February 2008 Archives

Annals of Russian Elections Fraud

Filed under: Russia

The Moscow Times reports that the Russian blogosphere has outed "president" Vladimir Putin as an elections huckster of unprecedented audacity and vulgarity: "The analyses by chemist Maxim Pshenichnikov and a LiveJournal blogger nicknamed Podmoskovnik offer mathematical proof of either election fraud or extremely anomalous voter behavior. Without the statistical anomalies, [Putin's party] United Russia would not have secured a constitutional majority in the Duma."

In most elections, one would expect the turnout to follow a normal, or Gaussian, distribution -- meaning that a chart of the number of polling stations reporting a certain turnout would be shaped like a bell curve, with the top of the bell representing the average, median, and most popular value. But according to Pshenichnikov's analysis, the distribution looks normal only until it hits 51 percent. After that, it begins spiking on round numbers, indicating a much greater number of polling stations reporting a specific turnout than a normal distribution would predict.

The same trend is seen in the analysis of United Russia's results conducted by Podmoskovnik. United Russia, for example, received 89 percent of the vote at 633 polling stations, according to Podmoskovnik's analysis of the results. But 927 stations reported 90 percent for the party, while 770 stations reported 91 percent. A suspicious voter might say polling officials stuffed ballot boxes to achieve a nice, clean 90 percent figure. Podmoskovnik found that the spiking on round numbers begins after United Russia's returns hit 55 percent. Taken together with Pshenichnikov's calculations, it appears that the higher the turnout, the higher United Russia's percent of the returns -- a correlation not seen in returns of the other 10 parties on the ballot. Furthermore, the spikes in both analyses coincide on several round numbers, including 75 percent, 80 percent, 85 percent and 90 percent.

The result was:

If the anomalies were smoothed out, turnout would have been 50.2 percent, rather than the official figure of 63 percent, Podmoskovnik said. Furthermore, United Russia would have secured only 277 seats in the Duma, he concluded. This would deny the party the 300 seats needed for a constitutional majority. Official election results gave United Russia 315 seats. The other parties represented in the Duma -- the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and A Just Russia -- took 57, 40 and 38 seats, respectively. According to Podmoskovnik's analyses, the three parties should have received 73, 51 and 49 seats, respectively.

The bloggers note that the only way these results would not indicate fraud would be if pro-Putin voters "radically differ in their social behavior from other parties' voters and are distinctly predisposed to collective voting for their favorite party when turnout is at its peak." The MT quotes Mikhail Delyagin, head of the Institute of Globalization Problems, who "said local election officials clearly decided in advance what the figures would be for turnout and United Russia's percentage of the vote" and observed: "As many human beings do, they were thinking in round numbers."

In a cultural exchange forum sponsored by the New York Times, an American reader asked: "What happens if Putin's "successor" doesn't win the election? Is there an opposing candidate?" A Russian reader answered: "Many things in this country, especially elections, are under 100 percent government controlled, so this option is simply excluded. Concerning other candidates (well, for example, if tomorrow Medvedev suddenly left for a village in the middle of nowhere in Siberia) -- they will always be found. In this regard every Yeltsin has his Putin and every Putin -- his Medvedev." Another stated: "It is more likely that our galaxy would explode than Medvedev not win." A third, perhaps a Kremlin operative who pays little attention to the Russian blogosphere, claimed: "There are four candidates. All are campaigning as much as they are able to. The vote is secret. You can vote for anyone. If Medvedev doesn't win -- then somebody else will. In fact, it is all very simple."

It's hard to say whether one should be encouraged or depressed by this Russian reporting. On the one hand, one can see that there are still brilliant and creative people in Russia who are willing to stand up to power on behalf of truth and democracy. On the other, there's no indication whatsoever that the mass population has any intention of listening to them.

« Close It

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

Has Mr. Obama Seen the Light?

Filed under: Russia

I seriously doubt that there is anyone in the country who would be more delighted to cast a presidential vote in favor of a black candidate, or a woman (ideally, both) than I would. I've had deep concerns about Barack Obama's fitness for office, however, based in part on what I consider to be irresponsible statements he's made about Russia in the past, and been frustrated by my inability to consider him a reasonable candidate because of it (not that I'd be likely to vote for him over a competent Republican).

However, nobody would be more delighted to be proved wrong than me. Obama has hired a fairly hardcore critic of the Kremlin, Michael McFaul, as his Russia policy guru -- McFaul recently published a long scholarly paper arguing that Russia would have been far better off without Putin. And now, he's fired a blistering broadside at the Kremlin which seems to indicate that all three remaining presidential contenders are on the same page where Russia is concerned. Kommersant reports on the most recent presidential debates:

Obama began with criticizing the Bush administration for being too soft with Russia, as Obama regards it. "Just think back to the beginning of President Bush's administration when he said -- you know, he met with Putin, looked into his eyes and saw his soul, and figured he could do business with him. He then proceeded to neglect our relationship with Russia at a time when Putin was strangling any opposition in the country when he was consolidating power," said Obama. That statement, both in style and in content, resembled the notorious statement by Arizona Senator John McCain, who also tried to ridicule Bush's utterance about the soul he saw in Putin's eyes.
The Russian theme of the Democratic debate in Ohio was not over yet. Russert asked Obama what would he do, in the president's capacity, if "President Medvedev says to the Russian troops, you know what, why don't you go help Serbia retake Kosovo."
"Fortunately, we have a strong international structure anchored in NATO to deal with this issue," replied Obama, adding that "the Clinton administration deserves a lot of credit" for "the way in which they put together a coalition that has functioned" [in 1999, the U.S. persuaded its NATO allies to launch a joint military operation against Yugoslavia].

