. Despite food shortages, there was no mass opposition as there had been in 1917.
He's been called the man academics love to hate. One time, when the author disclosed that he worked with Pipes, the colleague responded, “I will forgive you.” Love him or hate him, Richard Pipes (1923–2018), left an indelible mark on Russian and Soviet history in his long and remarkable life. This conversation delves into Pipes' personal and intellectual biography, scholarly contributions, the role he played in shaping late Cold War policy and a generation of American historians of the Imperial and Soviet Russia. Have a listen to get a better sense of this humanist historian—described as both polemical and preeminently polite—who cast such a long shadow on academia in and beyond the Cold War. Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at University of Illinois Chicago. In addition to The Man Who Knew Russia: Richard Pipes, Humanist and Cold Warrior (Stanford University Press, 2025), he is the author of several monographs on Russian and Soviet history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
He's been called the man academics love to hate. One time, when the author disclosed that he worked with Pipes, the colleague responded, “I will forgive you.” Love him or hate him, Richard Pipes (1923–2018), left an indelible mark on Russian and Soviet history in his long and remarkable life. This conversation delves into Pipes' personal and intellectual biography, scholarly contributions, the role he played in shaping late Cold War policy and a generation of American historians of the Imperial and Soviet Russia. Have a listen to get a better sense of this humanist historian—described as both polemical and preeminently polite—who cast such a long shadow on academia in and beyond the Cold War. Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at University of Illinois Chicago. In addition to The Man Who Knew Russia: Richard Pipes, Humanist and Cold Warrior (Stanford University Press, 2025), he is the author of several monographs on Russian and Soviet history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
He's been called the man academics love to hate. One time, when the author disclosed that he worked with Pipes, the colleague responded, “I will forgive you.” Love him or hate him, Richard Pipes (1923–2018), left an indelible mark on Russian and Soviet history in his long and remarkable life. This conversation delves into Pipes' personal and intellectual biography, scholarly contributions, the role he played in shaping late Cold War policy and a generation of American historians of the Imperial and Soviet Russia. Have a listen to get a better sense of this humanist historian—described as both polemical and preeminently polite—who cast such a long shadow on academia in and beyond the Cold War. Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at University of Illinois Chicago. In addition to The Man Who Knew Russia: Richard Pipes, Humanist and Cold Warrior (Stanford University Press, 2025), he is the author of several monographs on Russian and Soviet history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
He's been called the man academics love to hate. One time, when the author disclosed that he worked with Pipes, the colleague responded, “I will forgive you.” Love him or hate him, Richard Pipes (1923–2018), left an indelible mark on Russian and Soviet history in his long and remarkable life. This conversation delves into Pipes' personal and intellectual biography, scholarly contributions, the role he played in shaping late Cold War policy and a generation of American historians of the Imperial and Soviet Russia. Have a listen to get a better sense of this humanist historian—described as both polemical and preeminently polite—who cast such a long shadow on academia in and beyond the Cold War. Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at University of Illinois Chicago. In addition to The Man Who Knew Russia: Richard Pipes, Humanist and Cold Warrior (Stanford University Press, 2025), he is the author of several monographs on Russian and Soviet history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history
He's been called the man academics love to hate. One time, when the author disclosed that he worked with Pipes, the colleague responded, “I will forgive you.” Love him or hate him, Richard Pipes (1923–2018), left an indelible mark on Russian and Soviet history in his long and remarkable life. This conversation delves into Pipes' personal and intellectual biography, scholarly contributions, the role he played in shaping late Cold War policy and a generation of American historians of the Imperial and Soviet Russia. Have a listen to get a better sense of this humanist historian—described as both polemical and preeminently polite—who cast such a long shadow on academia in and beyond the Cold War. Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at University of Illinois Chicago. In addition to The Man Who Knew Russia: Richard Pipes, Humanist and Cold Warrior (Stanford University Press, 2025), he is the author of several monographs on Russian and Soviet history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
He's been called the man academics love to hate. One time, when the author disclosed that he worked with Pipes, the colleague responded, “I will forgive you.” Love him or hate him, Richard Pipes (1923–2018), left an indelible mark on Russian and Soviet history in his long and remarkable life. This conversation delves into Pipes' personal and intellectual biography, scholarly contributions, the role he played in shaping late Cold War policy and a generation of American historians of the Imperial and Soviet Russia. Have a listen to get a better sense of this humanist historian—described as both polemical and preeminently polite—who cast such a long shadow on academia in and beyond the Cold War. Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at University of Illinois Chicago. In addition to The Man Who Knew Russia: Richard Pipes, Humanist and Cold Warrior (Stanford University Press, 2025), he is the author of several monographs on Russian and Soviet history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics➡️ Full Nigel's report: https://www.iiss.org/research-paper/2026/05/the-coming-crisis-in-russias-political-economy/➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/This is a conversation with Nigel Gould Davis - a Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the IISS. Nigel recently published a really interesting report about why Russia's war, on its present course, has reached a breaking point - when it is no longer economically and demographically sustainable. What Nigel argues is that this will almost inevitably result in a major crisis, both political and financial, that is about to hit Russia within about a year from now - and why in order to keep fighting, the Kremlin will be forced to strip away the last freedoms Russians have and drag the country back toward a Soviet-style governance and economy, with all the social upheaval that it would bring. It's a fascinating analysis that follows a clear logic and a chain of events - and it's definitely worth listening to.
