September 27, 2010 — Contents

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 27 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL: Putin’s Bloody mahem against Children

(2)  EDITORIAL: Russian Hypocrisy knows no Bounds

(3)  The Craven Obamaniacs, Complicit in Dictatorship

(4)  Brutal Sexism Continues in Putin’s Russia

(5)  The Collapse of Science in Putin’s Russia

(6) Sidorov on the Luzhkov Fiasco

NOTE:  If you have Facebook you can watch an amusing and charming Photoshop video of Yulia Tymoshenko, to the beat of the late great Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman.”

EDITORIAL: Putin’s Bloody mayhem against Children

EDITORIAL

Putin’s Bloody mayhem against Children

Did you know that one Russian woman is murdered by her husband every single hour in Vladimir Putin‘s Russia?  Did you know that there are 8,736 hours in a year?  As we report in today’s issue, Russian women are being slaughtered in their homes by their drunken, violent, crazed “husbands” with horrifying regularity, and not once during his rule over the country has the demonic dictator spoken out against it. One can only infer that he approves, and perhaps engages in the same type of violence himself.

But Russia’s conduct towards women is nothing compared to what it does to its children.

EDITORIAL: Russian Hypocrisy knows no Bounds

EDITORIAL

Russian Hypocrisy knows no Bounds

Anyone who knows Russia even casually has heard it many times:  It’s wrong to publicly criticize government leaders, it undermines their authority and their ability to do good for people.  That’s why the state has to control all the major TV stations and newspapers, and become a national cheerleader to inspire Russians who would otherwise give up hope in dealing with the horrific problems they face every day.

It’s total crap, of course, but OK, let’s go with it.  Assuming the Kremlin is right, how in the world can it possibly justify suddenly using a massive TV campaign to attack Yuri Luzhkov, the Mayor of Moscow, last week?

The Craven Obamaniacs, Complicit in Dictatorship

David J. Kramer, writing in the Washington Post:

After opposition protests in Russia were violently suppressed in May, July and August, spokesmen for the National Security Council and the State Department expressed “concern” and “regret” that Russian authorities were not respecting the freedom of assembly. During the May 31 crackdown, one journalist who days before had interviewed NSC Russia expert Michael McFaul had his arm broken. When McFaul and Undersecretary of State William Burns met with a group of human rights activists and others this month in Moscow, longtime activist Lev Ponomaryov was notably absent. He had been arrested for giving an interview critical of the mayor of Moscow during which he allegedly “stepped on the foot of a militia officer.” Burns lamely called it “regrettable” that Ponomaryov was unable to attend.

Brutal Sexism Continues in Putin’s Russia

Radio Free Europe reports:

It’s one of the most visible changes on Moscow’s streets. Twenty years ago, you could go weeks without seeing a single woman driver. Now it seems there’s a woman behind the wheel of every second car.

One of them is Lera Labzina, who’s been driving for two years and says that makes her “very, very happy.”

“Driving represents another step toward women’s independence,” she says.

More on the Collapse of Science in Putin’s Russia

To put it simply, Russia’s best and brightest are morons, hardly surprising given the horrifying facts in our lead editorial about Russia’s ordinary citizens as child and women killers.  Professor Konstantin Sonin, writing in the Moscow Times:

On Saturday, pages from the English version of the Russian Academy of Sciences web site contained several amusing translation errors. For example, the renowned Institute for Protein Research was incorrectly named “Squirrel Institute.” (The Russian word for protein, belok, is similar to the word for squirrel, belka.)

Bloggers — many of whom are employed by Russian Academy of Sciences institutions — did not know whether to laugh or cry. In fact, there were a number of amusing mistakes, all of which seemed to be the result of running the Russian text through online translators and then failing to edit the result.

The sad part is that these mistakes went unnoticed for quite some time. This episode was just one more blow to the reputation of the academy’s leadership, especially following Russian Academy of Sciences president Yury Osipov’s recent comment that there is no compelling need for Russian scholars to know English.

Sidorov on the Luzhkov Fiasco

Dmitri Sidorov, Washington correspondent for Kommersant, has a great new blog on the Forbes website. Here’s his post on the Luzhkov fiasco:

President Dmitry Medvedev’s awkward attempts to fire Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov during the past two weeks look pathetic, and serve as yet another indication of his very limited authorities when it comes to running the country. In reality, no one except for the Kremlin inner circle knows what triggered a scandal. However, my sources in Moscow insist that economic dispute between Medvedev and Luzhkov teams led to the Russian president’s rage.