I can't see how I could ask for anything more than that. The Kremlin's jaws are on the floor, that much I can guarantee. If this keeps up, I will sleep content in the event Obama is elected, at least insofar as Russia policy is concerned.

Perhaps Mr. Obama has seen the light. If so, I will be the first to laud his insight. This is exactly what should be happening, there should be total bipartisan cooperation when the issue is neo-Soviet Russia. Hopefully, we are now on the road to making that reality.

Imagine this scenario if you will: Obama is elected. Already inclined to crack down on Russia because of its anti-liberalism, he finds its wonderfully convenient to do so since he appears hawkish, and this mollifies the right. He cracks down further. Upon actual study of the country, he learns it's populated by some of the most furiously insane racists on the planet. He ups the ante yet again, and when he actually meets some Russians and sees that racism flashing in their eyes, he becomes an even more fervent opponent of the Kremlin than John McCain would have been.

It's a nice thought, isn't it?

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

Annals of Cold War: The Battle for Visa and Russian National Suicide

Filed under: Russia

I can quite confidently say that of all the bizarre things I've seen come out of Russia (and I've seen a lot, as you well know), by far the most insane -- utterly in a class by itself -- is the crazed Russian notion that foreigners want or need to visit Russia, that Russia is somehow an attractive place for them to go. Russians actually believe that Westerners are desperate to visit Russia and luxuriate in the soothing warmth of the Russian soul. Perhaps the only even more goofy idea is that Russia can afford to alienate foreigners just as well as any Western nation, regardless of facts like the country not being in the top 50 nations of the world for purchasing power per capita GDP or the top 100 for male adult lifespan. And yet, Russians go on with such beliefs, go on undermining the very foundations of their survival as a country.

There's only one other explanation why Russia would deny an entry visa first to Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, and then to investigative journalist Natalya Morar (even though she's married to a Russian citizen). And that reason is pure, black, utterly ignorant totalitarian evil.

_44455122__44453680_morar203i%5B1%5D.jpg

Natalya Morar

Do Russians really believe that by denying our citizens access to their country they impose upon us such draconian suffering that we will be cowed into submission? Do they really think that they themselves will not suffer more from such actions than we will? Or are they simply terrified, just as the USSR always was, by the presence of individual Westerners on their soil, like spores of the liberty disease that might infect the entire country? Do Russians really believe that they can win arguments and national respect by physically liquidating their opponents or sticking their heads in the sand?

As Moscow Times columnist Grigori Bovt states: "Relations have deteriorated to such a degree that a full-scale visa war looks imminent. If the West decides to escalate the visa conflict, the Russian elite will suffer the most. Their children, bank accounts, property and favorite vacation spots are all located in the West. So wouldn't it be better to stop intensifying the anti-Western hysteria before it's too late?"

Far, far more Russians want to access the West than vice versa. Virtually nobody in Western countries has the slightest desire to partake of Russian culture, and business opportunities in Russia are plagued by rabid hatred of foreigners, crime, corruption, pestilence, disease and, most of all, malignant government. The only businessmen who venture into Russia are the riverboat gamblers.

Not long ago, Russia took the utterly insane action of shutting down the peaceful cultural offices of the British Council across the country. Now, it's rejecting visa applications and inviting the West to shut Russia out, denying it the slightest opportunity to plead its case, begging the West to encircle it and confront it with a new cold war and arms race that Russia has no hope of winning.

How is this not national suicide? Russia has already destroyed itself three times in the past century. Is it racing towards number four? Bovt writes that "When the Foreign Ministry denied an entry visa to Roth, it sparked a flurry of discussion on blogs. Most Russian bloggers expressed a mean-spirited pleasure at the move." It seems that Russia actually wants to provoke the West, to simultaneously complain that it is being provoked, to cut off its nose to spite its face.

In an editorial, the Moscow Times writes:

Rossia television has laid to rest any lingering doubts about whether the level of propaganda on state television has returned to record Cold War highs. Konstantin Syomin, an anchor with "Vesti Plus," opined on the nightly news program last Thursday that Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic had deserved to be assassinated for "selling out" to the West.
Syomin described Djindjic as "a Western puppet" who "destroyed the legendary Serbian army." He accused Djindjic of "selling the heroes of Serbian resistance" to the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. Therefore, Djindjic "got a well-deserved bullet" in 2003, Syomin said.
One has to wonder whether even Soviet television anchors made such outrageous observations after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Moscow's Cold War foe.

So Russia is being even more provocative than in Soviet times, even though it is far less powerful in relation to its rivals. Have you ever heard of a Western country denying a visa to a journalist or human rights expert because they wanted to make a speech criticizing that country's government? Even if you had, can a country like Russia with a recent history of totalitarian horror and collapse really afford to indulge in such atrocities?

Isn't national suicide the only way to describe such an action?

« Close It

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

"Elections" in Russia

Filed under: Russia

Just in time for the "presidential elections" this coming Sunday in Russia, which will be one of the greatest indignities the institution of democracy has seen carried out in its name in human history, my blog La Russophobe has completed its translation of former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov's white paper reviewing the total failure of the Putin regime. It's required reading for anyone who wishes to truly understand modern Russian politics.

