"Heavy Fog In Channel. Continent Cut Off." - Walrus

"Heavy Fog In The Channel. Continent Cut Off" was The Times of London headline on Oct 22 1957.

"In other words, today, Russia is once again isolating itself from the international community" -President Obama in a statement on Jul 29 2014, announcing increased trade sanctions against Russia.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/07/29/statement-president-ukraine

"Russia is introducing a full 12 months embargo on the import of beef, pork, fruits and vegetables, poultry, fish, cheese, milk and dairy products from the European Union, the United States, Australia, Canada and the Kingdom of Norway.  Russia is also introducing an airspace ban against European and US airlines that fly over our airspace to Eastern Asia, namely, the Asia-Pacific Region and is considering changing the so-called Russian airspace entry and exit points for European scheduled and charter flights. Furthermore, Russia is ready to revise the rules of using the trans-Siberian routes, and will also discontinue talks with the US air authorities on the use of the trans-Siberian routes." - The Sakers interpretation of Russias response yesterday.

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com.au/

I have to ask, as per The Times headline; Exactly who is isolating themselves from whom? Who is going to get hurt the most? Doesn't Washington understand the principle that a mere allegedly "regional power" like Russia is quite capable of making more trouble for the West than we can inflict on it?

Does Washington really think that the Russian people are going to march on the Kremlin to vent their anger at President Putin because of Washingtons sanctions? My own opinion is that sanctions will only strengthen the existing trade links between the BRIC group of nations and hurt "us" more than "them". As a friend whose economic knowledge is far better than mine pointed out; Once new market channels are opened in response to sanctions, it becomes extremely difficult to win back those markets when sanctions are lifted.

 

Heavy Fog In Channel. Continent Cut Off.

Comments

[different clue]

This is a very detailed and informative comment. Thanks for this.

I should apologise for my english being perhaps not clear enough. I had not meant to imply " how much taste can the Russians really develop?" I meant to imply "how much taste can the Norwegian salmon really develop?" And really, how much taste can a corn fed aqua-feedlot
farmed salmon really develop? Whether from Norway or Scotland or Chile or wherever else?

If Norwegian salmon has been sanctioned right off the Russian menu, perhaps a market space has been opened for Russian Far Eastern Wild salmon, like these Kamchatka salmon right here.
http://www.kamchatkapeninsula.com/salmon.html
mmm mmmm! I just about betcha they taste copper river sockeye good.

[different clue]

ISL,

Thanks for the clarification. I obviously have no ocean experience myself. Since I beleve Sanderson to have had ocean experience in his lifetime, perhaps I misremember what I read some 25 years ago. It may be Mr. Sanderson explained it the way you have, and I didn't even get it at all.

[Bandolero]

curtis

To me that seems a typical expat propaganda essay. A more informative title would have maybe been "Why I love my new country and hate the country I left long ago." But, at least, between promoting the typical anti-Russian narrative of good west and bad Russia it is at least written from someone who speaks the language at least a bit and likely visited some family there. So in whole, if you think away the "Good west - bad Russia" propaganda memes away from the Vice essay, I'ld say, it's a bit more informative regarding some typical feelings of ordinary people in Russia compared to most of the other pieces, that western media pass as news from Russia.

[different clue]

bth,
The only way Iran would let weapons from Afghanistan transit Iran to Iraq would be if they got to pick who in Iraq got the weapons. If the experiment were to be run, it would be fascinating who in particular was allowed to recieve these weapons from the Iranian transit-permitters and doler-outers.

[different clue]

Anna-Marina,

Acres USA has in the present issue an article by a recent Russian immigrant to the US about family dacha foodgrowing in Russia. Unfortunately
it doesn't appear to be anywhere on line. But books by this person are in print and available.
Here is a description of one of those books.
http://store.underwoodgardens.com/Growing-Vegetables-With-A-Smile-by-Nikolay-Kurdyumov/productinfo/T1202

He is also supposed to have written Growing Fruit With A Smile and Keeping Bees With A Smile.
They should also be searchable on the interweb.

[different clue]

Oh, and . . . this is not the Acres USA article about Russian dacha gardening, but it is an article about Russian dacha gardening.
http://www.underwoodgardens.com/local-food-growing-your-own/russian-dacha-gardening-homescale-agriculture-feeding-everyone/

[different clue]

Here is Growing Fruit With A Smile.
http://www.deepsnowpress.com/fruit.htm
And here is Keeping Bees With A Smile.
http://www.deepsnowpress.com/keeping-bees-with-a-smile.htm

It is silly to think Russia would go hungry by embargoing US/EU agricultural produce. Russia could probably become food autarchic if it wanted.
Seeking food imports from Turkey/South America/ etc. is as much or more about building new political-economic alliances and relationships as it is about securing food supplies . . . maybe more so.

[Tyler]

"Democracy is the idea the people know what they want - and they deserve to get it good and hard."