The pictures of Xi and Kim side by side during the state welcoming ceremony for Xi in Kim Il Sung Square in the traditional North Korean Baekdu bloodline style surprised me.

Breaking: South Korea's National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik exchanged greetings with Kim Jong Un this morning before China's military parade, according to his office, as per Yonhap News. A rare moment of direct South-North contact in years. https://t.co/440HXkSjvc

North Korea Warns Over Strategic Bombers

A pair of American B-52H bombers was escorted by two Japanese F-2 fighter aircraft and two South Korean KF-16 fighter jets during a trilateral flight on Friday, according to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. It was the third such flight between the allies this year.

https://x.com/GenFlynn/status/1930336703052689852?utm_source=substack&ut...

General Mike Flynn
@GenFlynn

This week a terrorist army ran amok in Syria.

the horse has (already) left the barn from the Free Dictionary:

It is too late to prevent, change, or rectify some problem or situation, as the ill effects have already been wrought.

They blockaded the 110 freeway in Los Angeles:

Once upon a time, when I was a teen, some school teachers and rich students went to the USSR. My parents could not afford for me to go. I heard how the KGB followed them closely. The food was hideous. If you flushed a commode in room 231 in a 10 story hotel, every floor room of that 31 number, 431,531, 631, etc...flushed as well. So, nobody could sleep because of the flushing commode noise.

And about 6 years ago, I made that trip to Russia I had always, since a teen, wanted to make.

Let me start with my general impressions.

American tourists were treated like we were precious. I made forever friends with the guides.

An elderly guide taking us through a WWII military installation, a converted church to house soldiers, said this:" With our history, what we know is that we will accept reality and deal with it. What we hate is sudden change. We love consistency, even if it is very difficult."

I learned public drunkenness, the caricature Russian wobbling down the street full of vodka, is loathed. I actually saw one. Vodka is their pride, but for them, it is expensive, penalties for over doing it is great.

Religion was verboten, but now, Russians are militantly Christian, and tolerant of other faiths, because they finally got to practice theirs, let others know that freedom.

Moscow is nationalistic. St. Petersburg is European. Totally different atmospheres.

USSR is gone, Russia is capitalistic, no trace anywhere of communism. Part of Red Square that was under construction was that part where they took Stalin's tomb away, had to repair the floor.

Beets are easily pickled, as at example. Any food pickled will get people through the ferocious Russian winters. That elderly guide at the military facility stressed, "The real Soviet General that defeated the Germans in WWII is never mentioned. His name is General February."

We were a gang of 4, and we joined a tour group to travel from Moscow, down the Volga, ending the tour at St. Petersburg.

I am a strictly amateur photographer, and these were taken to trigger my memory.

Here we go down memory lane...

A nice picture from Red Square:

While Hamas et al. are in the third day of fighting, some Ukrainians are going off-script:

Russia Seeks to 'Frame' Ukraine with 'Trophy' Western Weapons in Gaza: Kyiv

Not only is this an admission that the Russians have been capturing gobs of Ukrainian weapons, but it's a suggestion that great US gifts of weaponry to Ukraine are going to find their way to the Middle East.