As a supplement, the Moscow Times has its own report on Putin's economic legacy, which bolsters Nemtsov's conclusion that the vast majority of Russians are largely untouched by Putin's alleged economic achievements and continue to lead bleak and miserable lives. It quotes one Kremlin critic explaining Putin's persistent popularity with Russia's mindless masses: "Twenty-eight percent of Russians think that the sun revolves around the earth. In other words, they live in a pre-Copernican age," he said. "And 30 percent of Russians think that if you boil radioactive milk, the radiation will disappear."

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

Music to Our Ears

Filed under: Asia

North Korean Anti-Protest Babe on the Alert

On Tuesday in North Korea, New York Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Lorin Maazel stated:

"Someday a composer may write a work entitled 'Americans in Pyongyang'."

Maazel was just about to lead his orchestra in a rousing rendition of George Gershwin's classic An American in Paris, to the delight and thunderous applause of the North Korean audience assembled for the concert. The New York Times reported:

At a news conference Tuesday shortly before the performance, Mr. Maazel drew a distinction between Tuesday night's concert and the orchestra's 1959 visit to the Soviet Union. "It showed Soviet citizens that they could have relations with foreign organizations and these organizations could come in the country freely," he said. "But what the Soviets didn't realize was, this was a two-edged sword. By allowing interactions between people from outside the country with people inside, eventually the people found themselves out of power."

He also managed to slip in a pointed barb against the North Korean oligarchy: "'The Korean peninsula is a very small area geographically,' he said, 'and has an entirely different role to play in the course of human events.'"

Now that is more like it! Who knew that musicians could be so ferocious?

Meanwhile, don't think his message is lost on Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Hence, his furious struggle to erect a neo-Soviet state and to exclude foreign influence as much as possible. Hear about him inviting Americans for cultural visits recently? No? Didn't think so.

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

The New York Times: How Low can they Go?

Filed under:

You'll get no argument from me if you want to contend that American young people could be better educated. All I need to convince me is their strong support for vapid, empty, unqualified presidential contender/cult leader Barack Obama. Indeed, if rumors of their stupidity are true, then their support seems to confirm Obama as ignorance personified. The carcinogenic influence of teacher unions and bureaucracy and political correctness is definitely something we should address.

No argument, that is, unless you are the New York Times. Then I'll call you a far bigger idiot than the worst of those you purport to criticize.

The Times recently ran an article about a study by a weird new group called "Common Core" which had published the results of a survey of 17-year-old Americans on questions of history and literature. Amazingly, the Times article didn't provide links to either the group's website or the survey report. ABC News provided both in their story, and for good measure threw in an interactive feature with a sampling of the questions from the survey.

Neither one of these MSM outlets, however, seemed to have actually thought about the results they were reporting for even a few seconds. The Common Core report provides no baseline to the ability of American students to answer the questions it asked in the past, and it provides no baseline to how well teenagers from other places (Japan, Europe -- much less South America or the Middle East) are able to respond to such questions. Indeed, the author of the report himself states: "There is no current reliable national measure of how much students know about history and literature." ABC gives you this quote, not the NYT. In other words, it's totally meaningless except insofar as your subjective sensibilities might be offended.

And, if you read the Times article, what you will find is that the reason the paper doesn't care about any of this is that it's using the article as an opportunity to launch yet another attack on President Bush, this time savaging his "No Child Left Behind" program -- while at the same time conveniently implying that the the Times is failing so miserably not because it sucks but because Americans are too stupid to appreciate it. This appears to be a running theme of propaganda at the Times these days.

The quality of the anecdotal evidence, if you care about such things, is pathetic, and indicates that the report's authors are at least as ignorant as the kids they purport to survey. They're making a mountain out of a grain of sand.

According to the report (see page 11), you aren't a "literate" 17-year-old America unless you can identify Chaucer, Oedipus and Odysseus. According to it, the Bible is literature, and you aren't literate unless you know who Job was. The report declares that Ralph Ellison is among the very greatest titans of American literature, so if you're not instantly conversant with him, you're a failure.

Now, to be sure, the report did ask a few questions about literature that we might agree should be within a high-school graduate's America literature repertoire: 1984, the Scarlet Letter, Uncle Tom's Cabin, To Kill a Mockingbird and Leaves of Grass. That's it. Six questions out of 11 on literature were of this type, barely half -- I question whether that's even a statistically significant sample. More than half the respondents were able to correctly identify six out of six on these questions, and three out of six were identified correctly by more than 70% of respondents. Amazingly, there's no mention of the work of America's Nobel Laureates for fiction, such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Pearl Buck or Toni Morrison.

As for history (see page seven), twice as many questions were asked as for literature (apparently, the authors think history is twice as important as literature, a proposition that seems dubious on their own terms). One-third of the questions were answered correctly by over 80% of respondents and only six questions resulted in accuracy of less than 70%. Unless we expect the "average" score to be above average, 70% is exactly what we should expect, isn't it?

What were the questions where accuracy was lacking? They asked students to place World War I and the Civil War in the proper date range, to name the purpose of the Federalist Papers and to place freedom of speech in the Bill of Rights as opposed to the Constitution generally, and to identify Joseph McCarthy and the Renaissance.

