Dear friends,

Today I will begin with some very good news indeed.

New Serbian Saker blog

A new Serbian Saker blog has been added to our community.  You can find it here:

http://stepskisoko.rs/

The new Serbian Saker Blog Team can be reached at:

info [at] stepskisoko dot com

After all the two previous false starts, I hope that the “third time’s the charm” and I wish the Serbian Team all the best: friends, thank you for taking on such a difficult job!

Transcript of Podcast #7 available

Next, I am happy to report that thanks to the hard work of lady “A” the full transcript of the 7th (mobile) podcast is now available here: http://10.16.86.131/the-saker-podcast-no-7-mobile-podcast/

The plea: Don’t send me into battle with no ammunition!

Okay, I hate to bring this up, but since 88% of you, my readers, have a actually asked me to do so (and I apologize to the 12% who don’t want to hear about this), I will remind you all again that as any other form of warfare, information warfare also needs funding.  As Marcus Tullius Cicero said in the 1st century BC, “the sinews of war are infinite money“.  Alas, only the Empire seems to have “infinite money” right now.  Here is what is happening on my side:

1) my plea for a “recurring monthly donation” has, frankly, been a failure.  Only a few of you responded to it (a huge THANK YOU! to those who did).

2) even though the number of readers, the hours of work I put into this blog and, dare I say, the quality of the articles posted here are all going up, the actual donations are clearly going down (almost in free fall).

3) there is a small core of supportive individuals who are generously helping on a regular basis, but the vast majority readers are clearly not contributing.

Honestly?  I don’t quite know what to tell you.  I suppose I could place a bright banner in front of every article posted reminding people to donate, but I personally hate that kind of “visual harassment”.  Or I could accept advertisements (I get plenty of offers!), but I also hate ads.  I suppose that I could hide behind a “pay per view” wall, but I loathe that kind of methods too.  So all that I can do is simply remind you of this basic reality:

Friends, I need you to help me fight this information war.  Don’t send me into battle with no ammunition!

I will say that you will be getting your money’s worth.  Just this week I will have a amazingly interesting interview with a person from China, a exclusive analysis by Ishchenko about the future of Russia, and in the near future, an Q&A with a Spetsnaz officer!  Where else would you get that?  And you will continue to get all the daily flow of exclusive translated content – all of it at no charge, with no adds and no “clever harassments”.  If you are still unsure, go over the archives of the last couple of months and ask yourself where else you could get that, what this kind if information is worth to you and how important it is to resist the Empire’s information war.

Okay, so I said what I needed to say.  Now you do what you think is right.

Many thanks and kind regards,

The Saker