Dear friends,

For various reasons, I plan to make the new Saker blog more similar to the very old Saker blog (2007-2012). None of the planned adjustments below will dramatically change anything, so please think of is as a kind of mid-life minor maintenance overhaul. What follows is a summary of these changes:

  • The biggest change will be not in what I write, but how I present things to you. In the past, I tried to write one full analysis a week, then I had to change that to one analysis every two weeks. This is now over, I will not write full length analyses depending on any self-imposed schedule – I will write long analyses simply and only when needed.
  • As a result of the above, I will make the blog much more “interactive”. Not only will I post many more item types (ranging from a quick comment to a short commentary or reaction to, yes, long analyses), I will now have the time to post more often.
  • Furthermore, I intend to engage more in the comments section. Before, I barely had the time to, at best, quickly peek through them.
  • I am also announcing the termination of my relationship, for many reasons, with the Unz Review. This will now free up a lot of time for me.
  • Speaking of “Sakers”, first it was an alias for my “thin anonymity”, then it became a fun pen name (I still like it), but from now on I will sign my comments and email replies with “Andrei” and only use the word Saker as a pen name for longer articles.
  • From now on I will post everything I write, from 12000 words to a single sentence, on the main “Saker Analyses and Interviews” sections. I therefore propose to also completely get rid of the following sections: “News and Announcements” and “Sandbox”.
  • For various reasons, I am getting more visibility in Russia.  I will keep that in mind in my future posts, so that will maybe make them sound somewhat different in tone and assumptions.  When possible, I will try to get English translations of my Russian interviews/texts and post them here.
  • I am considering resuming podcasts, but shorter ones, maybe Q&As with readers?

That’s about it. A few small things to add:

  • I just asked my webmaster and head of moderation whether the total readership had, over the past three months, changed in any way, up, down or the same. His reply is “No changes, same” (somewhere in the 2+M pages/month range. The deranking by Google & Co of the Saker blog has had very little impact because most of my traffic is from one form or another of word of mouth, not search engines.
  • Donations are somewhat slowing down, I will have to make a fundraiser soon.
  • We are still always in need of help, including translators (Russian <-> English), moderators and, of course, donations. Right now, things are a little tight, but working generally fine.
  • I plan to stick to my decision not to deal with internal US politics for many reasons, including the fact that who is in the White House really makes very little difference at this point. Besides, I already said all I had to say about the US itself. So I will deal with mostly international events and US foreign actions. This is not set in stone, but more of a general inclination.
  • I never expected the success of the Christian Vignette Project, there are just under 80 people who signed up, this is just about the *perfect* amount, not too little, not too late. I also like the type of people who signed up. Expect the first vignette soon. I think that this will be both fun and very interesting :-)
  • Alas, I still won’t be able, at least as a rule, to reply to private emails on political topics. If you have something to ask – use the comments section.
  • The commenting rules all remain in force. If you have not, please read them now!
  • On the SARS-COV-2/COVID19 issues, we’ve opened up a regular page on the Saker Community site, only for serious researchers.  No drive-by link-dropping will be tolerated.  This is the latest page: https://saker.community/topic/new-chatter-and-jabber-thread-saturday-august-28/  

That’s about it. Please let me know what you think!

Kind regards

The Saker

UPDATE: I just got an email from Ramin Mazaheri, is is going great, enjoying some time off (he sure needed it!).  If all goes according to plan he will, God willing, resume writing for us in September!  So, no worries :-)

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask them here below, I will always read them and try to reply if I can.