My Blogging Career

Why blog?


2007-2008: 24,797 visits


2008-2009: 38,626 visits


2009-2010: 45,394 visits


2010-2011: 87,487 visits

Incoming links: NYTimes News Blog Guardian News Blog Kyiv Post Global Voices

What else is there? To me, blogging felt like putting Ukraine on the map. In my own way. On my own time.

And what a time it was! Planting all those red dots in places like the

• White House, State Department, House of Representatives/Senate
  
• Parliament of Canada, Privy Council Office of Canada
• UN
  
• European Commission, European Parliament
• UK Parliament
  
• CIA, FBI, DHS, DOD, NATO, NORAD, NASA
• BBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, AFP, Fox News, Al Jazeera, RFERL, VOA
• World Bank, IFC, IMF
  
• Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia, MIT, Duke, Oxford, Cambridge
• Cuba
• North Korea

Not to mention the world’s biggest banks and corporations (another 3K visits).

My YouTube account: 2,522,000 upload views since 2007, of which Gaddafi's 2008 visit to Kyiv has fetched 1,368,000. (I used to upload and translate rafts of news reports back then.)



As you can see, I tweet from time to time, but I don’t blog as much as I used to. Blogging doesn’t pay. Working out does. I lost about 90 pounds last year. Despite all the mess in my country, I feel and look better than ever before.

That’s freedom!

Tymoshenko Gifts Gaddafi With Sabre (2008)

Freedom fighters?

Tymoshenko: I want you to be strong...and, as always...an armed person. Hahaha!

This was November '08. I was already done with Tymoshenko.

But the West wasn’t done with Gaddafi. Even John McCain, who now supports Tymoshenko, considered Gaddafi an “interesting man.”



Still, you have to admit that giving that man a sabre and wishing him to be “armed” looks a bit too intimate of Tymoshenko.

Wanna make a dictator happy? Forget the sabre. Buy him a bigger drainage pipe! (Or maybe a bigger gas pipeline?)


Hope Tymoshenko would agree.

Sources:
http://tsn.ua
http://1tv.com.ua
http://kanalukraina.tv

Tymoshenko Explores Gaddafi’s Tent

She didn’t miss her chance.



But where are the bodyguards?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/101448.html
Soundtrack: http://youtube.com/watch?v=l5a6FW2Qkxs
Original source: http://www.1tv.com.ua

Escorted by Female Bodyguards, Gaddafi Visits Kyiv

After reaching a rapprochement with the West, which ended two decades of isolation, Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi has explored the world outside, including the East.

Libya’s friendly relations with the USSR made Moscow the starting point of Gaddafi’s Eastern tour. The next leg of his tour took him to Kyiv, where he and President Yushchenko on Tuesday discussed trade, energy and defense.

Aside from the Bedouin tent in which Col. Gaddafi resides while on tour, the most interesting thing about him is the gender issue. Channel 1+1 takes an intimate look his security detail, staffed by female bodyguards.

Narrator: While the leader is sleeping, the bodyguards are carrying out their duties, and it's these women who do the fighting. When it comes to security, Gaddafi relies on ladies only. The head of the Libyan Jamahiriya has a total of 300-400 girls on his security detail. According to official accounts, all of them are virgins. Selection is done by Gaddafi himself. This whim has an explanation for it: In ancient times, they believed that the best guards were either virgins or lesbians, the underlying belief being that they could sense threats, the so-called wind of death. The girls were even sterilized to make them more aggressive toward men. There can be different views on these stories, but it was the girls with Kalashnikovs who saved Gaddafi's life a number of times. During the assassination, they shielded him from gunfire and grenades. One died, four others were wounded. The bodyguards are with Gaddafi day and night. Each of them can handle several strong men. According to some sources, most of the girls are Cuban.

Espero que this time our President watched his tongue.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/101358.html
Original source: http://tsn.ua