David Satter is a journalist and historian with unique insights into how the deformation and repression of the past, is having terrible consequences for present day Russia. David has written extensively about Russia and the Soviet Union, especially the decline and fall of the USSR and rise of post-Soviet Russia. David Satter became the first American journalist to be expelled from Russia since the Cold War in December 2013. This was perhaps not a surprising move, given that his books have covered topics such as the FSB's role in the apartment bombings that brought Putin to power. From 1976 to 1982 David was the Moscow correspondent of the Financial Times, and then became a special correspondent on Soviet affairs for The Wall Street Journal. He is currently a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a fellow of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. ----------BOOKS:He is author of several books that are essential reading to help understand the origins of the current crisis, including the brilliantly named books: - It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway- Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State- The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep----------LINKS:https://davidsatter.com/https://twitter.com/davidsatter?lang=enhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Satterhttps://www.hudson.org/experts/362-david-satterhttps://www.fpri.org/contributor/david-satter/https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/david-satter----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.gofundme.com/f/scaling-up-campaign-to-fight-authoritarian-disinformation----------ACTIVE CAMPAIGN:We are raising funds for 5 of 15 Vampire DronesSilicon Curtain for Kupiansk Vampires. Dzyga's Paw, together with Jonathan Fink, is joining forces to raise $40,000 to provide the Khartiia Brigade with Vampire Drones.https://dzygaspaw.com/silicon-curtain-for-kupiansk-vampiresThese heavy bombers are designed to destroy manpower and equipment, as well as for remote mining. The Vampire UAV, manufactured by Skyfall, has proven itself to be one of the most effective weapons in the Kupiansk direction. Skyfall is one of Ukraine's largest defense tech companies, producing Vampire bomber drones, various modifications of Shrike FPV drones, P1-SUN, Shahed drone interceptors, communication systems, and components.----------TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND:Car4Ukrainehttps://car4ukraine.com/en-US/campaignsDzyga's Pawhttps://dzygaspaw.com/projectsSuperhumans - Hospital for war traumashttps://superhumans.com/en/UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukrainehttps://unbroken.org.ua/Come Back Alivehttps://savelife.in.ua/en/Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchenhttps://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraineUNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyyhttps://u24.gov.ua/Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundationhttps://prytulafoundation.orgNGO “Herojam Slava”https://heroiamslava.org/----------PLATFORMS:Substack: https://substack.com/@siliconcurtainTwitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSiliconLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm----------
Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukraine, damaging Kyiv's UNESCO-listed Pechersk Lavra monastery while Ukraine continues striking military infrastructure inside Russia.In this week's Talk Eastern Europe News Roundup, Adam Reichardt and Nina Panikova discuss:- Russia's latest missile attacks on Ukraine and the damage to one of the country's most important cultural landmarks.- Ukraine's growing campaign against Russian oil infrastructure and Crimea.- What came out of the G7 summit and whether diplomatic efforts could restart negotiations.- The shocking murder of Russian dissident cartoonist Robert Kuzovkov in Poland and what it says about Russia's reach inside Europe.- Why Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a historic visit to Slovakia – and what it means for Central Europe.- An update on rising tensions in Polish-Ukrainian relations.Plus: Adam previews his exclusive interview with former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt.