Dear friends,

Since I am going to be very busy until Monday morning, I want to leave you with a “semi-open thread”.  If you see something interesting, by all means please post it here.  If not, I would like to survey your opinions on two questions:

  1. In the latest gas deal between the EU, the Ukraine and Russia – who won and who lost? (The junta in Kiev? Russia? The EU? Novorussia?  The US? The oligarchs? Gazprom?)
  2. Who won and who lost in the latest Ukrainian elections? What is the most important conclusion you make from these results?

I will give you my take on this on Monday when I also hope (time permitting) to record my first podcast.  I will make this first one “hyper-informal” so please feel free to post any questions (not here!! and not by email either!!  but here: http://10.16.86.131/podcast-project-lets-give-it-a-first-try-okay-2/) and please feel free to make them questions as informal as you want.  I see this podcast as a chat amongst good friends, not a “proper” and uptight academic exercise.  Even the topics discussed do not need to be serious.  If you want to discuss music, or philosophy – please do so.  I will try to answer as many questions as I can, though I will only answer those inspiring me to answer in the first place (troll, idiots and provocateurs will be ignored).  Anyway – you can post question until Sunday 1800 GMT/UTC.

Kind regards to all,

The Saker