Now, to be sure, it's important to know that Americans strongly resisted unification after the Revolutionary War ended, and many years were needed to convince them to form a central government -- so strong was their antipathy to dictatorship. But I'd prefer to see students asked this question directly, rather than indirectly by means of reference to a long-haired manuscript it would be totally unreasonable to expect them to read at such a young age. Likewise, our students should know who McCarthy was, and they should know generally when the Civil War occurred. Less than 70% accuracy on these questions certainly indicates that there are areas where education could be improved. But it doesn't concern me much that students are bit weak in giving the date of World War I or that they are not familiar with the Renaissance, and the question about the Bill of Rights sounds almost like a trick. Freedom of speech wasn't actually guaranteed by federal law until the 20th Century and it was imposed by the Supreme Court just like desegregation. The Bill of Rights only protects Americans from federal encroachment upon freedom of speech, not encroachment by the states. Before students could be expected to know a fact like that, it would have to actually be present in the texts they are reading, and most of the time it isn't. I doubt that European students would be any more familiar with the date of the American civil war than our students are with World War I. Our students should certainly be taught to appreciate that Europe caused itself to burst into flames not once but twice in the space of less than 50 years, but I think that, too, is a more a problem of history books than students.

Given the wholesale fraud that's been documented occurring at the New York Times, the nation's so-called "paper of record" over the past few years, from Jayson Blair to the loathsome smear job on John McCain, one could hardly expect Americans reading it, of any age, to be conversant with the truth. Indeed, it could easily be argued that a more important step than educational reform might be for us to find ourselves a new POR. But it's doubtful we'll hear the Times editorializing or reporting about that any time soon.

« Close It

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

Annals of Russian Barbarism

Filed under: Russia

In his final news conference of his "presidency" on Valentine's Day, Vladimir Putin was asked about persistent rumors that he has stolen billions from Russia's national treasury. He refused to answer the question, saying it was "blather not worth discussing." But he did comment on how this information came to circulate in the press: "They just picked it out of their nose and smeared it on their little sheets," he said. When the Kremlin's translators published the official English version of the answer, they ignored the nose smear comment and claimed Putin had merely stated: "They just made it up and included it in their papers."

A few days later Konstantin Syomin, anchorman for state-owned RTR television declared during his evening news broadcast that "slain former Yugoslavian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic 'got a well-deserved bullet' for his pro-Western policies." See it now:

Then most recently we had Putin's foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko, who told the BBC: "Georgia can't always be like a little boy that takes a fork or a hammer and tries to whack its neighbour. Even a small child knows that if you spill tea or mess up your bed, you might be punished." Do you dare to imagine how Russians would react if a high-ranking official in the Bush White House uttered this statement, replacing "Georgia" with "Russia"? It defies human intelligence for Russia to wail and moan about such treatment from the United States and then to turn around and deliver it by the truckload to its own smaller neighbors. This is the horror of the neo-Soviet state revealed.

You might think, though, that perhaps Russia is a freewheeling type of society where such remarks as these are generally accepted -- but you'd be wrong. Because when human rights activist Lev Ponomarev said the country's prison chief was "the author of a sadistic system of torture" he immediately found himself "charged with falsely accusing a civil servant of committing a serious crime, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison."

All of this, perhaps, is what led Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves to observe yesterday that in today's Russia "there is a mentality of being stabbed in the back that reminds me of the Weimar republic. The Weimar mentality is so similar that I really hope that we do not go off in the wrong direction."

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

Kozlovsky, Part 2

Filed under: Russia

Youth political activist Oleg Kozlovsky in military
hospital detention in Ryzan, Russia

There's nothing that is more predictable than that if you don't stand up a to bully the first time he misbehaves, he will repeat himself ad nauseam until he is stopped.

Thus, when the Kremlin saw little Western opposition to the illegal induction of youth political activist Oleg Kozlovsky a few months ago into the Russian army as a means of silencing him (we were the first Western source to report this incident), it naturally decided the tactic was viable, and has now moved against a second activist. The Other Russia website reports:

A legal case for alleged draft dodging has been mounted against an opposition activist in the Russian city of Kirov. As the Sobkor@ru news agency reported on February 19th, the target of the case is Denis Shadrin, a leader of the local branch of the United Civil Front party. On Tuesday, Shadrin's mother received a call from the local prosecutor's office, and was instructed to appear as a witness for a hearing involving a criminal case initiated against her son. The lead prosecutor told her that the case was being mounted after Shadrin refused to accept an enlistment notice on several occasions.
Shadrin recounted a different story, explaining that he had not been visited by any officers from the military enlistment office, and could not have refused a summons. In his opinion, the staff of the Leninsky district enlistment office were using threats to coerce people into serving as witnesses and signing off that others had renounced their enlistment notices. Furthermore, Shadrin explained that he was not fit for military service for health reasons, as he suffers from scoliosis. Corresponding documents were recently forwarded to the enlistment office.
Denis Shadrin has been targeted by his Kirov prosecutors before. In 2007, a different criminal case charged the activist with "forcible assertion of right." Consequently, a misdemeanor charge was launched. On February 1st, 2008, the case was suspended for lack of evidence by a magistrate of the Kirovsky oblast judicial district.

It's an affront to the very notion of democracy that Western leaders are standing silently by as the cream of Russia's youth is packed off to concentration camps run by the Russian military to be subjected to the worst forms of torture imaginable (conscripts are routinely killed in the most barbaric manner) and silenced utterly, no different than in the days of the Soviet Gulag.

My blog La Russophobe has details about another major human rights activist, Lev Ponomarev, who is now facing persecution by the neo-Soviet regime, including a sensational video Ponomarev obtained documenting horrific human rights abuses in Russian penal colonies.

