Vladimir Putin

It's the day after Christmas and you're in bed mentally backpedaling through the various hoops and turns, and vocal explosions of yesterday's wine-soaked conversation. The food coma was unparalleled. Then someone committed the emboldened atrocity that is name-dropping Donald Trump in a perfectly sane and reasonably mannered conversation.

Like, excuse me?. To put it lightly you got pissed. It's alright. Trump happens. Make amends with an annual Vladimir Putin calendar. You could say he's showing us his soft side.

The calendar features various shots of Putin; from topless fishing, to the man caught amidst sweaty bouts of exercise; everyone's in for a wide-eyed smile with this one.

Do you even lift bro?

Ah, you're Putin me on with this one.

For his Oct. 7 birthday, the President of the Russian Federation strapped on his skates and took to the ice like a tyrannical zamboni. Vladamir Putin played against NHL stars in Socci and scored a whopping seven goals, leading his team to a 15-10 victory.

So impressive.

Mashable has more details:

The event kicked off the fifth season of Russia's Night Hockey League, and saw Putin playing alongside international hockey legends like Pavel Bure and Vladimir Lutchenko. His team took home victory, beating their opponents 15 to 10.

The opposing team included Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu as well as Putin's close friends — tycoons Gennady Timchenko and Arkady Rotenberg. Both were slapped with Western sanctions last year for their ties to Putin in the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea.

But Putin was undoubtedly the star of the show, and event went home with a trophy for his team's win at the end and a medal for his contribution to hockey in Russia.

There's no reason at all to question Putin's ability to score seven goals playing against hockey legends.

He's just that good.



This isn't the first time, he's shown such amazing prowess in three periods of play. Just last May, Putin bested his birthday score, by putting eight pucks into the net.

Truly the world of hockey is missing out on a player that would eclipse the great Gretzky.

Here's the highlight reel from Wednesday's game.

One year ago today, Russian officials responded to western sanctions by declaring they would ban foreign imports on many foods, including cheese.

Well Aug. 6, the BBC says they began keeping that promise by destroying a great deal of food.

One steamroller took an hour to crush nine tonnes of cheese. The country has also steamrollered fruit and burnt a huge pile of bacon.

Boxes of bacon have been incinerated. Peaches and tomatoes were also due to be crushed by tractors.

The destruction has caused an outcry from anti-poverty campaigners who say it should have been given to the poor.

Just watch as literally tons of cheese gets bulldozed behind this reporter:

More bulldozers. Bulldoze the cheese!



If you're wondering why so much footage exists of this destroyed cheese, it's because Vladimir Putin demands it, according to The Guardian.

President Vladimir Putin signed the decree ordering the destruction of food which breaches sanctions last week, with the law due to come into force officially on Thursday. The products must be destroyed in front of witnesses, and the act should be captured on video, to preclude corruption.

The A in APEC should stand for "awkward," because that's what this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing was all about.

There was a very strange handshake between Japan's prime minister and the Chinese president. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted each other with some sort of elbow grab, and both leaders managed to offend the Chinese in their own ways, including Obama chewing gum upon entry to the event, and what has quickly become the most talked about moment: Putin randomly draping the first lady of China Peng Liyuan in a shawl.

She accepted the gift, but almost immediately removed it (around 40 seconds into the video). Sorry Vlad.



Within a few hours after the clip aired on live TV and was passed around on Twitter, censors attempted to remove all traces of the moment from both mainstream outlets and social media, according to Foreign Policy.

This wasn't Putin's first awkward "shawl moment." He also draped German Chancellor Merkel at the G20 Summit in 2013.

Beware world leaders: newly-single, bare-chested, horseback-riding Putin is officially on the prowl for your wives.

Chelsea Handler repeatedly posted a topless photo of herself riding a horse to Instagram Thursday night, mimicking the classic shirtless Vladimir Putin shot.

But Instagram, citing its Community Guidelines, repeatedly removed the photo.

Needless to say, she was not happy, accusing Instagram of sexism.

"Taking this down is sexist. I have every right to prove I have a better body than Putin." She wrote on her account.

So who wore it better? Handler or Putin?

The Kepler Astroseismic Science Consortium has a funding project called the Pale Blue Dot Project, which allows anyone to purchase naming rights to a star for the astronomically (see what I did there?) low price of $10.00. A group of Ukrainian astronomers did just that, and elected to name a star "Putin-Huilo," with "huilo" being Ukrainian slang for "d-ckhead," "a-hole," or "dipsh-t."

The astronomers got the name from Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia's now-famous outburst in June, in which he yelled "Putin is a d*ckhead!" in front of an angry crowd outside the Russian embassy in Kiev. The diss may seem rather pedestrian to the rest of us, but it's rather unique coming from a government official. The Kremlin called for Deshchytsia's resignation after the outburst, to which Deshchytsia presumably replied "lol no."

Warning: Both this video and the one linked below are very graphic.

A video released Wednesday showed members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot being beaten by Cossack militia in Sochi as they tried to film a music video at the port of the city that is hosting the Winter Olympics. Parts of that video has been used to release this new song.

Meanwhile in Russia: Three members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot each have been sentenced to two years in jail for an obscenity-laced performance at Moscow's Christ The Savior cathedral in February in which they were so bold as to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The women -- Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23; Maria Alekhina, 24; and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29 -- are made of tough stuff. As the verdict came down, and a shout of "Shame!" was heard in the courtroom, they just laughed.

Judge Marina Syrova convicted the women of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, saying they had "crudely undermined social order." She cited three specific elements for finding the trio guilty:

1. The choice and timing of venue.
2. Their continued performance and resistance to be taken outside by security and cathedral parishioners.
3. The defendants' conduct and their accomplices afterwards.

Here's the shocking performance that started it all.

[death+taxes]