❓ What do you think is the biggest challenge facing Europe today? Let us know in the comments.Talk Eastern Europe is the podcast from New Eastern Europe magazine - your trusted source for in-depth analysis and expert perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and the post-Soviet space. ABOUT THIS PODCASTWe publish twice weekly:Every Tuesday: Expert Interviews featuring deep dives with leading analysts, journalists, and scholarsEvery Friday: Weekly News Roundup with essential updates and commentary on the latest developmentsAvailable on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and all major platforms. Read the New Eastern Europe Magazine Bimonthly publication with exclusive long-form analysis. https://neweasterneurope.eu/become-a-member-of-new-eastern-europe/ Support us on PatreonJoin our community for bonus content, early access, behind-the-scenes insights, and access to our exclusive WhatsApp group where we discuss the news in real-time.https://www.patreon.com/talkeasterneurope Subscribe to the Brief Eastern Europe NewsletterWeekly briefing sent out every Monday with news updates, expert commentary, and our editorial picks - free to your inbox: https://briefeasterneurope.eu/subscribe FOLLOW USInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/neweasterneuropemag/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewEasternEurope/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/new-eastern-europe
In 1952, at the height of Soviet power, Ludwig von Mises stood in the San Francisco Public Library and systematically dismantled Marx—not just his economics, but his philosophy, his theory of history, and his manipulation of language. This is the fifth of nine lectures, published in 2006 as Marxism Unmasked.Mises examines why Marxism went essentially unchallenged for decades—not because its arguments were strong, but because its opponents rarely engaged its philosophical foundations. He traces the intellectual lineage from Saint-Simon's totalitarian world council through Comte's positivism to Marx's dialectical materialism, showing how each system claimed to have discovered the final truth and therefore demanded the end of free inquiry. Along the way, Mises dismantles the conflation of Marxism with Freudian psychoanalysis, explains why governments have a built-in bias toward socialism, and reveals that the word "organize" entered political language as a Napoleonic term meaning to treat individuals as a builder treats stones. The essay's central insight is deceptively simple: the debate was never between planning and chaos. It was always between the plan of the dictator and the plans of free individuals—and the police exist to settle the dispute.
In the middle of the twentieth century, the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons seemed inevitable. The number of countries with nukes was climbing rapidly, and the idea of stopping the nuclear arms race seemed like a pipe dream. But that's exactly what happened. Over the course of 60 years, nations around the world agreed to nuclear red lines, slowdowns, and even disarmament. How did this happen? Largely because of technology. The biggest obstacle to agreeing on nuclear red lines was that adversaries couldn't trust any promise the other made. They needed to know the number of warheads, the amount of enriched uranium, or whether a nuclear device was for a weapon or a power plant. None of that was possible until we built the tech needed to verify those things. Today, we're in a similar situation with AI. For adversaries like the United States and China to agree on reasonable AI red lines on issues like bioweapons, cyber hacking, or the risk of recursive self-improvement, they first need to be able to trust each other. We urgently need to build the verification technology that would make that trust possible. In this episode, Tristan sits down with two experts in this field to discuss the kinds of verification technology we need for AI, the challenges of building it, and the world it could unlock if we do. Tim Fist is the Director of Emerging Technology Policy at the Institute for Progress, and Janet Egan is Senior Fellow and Deputy Director for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for New American Security. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. You can find a transcript of this episode on our Substack. RECOMMENDED MEDIA Anthropic's open letter warning about recursive self-improvement and calling for a pause in development. The website for the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) Further reading on the different mechanisms of verification for international AI governance. RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES America and China Are Racing to Different AI Futures Can We Govern AI? with Marietje Schaake The Crisis That United Humanity—and Why It Matters for AI Daniel Kokotajlo Forecasts the End of Human DominanceCorrection: Tim referred to the CargoScan technology as being jointly developed by the US and the USSR. It was actually developed solely in the US and administered in Soviet nuclear facilities. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Join us as we dive again into the history of major Soviet firearms leading up to the development of everyone's favorite banana mag rat-a-tat-tat machine. Picking up from the PPD-40, we see how the Soviets managed to develop mankind's only submachine gun to skip something as technologically complex as... threading. Oof.