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

No Country for Old Morons

Filed under: US Elections

Last night at the Academy Award ceremonies in Hollywood, America gave all four of its main acting awards to Europeans (a Spaniard, a Frenchwoman and two Britons -- that's the four joyous winners, pictured above). Name the last time Europe did America a favor like that.

Yet, Americans are supposedly hostile to European cultural virtues?

Oh yeah and, by the way, a billion people tuned in to watch the telecast. Name one other country in the history of the television that can has got the world as interested in what it's doing on the cultural front.

Meanwhile, it looks very much as though a black man -- and not just any black man, mind you, but one whose middle name is the same as our former arch enemy in Iraq and whose last name rhymes with the first name of our current arch enemy in Afghanistan -- will receive a nomination for president of the United States.

Yet, America is supposedly a racist nation. (Note: Sinking to yet another epic new low, the New York Times reported "hushed worry" that Barack Obama will be assassinated. There are no such threats, and to my knowledge no African-American candidate for any office in American history has been assassinated to keep him out of office. Yet the Times reported this story on the front page of its website, opposite a story about how conservatives having "lingering doubts" about John McCain. Shameful. Disgraceful. It's actually sordid. Eww. Yuck.)

We're supposedly in economic decline, yet we lead all major nations of the world in per capita GDP.

We're supposedly poorly educated, yet last year we won more Nobel Prizes than all other nations of the world put together.

Isn't it just about time the America bashers got over themselves?

PS: Speaking of Oscar, Russia was up for two awards last night, foreign- language film and animated short subject. It lost both, and as if to put the boot in Academy voters gave the animated award to a British film on a Russian subject, Peter and the Wolf, and the foreign-language award to an Austrian film about Hitler. Ouch.

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

The Gray Lady, at Waterloo

Filed under:

It's the end of the line for the Gray Lady. It's just that simple. Now the only question is whether she will take the rest of the MSM down with her. Sad, actually, because she still has some staff who can produce brilliant work, such as its major story about Russia which it summarizes: "A new autocracy now governs Russia. Behind a facade of democracy lies a centralized authority that is not reluctant to swat down those who challenge it." It's finally started doing what we've been doing for years now right here on this blog. Better late than never! Hopefully, those with a clue will find work elsewhere, free of the NYT's crazed ideological pathology.

Here's the pathetic sequence on the McCain scandal that shows they're done for:

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

Which Obama Weakness will be Most Lethal?

Filed under: US Elections

References:

Obama is anti-gun.

Obama is pro-illegal immigrant.

Obama is religiously/racially extreme.

Obama is anti-democratic, fomenting a cult of personality. He's been called the "messiah of generation narcissism."

Obama's wife is an anti-American loose cannon.

Obama has no experience and his platform is all image, no substance.

The web is SO over Obama.

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

Russia's "Little Brother" Gone Barbarically Berserk

Filed under: Russia

The Embassy of the United States of America, on Fire in Belgrade, Serbia

The Serbians thought about it for a little while: "Now, how can we prove to the world how reasonable and trustworthy we are," they asked themselves, "and how well we can be trusted to look after Kosovo if the world decides to refuse its declaration of independence?"

And after a while, it occurred to them: "Hey, I know!" they shouted all at once, in unison, as if they only had one brain between them. "We'll go on a berserk, bloodthirsty rampage against unarmed diplomats. We'll raid the U.S. Embassy and burn it to the ground! That will show how wrong the people of Kosovo were to fear us! That will show the NATO allies how reasonable we are, and how wrong they were to doubt us!"

And so they did. Wearing masks to show how proud they were of their actions, as shown above, they attacked the empty building by night, demonstrating not only their reasonableness but also their courage. Their argument is pretty darned convincing, isn't it?

One can only wonder how long it will be before their "big brothers" in Russia take the same valiant approach towards the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. If they need any advice, they can just phone up their good pals in Iran, who have plenty of experience with this sort of thing. The New York Times quoted Serbia's hard-line Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica declaring: "As long as we live, Kosovo is Serbia. We're not alone in our fight. President Putin is with us."

And so he is.

He stands alone, pushing his nation once again into a hopeless conflict with the united West. The BBC reports: "In New York, the 15-member UN Security Council issued a unanimous statement: 'The members of the Security Council condemn in the strongest terms the mob attacks against embassies in Belgrade, which have resulted in damage to embassy premises and have endangered diplomatic personnel.' White House spokesman Dana Perino employed less diplomatic language: 'Our embassy was attacked by thugs.'"

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

Oh Beautiful, for Spacious Skies, for Standard Missile 3's

Filed under:

It was orbiting 130 miles above the Earth and traveling at 17,000 miles per hour.

It had no heat trail to track, cold as ice.

Such a thing had never, ever been done before.

But with one shot from the Lake Erie, an Aegis-class cruiser (yes, that's right, a ship floating on the rolling waves), it was toast.

By the way, did you know that America won more Nobel prizes last year than all other countries in the world . . . combined?

Perhaps rumors of our demise are somewhat exaggerated?

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

2008: A Conspiracy Theory Odyssey

Filed under: US Elections

I've never been much of a one for conspiracy theories, I'm what you might call a lone-gunman girl. But this election cycle is making me think twice.

There are two things John McCain would like to have in order to maximize his chances in the general election: (1) A really inspirational, young conservative running mate; (2) a really vicious smear from the hardcore left. Now, he's got the second in his pocket in the form of a New York Times story alleging without the slightest shred of actual proof that he had some type of lurid relationship with a female lobbyist. Of all things, the allegation is that the story originates with the even more provocative (for conservatives) and discredited New Republic. The right is breathing fire and rallying around McCain as if he were the second coming of Ronald Reagan.

