February 26, 2010 — Contents

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 26 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Russia’s secret Starvation

(2)  EDITORIAL:  The KGB escalates its War on Russian Journalists

(3)  EDITORIAL: Russia is a Nation of Barbarians

(4)  Putin’s Potemkin Opposition

(5)  Annals of Shamapova

NOTE:  Ouch!  The new president of Ukraine will make his first official state visit abroad to Europe, not Russia.  Can’t you just hear those poor Russophile hearts breaking?

EDITORIAL: Russia’s Secret Starvation

EDITORIAL

Russia’s Secret Starvation

According to Ilya Dashkovsky of the Russian publication Krestyanskiye Vedemosti and other sources cited by the ever-brilliant Paul Goble in a recent post, in 1990, as the Soviet economy collapsed into ruin, an average Russian consumed 75 kilograms of meat.  Today, he consumes 61.

According to Dashkovsky, in 1990 such a Russian consumed 387 kilograms of milk products, but today it’s just 247 kilograms.

Then, 297 eggs. Now, 256.

Russians are replacing these key proteins with bread, potatoes and sugar in order to maintain their body mass.  The exclusion of basic food groups from the Russian diet leads to secret starvation and malnutrition.

And the “average” Russians are the lucky ones.

EDITORIAL: The KGB Escalates its war on Russian Journalists

EDITORIAL

The KGB Escalates its war on Russian Journalists

According to the tireless Andrei Soldatov of the Agentura.ru website, the KGB (now known as the FSB) has embarked upon a major new escalation of its warn on Russian journalists.

Soldatov points to FSB director Aleksandr Bortnikov’s Order No. 343 of July 15, 2009, which not only vastly expands the number of KGB who have the power to conduct surveillance over civil society, but for the first time includes members of the FSB’s Administration of Program Support, which is responsible for work with journalists, and the administration’s Center for Public Contacts.  This means that journalists are now fully subject to the interception of mail and telephone and all other forms surveillance carried out by the FSB.

What’s disturbing about this is not really that the FSB is formally providing for a neo-Soviet control over journalists, but that it is doing so openly, without fear of reprisal.

The FSB has good reason, of course, to be worried.

EDITORIAL: Russia is a Nation of Barbarians

EDITORIAL

Russia is a Nation of Barbarians

In our comments section below, a YouTube video is displayed.  Take care before you view it, it isn’t for the squeamish.

In it, a Russian driver in the city of Irkutsk plows into a group of pedestrians, seriously injuring them.

The driver’s airbags deploy and the driver is uninjured, while the car is heavily damaged.

The driver gets out of the car . . . and the only thing she’s interested in doing is checking out the damage to her precious vehicle.

No other drivers stop to help.

Pedestrians walk right by.  None of them stop to help either.

No criminal charges were filed against the driver.

Russia is a nation of barbarians.

Putin and his Potemkin “Opposition”

The New York Times reports:

For a few days this month, Moscow political circles were transfixed by a rather exotic spectacle: the leader of an opposition party was criticizing Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.

This was not just any leader. It was Sergei M. Mironov, whose career in the opposition has been distinguished by passionate loyalty to Mr. Putin. When he ran against Mr. Putin for president in 2004, he said he was running because “when a leader you believe in goes into battle, you can’t leave him alone, you must stand with him.” Two years later he promised that A Just Russia, his new party, would “follow the course of President Vladimir Putin and will not allow anyone to veer from it after Putin leaves his post.”

Annals of Shamapova

The recent photo of Maria Sharapova, supposedly one of the most beautiful women in the world and definitely the hottest babe on the WTA Tour, is rather shocking.  Look at it closely (click to enlarge):   Her hair is mousey, her skin is ghastly, her eyes are puffy and she looks much, much older than her years. If we squint, we swear we can see signs of five o’clock shadow.   Published on the WTA website, even the tournament itself knew how bad it was.  As a result,  when they wanted to publish a photo array to draw some publicity, it was followed by a large number of photos of our gal Shamapova taken years ago, even at the beginning of her career, as if we’d forget about this one.

Maria, of course, has good reason to be aging rapidly.  And no, we’re not talking about her psycho father Yuri, either.