Kathleen Harriman was there at the center of it all, at Churchill's side in the Blitz, in Stalin's Moscow, at Yalta, and somehow history almost forgot her. My guest today, renowned historian Geoffrey Roberts, is fixing that, and I promise you, once you hear her story, you won't. Geoffrey Roberts is an emeritus professor of history at University College Cork. A leading Soviet history expert, he has written many books, including Stalin's Library, an award-winning biography of Georgy Zhukov, Stalin's General, and the acclaimed Stalin's Wars. Get a copy of Geoffrey's book Wartime Letters: London and Moscow 1941-1945 Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio. Pre-order my next book, All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump, out on the 17th of September in the UK and the 22nd of September in the US: https://www.scaramucci.net/allthewrongmoves Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Mea Culpa welcomes Lev Parnas from the wilds of Boca Raton, Florida. Lev is a Soviet-born businessman who along with Rudy Giuliani and Igor Fruman played a central role in the campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump's political rivals…including Hunter Biden. Parnas was thrown into Trump's first impeachment drama, but he worked with federal prosecutors against Giuliani and the former president. Parnas is currently serving a 20-month sentence for Campaign Finance, Wire Fraud, And False Statements Offenses, and is speaking to us today while on home confinement. Lev is a truth-teller and unafraid to remember the things that most folks wish he would forget. Sorry folks but there's a hashtag that Parnas deploys that says it all, “LEV REMEMBERS.” What that means for Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump and the rest of these criminals is that they are in deep shit because LEV REMEMBERS.
From Shipping in Paraguay to Photojournalism in Kyrgyzstan: Luke Oppenheimer's Journey & the Making of Ottuk
Send us Fan MailIf you enjoyed this deep dive on cloning and genetic modification, hit subscribe, drop a comment with your take — should we bring back the woolly mammoth? — and share the episode with the friend who still thinks Walt Disney's head is in a freezer.Cloning and genetic modification get blended together constantly in pop culture, so this episode breaks down what's actually real, what's a myth, and how we got from a frog tadpole in 1952 to dire wolf pups in 2025.Brian, Thomas, and producer Corey (it's Corey's birthday) walk through the full history and science of cloning — admitting up front they're not scientists, just three guys following a rabbit hole that started with a family cloning their dog, CRISPR edits, and the Lone Star tick. From there it turns into a surprisingly thorough tour of how copying and editing life actually works.The episode untangles the four ideas people constantly confuse: cloning (a genetic copy, same DNA), genetic modification / gene editing (changing genes, like CRISPR), de-extinction (reviving a lost species), and chimeras (mixing cells from two species). With that foundation set, the crew traces the timeline from Yves Delage's 1895 nuclear transplantation concept and Hans Spemann's 1938 "fantastical experiment," through the first nuclear transfer in 1952, John Gurdon's Nobel Prize work, and Dolly the sheep — the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, born July 5, 1996.If you've ever wondered whether you can really clone your pet, this one answers it: it's real, it's commercial, and it's expensive. They cover the actual companies and price tags, why a clone is not a resurrection, and why the Humane Society pushes back on the practice. The conversation also gets into man-animal hybrids — the bizarre real story of Soviet scientist Ilya Ivanov — and busts the myth that Stalin wanted an army of ape-man super soldiers.This is for anyone curious about CRISPR, stem cell medicine, de-extinction headlines, and the ethics underneath all of it: human-animal chimeras grown for transplant organs, the 100,000+ Americans on the organ waiting list, and whether reproductive human cloning should stay banned. Expect the science (telomeres, Large Offspring Syndrome, the brutal 1–5% survival rate) alongside the kind of unfiltered, off-the-rails commentary the show is known for.By the end you'll understand why the 2025 "dire wolf" isn't really a dire wolf, what the Bucardo's grim record actually was, and why mules — and ligers — can't be bred the way you'd think. It's a fast, funny, fact-checked crash course in one of the wildest fields in modern science.New episodes of The Days Grimm Podcast drop regularly — history, science, true crime, and whatever rabbit hole Tom drags everyone into next.TIMELINE:00:00 — Cold open & welcome (Corey's birthday)01:58 — Today's deep dive: cloning and genetic modification02:07 — "We're not scientists" disclaimer03:04 — Why Tom picked this: CRISPR, the Lone Star tick & a cloned dog04:34 — 1895: the first nuclear transplantation concept06:21 — The 4 things people confuse: cloning, gene editing, de-extinction & chimeras07:07 — Why the 2025 "dire wolf" is really edited gray wolf11:16 — 1952 leopard frogs & John Gurdon's Nobel work12:30 — Dolly the sheep and why she mattered14:00 — Why mules (and ligers) can't reproduce16:46 — How cloning actually works (somatic cell nuclear transfer)20:26 — What we've cloned so far + first primate clones (2018)21:54 — Can you clone your pet? The real companies and prices23:51 — A clone is not a resurrection + welfare concerns25:01 — Man-animal hybrids & the Soviet Ivanov story27:00 — Chimeras for medicine and pig organ transplants32:00 — De-extinction & the Bucardo: "extinct twice"33:47 — The black-footed ferret success story34:30 — 2025 dire wolf pups & the woolly mouse37:00 — Telomeres, Large Offspring Syndrome & failure rates39:30 — Ethics: mammoths, pets, chimeras & human cloning41:00 — Busting the Walt Disney frozen-head myth42:30 — Wrap-up[The Days Grimm Podcast Links]- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDaysGrimm- Our link tree: linktr.ee/Thedaysgrimm- GoFundMe account for The Days Grimm: https://gofund.me/02527e7c [The Days Grimm is brought to you by]Sadness & ADHD (non-medicated)