Now, maybe it's just a coincidence, but let's not forget that the New York Times endorsed Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama suddenly seems positioned to take her out. The Times also endorsed McCain. Would it rather see McCain become president than Obama? Are they, as they should be, scared of what might happen if this totally untested, utterly unqualified person becomes president in a time of global tension? Sure, the Times is a left-wing institution and McCain is a Republican. Sure, in theory the editorial board that endorsed Clinton doesn't control news coverage. But what's the alternative? That the Times editors are so stupid that they'd run a story universally being condemned as unfounded whose effect would be to solidify McCain's support with his base while attacking him on the issue where he's least vulnerable? That sounds almost grassy-knollish to me. It seems there is a conspiracy, either to violate the basic precepts of journalism and use any means possible to sink McCain, or actually to get him elected via subterfuge.

And then there's Bill Clinton. Has he really become senile? Is he really capable of putting his foot in his mouth so many times while purporting to campaign for his wife? Or is it the case that he really doesn't want her to win, to the endless frustration of the Times editorial board?

To round things out, one can ask WTF is going on with Mike Huckabee? The man is mathematically excluded from getting the nomination, he's being soundly repudiated in state after state, and yet he keeps running? What's he angling for? Is he helping McCain by keeping the "race" alive so that McCain is seen racking up win after win? Or is he undermining McCain among conservatives, giving them the chance to continue to express a "protest vote"?

We welcome your thoughts, budding mysteriologists.

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

Comes a Feminternet

Filed under: Blogosphere

The New York Times reports that females are taking over the Internet, from the ground up:

A study published in December by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that among Web users ages 12 to 17, significantly more girls than boys blog (35 percent of girls compared with 20 percent of boys) and create or work on their own Web pages (32 percent of girls compared with 22 percent of boys). Girls also eclipse boys when it comes to building or working on Web sites for other people and creating profiles on social networking sites (70 percent of girls 15 to 17 have one, versus 57 percent of boys 15 to 17).

One leading female blogger stated: "'I'm not surprised because girls are very creative,' she said, 'sometimes more creative than men. We're spunky. And boys . . . ' Her voice trailed off to laughter."

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

Treisman Sees the Light . . . Kinda Sorta

Filed under: Russia

One of the surest signs that Vladimir Putin's ship of state is sinking is that the Russophile rats are starting to jump off, into the icy sea, flailing desperately for survival.

Faithful Publius Pundit readers may remember how, over a year ago now, we dismantled some gibberish about Russia published by a fellow called Daniel Treisman, a professor out in California. Treisman, in one of the idiotic rants about Russia that will live in infamy as the neo-Soviet state consolidates, called Russia a "normal country." That's the photograph of Professor Treisman, in a sweatshirt, that he chooses to display on his university's website.

But now, it seems, he's decided to change his tune quite noticeably.

Last time we met him, Treisman was writing in Foreign Policy (albeit with a co-author). Now he's out on his own and has set his sights a bit lower, namely the Moscow Times. In an op-ed piece entitled "What Keeps the Kremlin up at Night," Treisman suddenly discovers that Russia not so "normal"after all, and all I can say is "better late than never." He doesn't, of course, see fit to apologize for past misdeeds.

Treisman states:

To observers of Russia's election campaign, one thing is clear: The Kremlin's political operatives do not want to leave anything to chance. Of eight would-be opposition candidates, all but three have been driven out, either disqualified or discouraged from running. National television reports with breathless excitement on every movement of the Kremlin favorite, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Lest anyone miss the point, polling stations have been told to hang posters accusing Medvedev's rivals of filing fraudulent income declarations. Before the State Duma elections in December, governors were reportedly ordered to deliver at least 65 percent of the vote for United Russia, and there is no reason to think such pressures have stopped.

That's not really very normal, now is it? Indeed, since, as Treisman states, Medvedev is certain to win no matter what the Kremlin does, some people might say it's the opposite of normal, and quite insane. Treisman prefers the term "paranoid" and suggests that, in fact, the Kremlin may simply be manifesting pure spite: "Cutting off its nose to spite its face, the administration chooses to tarnish its international reputation because it views the election monitors and the democracy-rating industries of Washington and Strasbourg as the preserve of anti-Russian hypocrites with self-serving agendas." Alternatively, Putin's actions may be seen, he says, as an effort to establish a perception within the Kremlin that he has a totalitarian grip on power so that no rival oligarch clans will dare to rise to challenge him. In the manner of Stalin, Putin is testing the local leaders who serve him, using the "elections" to weed out those who may be disloyal. Treisman adds: "Once they have dirtied their hands manipulating local elections, the governors are also less likely to metamorphose into anti-Kremlin campaigners for openness and liberal democracy."

Corruption also undermines Medvedev's authority, Treisman says, because if he won a real election he might think he had a mandate; this way, the Kremlin's power brokers can always remind him that corruption is the only reason he's "president." And electoral corruption keeps the maximum lid on revelations about financial corruption, including rumors that Putin himself has embezzled billions in state assets.

Yet in the end, someone as deluded as Professor Treisman just can't help jumping the rails. Not for one single second does he pause to attempt to offer us any advice about how we can resist this malignant regime as Cold War II begins in earnest (indeed, he doesn't even go so far as to acknowledge its existence), much less does he admit the hideous nature of his past errors in misleading us.

