27.08.16 Can the superlative degree of an adjective follow its positive degree? Apparently, not: *the long longest river???  However, the enormous flexibility of the language and human mind can produce and attach a meaning even to such paradoxical combinations. An example: "The countries with the worst bad habits" 

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/26/the-countries-with-the-worst-bad-habits-germany-america-russia-israel/

19.08.16 25 years ago the abortive coup in Moscow led to the disbanding of the Soviet Union. It happened against the will of the peoples of the Soviet Union who had voted in a referendum to stay united. But the currupt and oppotunist 'elites' set on a different course. Working people had, as usual, to pay the ultimate price... 

17.08.16 Islam is special, and not in a good way: this religion, unlike the others, primes true believers to kill infidels. Western civilization with its emphasis on multiculturalism, tolerance and human rights is quite likely to choke on Islam because Western values cannot be defended by the crackdown on immigration  If this crackdown happens to be put into execution it will be suicidal for Western civilization. A woman can "defend" herself against rape by stabbing herself into the heart. That is why Donald Trump cannot win the election: his anti-immigrant stance is incompatible with the American way of life and American liberties. Read more about it here: 

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/16/who-will-test-trump-immigration-security-terrorism/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=%2AEditors%20Picks

11.08.16 By 522 BC Darius was a single overlord of all the land from all the land from Anatolia and Egypt to the borders of modern Turkestan and the Indian valley. Most interestingly from our point of view was that the administrative language of his empire should be not Persian or Lydian, but Aramaic. The decision must have been purely pragmatic, for Aramaic was not the language that Persian royalty, the Achaemenid clan actually spoke [Nicholas Ostler. Empires of the Word]

Those people in the Ukraine who declared war on the Russian language know little of history and do not measure up to Darius in vision, education and statemanship.

7.08.16  “Netflix and chill” - a new addition to the English dictionary that has cropped up as a cultural term:

Recently, in teenage internet circles, the phrase “Netflix and chill” has been inescapable. It’s a phrase that means, roughly, “hooking up.” But it’s a lot more complicated than that. “Netflix and chill” is a classic case of social media-fueled semantic drift. It began as a plain, descriptive phrase (“Can’t wait to leave work so I can watch Netflix and chill!”), and stayed that way for several years before acquiring a loose sexual connotation (“Wanna come over for Netflix and chill? ;)”) and, eventually becoming a known code phrase (“He said he loves me, but I know he just wants to Netflix and chill”).

http://fusion.net/story/190020/netflix-and-chill/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialshare&utm_content=theme_top_desktop

The loose translation into Russian: Давай заниматься сексом. As the Buzzfeed explains, it is a long way off from its real stylistic charge: "Let's f- -k!" 

http://fusion.net/story/190020/netflix-and-chill/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialshare&utm_content=theme_top_desktop

1.08.16  A group of French PMs led by the National Assembly member and the former transport minister Thierry Mariani, who initiated the debate on lifting the anti-Russian sanctions in the French parliament, went to Crimea to see what life was like. This is the second time he has been to the peninsula since it re-joined Russia.

“The referendum on Crimea’s accession to Russia reflected the will of the people,” Mariani said, adding that, during their visit to the peninsula, the French delegation “got an impression that the decision to reunify with Russia corresponds with the majority opinion” of the Crimean population.

“It is better to be a Tatar in Crimea than a Russian in Latvia. But Europe prefers to forget about it,” Mariani told RT France.

https://www.rt.com/news/354024-french-lawmakers-visit-crimea/#.V57jlBpSXok.twitter