Former Swedish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt joins Talk Eastern Europe for a wide-ranging conversation on Ukraine, Russia, Europe's future, and the unfinished project of European enlargement.Drawing on decades of diplomatic experience – from helping launch the EU's Eastern Partnership to serving as the first High epresentative in Bosnia and Herzegovina – Bildt reflects on the biggest geopolitical shifts shaping Europe today.Why has Russia failed strategically in Ukraine despite four years of war? Did Donald Trump's negotiations strengthen Putin's hand? Can Europe fill the vacuum left by an increasingly distracted United States? And what does Ukraine's future mean for the European Union and the wider European security architecture? Tune in for this and much more!Carl Bildt also discusses the future of EU enlargement, theWestern Balkans, Moldova, and why Ukraine has become the defining "game changer" for Europe.
H.W. Brands describes how, by the summer of 1939, the destruction of Poland by German and Soviet forces confirmed that war was imminent, prompting Roosevelt to invoke neutrality laws as required by Congress. Despite his desire for privacy, Lindbergh began using his celebrity status to secure national radio airtime, feeling a duty to prevent Americafrom repeating what he viewed as the "mistake" of the First World War. His father, a former congressman, had been driven out of politics for opposing American intervention in 1917, a legacy that instilled in Lindbergh a profound distrust of politics as a "mean business" where truth was rare. Lindbergh argued that Britain and France were launching a war they could not win and would eventually force the United States into a permanent presence in Europe. During this period, he consulted with figures like Herbert Hoover, who suggested forming a committee that would eventually become "America First," and visited the "House of Morgan" through his wife's family connections. British observers, such as Harold Nicolson, were less impressed, dismissing Lindbergh as a "schoolboy" who possessed technical talent but lacked a mature understanding of diplomacy and the complexities of governing a great empire. Lindbergh remained unfazed by British criticism, asserting that he was an American and that his country's interests were distinct from those of the British Empire. (2)1936
Listen to the full episode Influential right-wing pundit turned celebrity conspiracy-peddler, Candace Owens, just visited Russia for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. While at “Russia's Davos” she marvelled at the cleanliness and beauty of Moscow, explained that Americans were never given any real reason why Putin invading Ukraine was bad, and deflected questions about her potential presidential run. She's not alone. MAGA has increasingly found a warm place in its heart for Vladimir Putin and other strongman dictator-types (like Viktor Orban). Owens rubbed shoulders with accused sex traffickers, the Tate Brothers, fake martial artist and aging film star, Steven Segall, Trump's head of the Commission of Fine Arts, and representatives of the Taliban, North Korea, Iran, and China. In this reimagining of Russia—the same “evil empire” of GOP patron saint, Ronald Reagan—the post-Soviet dictatorship is poo-pooed as a danger to European democracies by a growing cadre on the right. Figures like Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Tim Pool, Nick Fuentes, and Marjorie Taylor Green all oppose US support for Ukraine and involvement in the war in Iran. In another interesting turn, they now also all oppose US support for Israel—which makes for some strange diagonalist bedfellows with certain figures on the left, like Hasan Piker. Julian unpacks this story. Stay tuned for claims that Carlson and Green have been less harmful to Gaza than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as for erstwhile left-wing pundit Ana Kasparian's come-to-Jesus moment on Owens' show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Happy Anniversary to The Eastern Border! We are celebrating the madness of the post-Soviet space by watching the Russian Federation actively cannibalize its own economy in real-timeIn this masterclass of imperial decay, we track the massive Ukrainian drone strikes turning Russian oil refineries into atmospheric fireballs, forcing the Kremlin to burn billions of rubles just to subsidize domestic gasoline. Meanwhile, the Central Bank is choking the civilian sector with 21.5% interest rates, military commissars are flying out of windows in Rostov, and the real estate market is being propped up by "coffin money" from the frontlines.And if the physical collapse wasn't enough, there is the ideological rot: the state is prosecuting teenagers for insulting the