On top of that, he includes the outrageous statement that "the government's popularity is no surprise. Under Putin, real wages have tripled and unemployment has fallen sharply." It's amazing that a professor at a major American university could publish a statement that is so misleading.

First, Treisman is speaking about data manufactured by the Kremlin itself, an institution plagued both by gross incompetence and utter dishonesty. A responsible scholar would be aware that the Kremlin's data is not to be taken at face value, and would write "the Kremlin claims real wages have tripled."

Second, one must wonder whether he's even quoting the Kremlin correctly. In its "person of the year" feature a few months ago, for instance, Time magazine said real wages had "more than doubled." So which is it, tripled or doubled? What kind of scholar gives information like this without citing a source?

Third, Treisman doesn't see fit to mention that there is no rational reason to credit Putin with such increases in wages as have occurred. He seems to be suggesting that, since it's "no surprise" the Russian people love Putin, they are either a nation of morons or simply insane, unable to grasp reality. Of course, he may have something there, but he gives no indication of being aware of his own point. He continues this them when he totally ignores the wider insignificance of the data. As Michael Weiss has observed in Pajamas Media: "Real wages have doubled, all right -- from about $200 per month to less than $400 per month. This may be ranked an accomplishment given the utter chaos and endemic poverty that persisted through the capitalist "shock therapy" of the 1990's, yet the increase is still modest, particularly against the gilded flamboyance of the post-oligarchic new class of billionaires. Russia's gross national income is lower than that of Mexico." Is he concluding that Russians are so stupid, or Putin's dictatorship so successful at misinformation, that they are unaware of these basic realities? It's impossible to say from the text he's published, as if he himself didn't actually read it.

Treisman may also be unaware of the basic mathematical realities involved. If you have a population of ten people and one has real wages of $1 million and the others each have $1,333 then the real wage total for the group is $1,010,000 and the average real wage for the group is over $100,000. But nine out of ten members are still living in total poverty, off $3.65 per day. Russia's vast wealth disparity, with a large number of billionaires offset by a vast population that is starving and perishing, makes discussion of concepts like average real wages virtually meaningless.

Finally, Treisman seems not to be aware of the horrifying manner in which inflation, due in part to rising wages, is currently ravaging the Russian economy -- to the extent that Putin has needed to impose price controls on basic foodstuffs.

Treisman then writes something truly bizarre. He claims that the Kremlin should actually favor democracy because "in the long run, it can be the most effective way to protect the interests of insiders." Is he trying to get Putin to accept democracy because it's the best way of consolidating his dictatorship?

So much stupidity makes it hard to take comfort from Treisman's conclusion:

If politics is forced out of public institutions, it spills out onto the streets. The administration is right to fear mass demonstrations, not because Kasparov's supporters are likely to storm the Kremlin, but because there comes a point, as demonstrations grow, at which individuals all along the "power vertical" start to reevaluate their positions. During the August 1991 coup attempt, Generals Pavel Grachev and Yevgeny Shaposhnikov chose not to follow the orders of the organization that tried to implement the putsch, the State Committee for a State of Emergency, as did various second and third-level officers. Such sudden changes of perspective among their mid-level subordinates are what should keep the Kremlin's strategists awake at night.

Yet, he's clearly right. The Kremlin clearly knows that it is illegitimate, just as every other Russian regime has always been, and hence that it can be toppled in the first strong breeze. Putin struts and preens about in the Kremlin talking about courage and manliness, but in fact he's obviously quaking in his boots, to the extent that he is willing to go to the most outrageous and even ridiculous extremes to rig elections. Why not welcome all candidates to the race and defeat them on the level battlefield before the voters, if he is so devastatingly popular? Once victory is in hand, then arrest them if you must.

But Putin knows he can't risk that. And in that sense, if no other, he knows exactly what he is doing.

« Close It

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

Barack Obama: America's Putin?

Filed under: US Elections

Economics guru Robert Samuelson launches a truly devastating attack on Barack Obama, winner of last night's election contests in Hawaii and Wisconsin, in the Washington Post. Samuelson writes: "If you examine his agenda, it is completely ordinary, highly partisan, not candid and mostly unresponsive to many pressing national problems." He accuses him of proposing "standard goody-bag politics" even as he decries such tactics. Then he guts him like a fish on economic policy:

A favorite Obama line is that he will tell "the American people not just what they want to hear but what we need to know." Well, he hasn't so far. Consider the retiring baby boomers. A truth-telling Obama might say: "Spending for retirees -- mainly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- is already nearly half the federal budget. Unless we curb these rising costs, we will crush our children with higher taxes. Reflecting longer life expectancies, we should gradually raise the eligibility ages for these programs and trim benefits for wealthier retirees. Both Democrats and Republicans are to blame for inaction. Waiting longer will only worsen the problem." Instead, Obama pledges not to raise the retirement age and to "protect Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiaries." This isn't "change"; it's sanctification of the status quo. He would also exempt all retirees making less than $50,000 annually from income tax. By his math, that would provide average tax relief of $1,400 to 7 million retirees -- shifting more of the tax burden onto younger workers. Obama's main proposal for Social Security is to raise the payroll tax beyond the present $102,000 ceiling.

I can't help noticing the similarities between Obama and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Both, at the time of seeking power, were totally lacking in credentials. Both have relied upon the formation of creepy personality cults. And Obama, like Putin, has not been tested in the crucible of real criticism, as his fellow Democratic candidates have cravenly refused to engage him for fear of alienating the party's African-American voter base (though at least Obama did stand on the stage for debates while Putin didn't even have the courage to mount it a single time, and Obama faced TV spots which at least mentioned him in some way critically, while Putin never saw one such attack).

In all his rhetoric about telling America what it doesn't want to hear and doing what's "best" for the country, we hear the classic left-wing manifesto, which basically ends up meaning "if you want to save the people, you've got to kill them." In words, Obama is going to do what's "right" for us whether we want it or not, and if anybody gets in his way, well then . . . he'll handle them the way FDR handled the Supreme Court and the Japanese. After all, it's for our own good.

Obama's wife recently said that she hasn't been proud of America for one single second in her whole life, not until it started supporting her husband for president. So she was ashamed all through the Carter presidency, and through the Clinton years ("America's first black president"). She can't be proud of America, in other words, unless she gets what she wants.

That sounds eerily Putinian to me too.

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

NATO 1, Russia 0

Filed under: Russia

The first serious battle of the new Cold War has been fought, and Russia has lost it badly. The Kosovo region of the former Yugoslavia has boldly declared its independence from Serbian enslavement, thumbing its nose at Russian power in the region, and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey have recognized the new country immediately. More than half of the European Union member states support independence, and concerted Russian efforts to block the move proved futile. The EU "is sending a justice and law mission of 2,000 police, judges and administrators to Pristina." The U.S. announced that it "had given $77 million in assistance to Kosovo in 2007 and would raise that amount to roughly $335 million in 2008."

Europe got a valuable insight as to the loyalties of its member states as the new Cold War takes shape, with Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus openly refusing immediate recognition. It's clear that Europe needs to shore up its flanks for the inevitable Russian counterattack, likely in the form of energy warfare.

But Europe also saw that, even in some disarray, it can face down Russian aggression and win notwithstanding Russian bluster and macabre threats, an equally valuable lesson to take into future conflicts.

Russian hypocrisy was on full and nauseating display. While Russians bristle at American influence in the former USSR, arguing that America should remain within its own orbit, Russia has no problem welcoming the support of China into the rogue's gallery of nations that want Serbia to be able to continue to oppress the people of Kosovo, whom it once tried to wipe off the face of the earth. It was most remarkable to hear Boris Tadic, President of Serbia, screeching about "illegal acts" so soon after Serbia visited a horrific litany of outrageous crimes upon Europe, resulting in a forceful military response by NATO.

If Russia is unable to turn back the clock on Kosovo's independence, which seems certain, it's foreseeable that its next move will be to try to use the event as a precedent to try to wedge Abkhazia and South Ossetia, separatist regions in Georgia, into the Russian fold. But Russia will have great difficulty justifying such a move, not only because of the nearly pathological vehemence of the rhetoric Putin has used opposing the Kosovo separation, but also because Russia itself is vulnerable to a massive separatist movement in Chechnya. It will have even more difficulty if NATO, as it must, immediately reaches out to bring Georgia within the welcoming arms of its protection.

What we see in Kosovo is the utter failure of Vladimir Putin's foreign policy. Fueled by a latent frenzy of KGB-indoctrinated hatred of the West and its values, Putin has indulged in an orgy of attacks on the Western powers, alienating and provoking them to an extent that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago. Seemingly oblivious of Russia's relative impotence both militarily and economically, seemingly consumed with shame and rage over Russia's defeat in the first Cold War, Putin has lost not a second in rabidly charging towards a second. Had he been more restrained, he might have had a much stronger bargaining position regarding the Kosovo issue.

Now, the neo-Soviet chickens have come home to roost.

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

It's Come to This: Pakistan is More Civilized than Russia

Filed under: Europe ~ Pakistan ~ Russia ~ South Asia

Andrei Illarionov has been conclusively proven right: Pakistan is more civilized than Russia.

An election has just occurred in Pakistan and that county's military dictator Pervez Musharraf has allowed not one but two viable opposition parties, both dedicated to ousting him from power, not merely to contest the election but to win the overwhelming majority of seats in parliament. As the New York Times reports: "Benazir Bhutto's the Pakistan Peoples Party was on pace to win 110 seats in the 272-seat National Assembly, while a second rival party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, the faction led by Nawaz Sharif, like Ms. Bhutto a former prime minister, was looking to take 100 seats. Musharraf's party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, was crushed, holding on to just 20 to 30 seats." They could kill Bhutto, but they could not stop her from winning a plurality of seats in the new legislature.

Meanwhile, Russia has already held parliamentary elections where not one real opposition party was permitted to take a single seat, and will hold presidential elections the first week in March in which all the real opposition candidates, including former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov and former first deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, have been excluded.

Vladimir Putin: Less democratic than a military dictator. Is that because he has more to fear from the voters?

How is it possible that country that is less democratic than a military dictator is a member of the G-8, one of the most significant democracy organizations in the world?

Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us |

digg |

technorati |

stumble upon |

furl |

February 2008 Archives

Filed under: Russia

Filed under: Russia

Filed under: Russia

Filed under: Russia

Filed under: Asia

Filed under:

Filed under: Russia

Filed under: Russia

Filed under: US Elections

Filed under:

Filed under: US Elections

Filed under: Russia

Filed under:

Filed under: US Elections

Filed under: Blogosphere

Filed under: Russia

Filed under: US Elections

Filed under: Russia

Filed under: Europe ~ Pakistan ~ Russia ~ South Asia

The Russian George Bush<