Taliban, and we suffer through Vladimir Solovyov's self-published, megalomaniacal fiction novel where he gives himself superpowers and teleportation. The simulation is crashing.Donate to Ukraine, folks:https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/summer-sunshine-trucks-2026-eastern-borderBecome our patron:https://www.patreon.com/theeasternborderMerch store + another option for memberships:https://theeasternborder-shop.fourthwall.com/Follow what's going on here in the very border of Eastern Europe:https://bsky.app/profile/theeasternborder.lvDownload all episodes for free on our website; pictures accompanying certain episodes can be found there as well!http://theeasternborder.lv/Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In 1993, separatist forces took Sukhumi, the capital of the former Soviet territory of Abkhazia. As Georgian authorities lost control of the region, more than 200,000 people were forced to flee. Many had no choice but to cross the Caucasus Mountains on foot, and hundreds are believed to have died along the way.Georgian writer Guram Odisharia speaks to Stefania Gozzer about his harrowing escape from Abkhazia and the heartbreaking scenes he witnessed - experiences he later captured in his book The Pass of the Persecuted.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines' life and Omar Sharif's legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives' ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.(Photo: Georgians flee from Abkhazia on foot in 1993. Credit: Jon Jones/Sygma via Getty Images)
What does it mean, three decades after the demise of the USSR, to inhabit cities built for a future that has never arrived? In pursuit of the question—what is left of the socialist city?—this book aims not only to trace the material and mnemonic remains of the socialist city, but to show how the Soviet discourse of the city at times engendered radical ideas that challenged the narrow confines of state socialism itself. These ideas are, for instance, the efforts of Esperanto-speaking internationalists from Czechoslovakia to build the internationalist city from below in the Central Asian steppe, the quest of Armenian Futurists to root the architectural style of Soviet Armenia in the country's Persianate heritage, or a Jewish-Kyrgyz philosopher's vision of turning a science town in the hinterland of Moscow into the first ecopolis of the USSR. In an effort to rethink the life and afterlife of the Soviet city from its geographical South, The Death and Life of Southern Soviet Cities: Urban Futures and Their Afterlives (Routledge, 2026) explores the material and immaterial legacies of socialist-era urbanization in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus. To this end, it embarks on a historical and ethnographic journey to urban sites in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. In a quest to reconstruct competing visions of urbanity that emerged from within the Soviet South, using varied empirical sources in Armenian, Czech, Kyrgyz, and Russian, the book outlines four urban visions: bottom-up urbanity, rooted urbanity, polycentric urbanity, and ecocentric urbanity. By understanding the social vision of a "socialist city of the future" beyond the political center in its trans-local independence, the book highlights the cultural and linguistic diversity of the Soviet South and its historical embeddedness within the regional dynamics of the Global South. David Leupold is a sociologist, scholar of memory wars and research fellow in the ERC-funded research project REVENANT: Revivals of Empire. He is the author of the prize-winning book Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Turkish, and Kurdish Memory (2021), the former principal investigator of the DFG-funded research project Future Images of the Past (2021–2025), and a current resource scholar for the Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies (Middlebury Institute of International Studies). He lives in Berlin. This interview was conducted by Ernest Lee, PhD student at the University of Chicago. He researches the history of postcolonial energy through the lens of development, infrastructure and environment, with a focus on West Africa and Southeast Asia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Hear about travel to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and the annual Amateur Traveler trip as host Chris Christensen and guest Bill Abbott talk about a tour to 2 of the 5 'Stans in Central Asia. This week's show is supported by the new Smart Travel Podcast. Travel smarter — and spend less — with help from NerdWallet. Check out Smart Travel here. Why should you go to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan? Chris says, "In this area, you can stand in these beautiful cities that date back over two thousand years. This is a trip through some of the great crossroads of world history: Persian empires, Silk Road merchants, Turkic tribes, Mongol armies, Timurid architects, Russian generals, Soviet planners, and two very different modern countries. This is not the edge of the map as we tend to view it, but historically, it's the middle of the map." In this episode of Amateur Traveler, we celebrate episode 1,000 with a trip through Central Asia to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The episode follows a G Adventures trip, Best of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, with a small group of Amateur Traveler listeners. ... https://amateurtraveler.com/travel-to-uzbekistan-and-turkmenistan/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode, Nihal El Aasar returns to this podcast to discuss the competing progressive alternatives in the Arab world prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. Arab attempts to join capitalist systems were obstructed by British and Zionist colonial power, leading to the maintenance of a hegemonic state. We also reference the Union of Arab States and the role of the Zionist entity in hindering regional development. Gamal Abdel Nasser and other leaders in Egypt attempted to create a sovereign economic and political space through nationalist projects. This was actively resisted by Western powers and seen as a threat to imperialist interests. The theory of dependency, as developed by Samir Amin, highlights how underdevelopment in the global South is the result of the expansion of global capital. Nihal argues that while Nasser's project was popular and supported by the masses, his distrust in popular participation and repressive actions against intellectuals helped prevent the project from fully being actualized. The formation of Israel was intertwined with Western efforts to manage the political future of the so-called Middle Eastern region. Israel has hindered the Arab modernization project and has negatively affected the surrounding countries. We discuss how Israel exists in the region to halt the potential of the Arab people as a whole. This is done through repression, impoverishment, and preventing economic prosperity. The U.S. interests in extraction and controlling resources in the region also play a role in this. Apart from that, we meditate on Egypt's early 20th century role as a leader in the Arab world and the expectations placed on its military and economy for stability and development being largely shaped by its history of conflict with Israel and the continued presence of Zionism in the region. The military's control of the economy, rise of religious fundamentalism, and prevalence of conspiracy theories can all be traced back to this relationship. Additionally, Egypt's 20th century development was and continued to be hindered by both structural pressures from outside and its own struggle with overextension as a newly decolonized nation. The working class in Egypt consisted mainly of peasants who were oppressed under the Egyptian monarchy. Land reforms were necessary for progress and industrialization was slowly taking place. From the start, Egyptian nationalism was formed in opposition to Zionism. Nasser faced challenges from the US and its allies and had to build up the Egyptian military in response. We discuss how the nationalization of the Suez Canal and the creation of the United Arab Republic were unprecedented events, but internal struggles and external interference ultimately led to its downfall. The Gulf monarchies have also been deeply intertwined with imperial and capitalist interests since their founding, making them a natural opposition to Arab socialist and progressive projects. The 1973 oil embargo, El Aasar argues, was the last major act of Arab unity but was not an altruistic act of solidarity. The embargo affirmed the importance of the petrodollar for the US and was influential in bringing about the Camp David Accords, which aimed to consolidate the petrodollar and move Egypt fully from the Soviet camp to that of the United States. We meditate on the significance of Camp David and the 1978 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, arguing that it represents a betrayal of Egyptian sovereignty and a move towards neoliberalism and repression. She also highlights how this has instilled a defeatist mindset in Egyptians and led to ongoing struggles with poverty and domestic warfare. She argues that the current regime in Egypt is a continuation of the "Camp David Republic" and that the promised benefits of peace, such as prosperity and political openness, have been left unfulfilled. If you like what we do and want to support our ability to have more conversations like this. Please consider becoming a Patron. You can do so for as little as a 1 Dollar a month and you will gain access to our Discord. Nihal is an Egyptian writer, researcher, political analyst, radio host and DJ. She has written about politics, political economy, culture, literature and music in several publications including The Baffler, The Transnational Institute, Verso, Jacobin, Tribune, Parapraxis, Mundial, Art Review, The Wire, Protean, Novara media, and others, as well as authoring a book chapter about Egyptian political economy and consulting on related issues. "The Condition for Freedom Is for the Egyptian Masses to Take to the Streets"Egypt's Centrality in the Struggle for Palestine" by Nihal El Aasar Episode artwork includes an artificially colorized version of this photo: "Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin acknowledge applause during a Joint Session of Congress in which President Jimmy Carter announced the results of the Camp David Accords." full credit information here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sadat_and_Begin_clean3.jpg
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. And today, we're celebrating international archives week, set up to highlight the importance of protecting the world's historical records.Our guest is BBC curator Joe Schultz who talks about some of the jewels in the BBC radio collections. We find out why cellist Mstislav Rostropovich was stripped of his Soviet citizenship in 1978. Anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela reveals how he survived prison in South Africa. Plus, Pablo Picasso and his fellow artists enjoy a Surrealist summer in 1930s France. And more on the inspiration behind Anton Chekhov's most famous play, Three Sisters. We hear about the Jordanian king who survived numerous assassination attempts to become one of the Middle East's longest serving leaders. And finally, Pickles the dog: the four-legged hero who found the stolen Jules Rimet trophy ahead of the 1966 World Cup.Contributors:Joe Schultz – BBC curator.Mstislav Rostropovich - virtuoso cellist.Nelson Mandela – former president of South Africa.Eileen Agar – Surrealist artist. Paul Shishkoff – friend of playwright Anton Chekhov.King Hussein of Jordan.Jack Pizzey – TV documentary-maker.Pickles the dog – hero of the 1966 World Cup.David Corbett – dog owner.(Photo: Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, 1950. Credit: Michael Ward/Getty Images)
The Dark Forest theory says that we are surrounded by extraterrestrial life, but we are the small prey in a dark forest of snarling predators. Sounds like being a person under Soviet rule. There are other things lurking in the forest: Night Witches, files, suspicions! Catch up with Star City on Bald Move! Transmit your feedback to fam@baldmove.com! Hey there! Check out https://support.baldmove.com/ to find out how you can gain access to ALL of our premium content, as well as ad-free versions of the podcasts! Join the Club! Join the discussion: Email | Discord | Reddit | Forums Follow us: Twitch | YouTube | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Leave Us A Review on Apple Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sign up for your $1-per-month trial today at shopify.com/wartimestories #sponsored More than a decade after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, American troops continued to encounter reminders of the war that came before them — abandoned outposts, rusting vehicles, and battlefields long reclaimed by the mountains. But according to some servicemen, not everything left behind was made of steel and concrete. Drawn from firsthand accounts submitted by U.S. troops, these stories describe strange voices, unexplained encounters, and experiences connected to the remnants of the Soviet-Afghan War that continue to defy explanation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Max Levchin (@mlevchin) is a serial entrepreneur and investor in 100+ startups. He's the founder and CEO of Affirm, the payment network powering consumer purchases and merchant growth. An original PayPal co-founder, Max served as CTO until its 2002 acquisition by eBay.This episode is brought to you by:ProLon: science-backed Fasting Mimicking Diet that helps activate cellular renewal through fasting, while still eating nourishing meals: ProlonLife.com/TimMonarch track, budget, plan, and do more with your money: Monarch.com/Tim Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business: Shopify.com/timTimestamps:[00:00:00] Start.[00:02:50] The Ronin line that rewired how Max makes every decision.[00:06:09] Paprika-style brain-computer interfaces.[00:09:09] PayPal's founders lived inside a Neal Stephenson novel.[00:19:21] Transformation via Neuromancer and Snow Crash.[00:23:40] The book that found Max his wife.[00:29:24] The real secret to a great marriage.[00:38:29] What's worth tracking, and what's not.[00:44:13] A scrawny kid, a clarinet, and a Kyiv velodrome.[00:46:55] What going all-out on a bike actually gives you.[00:51:02] The mantra by which Max rides.[00:53:02] A Soviet kid's fear of socialism.[01:02:48] Making a profit without destroying society.[01:04:31] What is Affirm, and why did every banker say it would fail?[01:20:18] Why the best mathematicians eschew the lending industry.[01:23:50] Does agentic commerce break Affirm, or supercharge it?[01:28:01] A PhD-level financial advisor in everyone's pocket.[01:29:58] How close are we to buying anything through one AI chat?[01:36:32] Improving your coffee: cheap, intermediate, and Bugatti options.[01:44:33] The books every first-time founder should actually read.[01:48:08] Claude Shannon, Ed Thorp, and the joy of playful genius.[01:51:00] Why physical books still beat every digital reading experience.[01:51:44] Parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
It's 1993, and Russia is tearing itself apart. A violent coup is threatening to derail Boris Yeltsin's fragile post-Soviet government. Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Deputy Chief of Station for the CIA in Moscow, is caught in the crossfire. To get out alive, he'll need to lean on an unlikely new ally - Russian Intelligence. In this classic episode of True Spies, Vanessa Kirby tells his story. From SPYSCAPE, the home of secrets. A Cup And Nuzzle production. Series producer: Gemma Newby. Produced by Joe Foley. Music by Nick Ryan.
Serhii Plokhy recounts how October 27, "Black Saturday," was the closest the world came to nuclear war as local commanders took control. In the Sargasso Sea, the Soviet submarine B-59, harassed by U.S. dummy depth charges, nearly fired a nuclear torpedo. Disaster was only averted by Vasily Arkhipov, who overruled the captain. Simultaneously, Soviet officers in Cuba shot down a U-2 plane, killing Major Anderson, without orders from Moscow. They believed the flight was a precursor to a bombing raid. Communication failures left the world's survival to pure luck. (7)1959