August 26, 2011 — Contents

FRIDAY AUGUST 26 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Russia, Nation of Sociopaths

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Here come the Russian Rapists!

(3)  EDITORIAL: Mickey Mouse, Banned in Russia

(4)  Georgia Exposes Russian Barbarism

(5)  Remembering the Last Iron Curtain

(6)  Russian Sin in Cincinnati

(7)  PHOTOGRAPHS:  Russia Comes to Life

NOTE: Russia has experienced a second spectacular, humiliating disaster in space in as many weeks, and yet another Russian munitions dump  has exploded in firey horror.  How many times can a Russian man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn’t see?

EDITORIAL: Russia, Nation of Sociopaths

EDITORIAL

Russia, Nation of Sociopaths

The news out of Russia on August 20, 2011, was truly nauseating.

Russia stood alone to support mass-murdering Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad while the rest of the world condemned his latest blood orgy.  Russia even went so far as to seek to fan the flames of Arab nationalism across the region.

It invited mass-murdering North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Il for a friendly visit.

It loaned billions to mass-murdering Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez so he could buy even more weapons.

And it ratcheted up its foreign policy initiatives to assist the mass-murdering dictator of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

And remember: That’s just one day in the life of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, an nation of sociopaths that takes pride and pleasure in joining forces with the world’s worst maniacs and which has chosen to be ruled by a proud KGB spy, a representative of the worst mass-murdering group of psychopaths ever to tread the earth.

EDITORIAL: Here Come the Russian Rapists

EDITORIAL

Here Come the Russian Rapists

Russia and its Real Men

Russians are fond of working themselves up in to a state of high outrage whenever they hear stories about Russians being abused in foreign lands (like the recent incident in which a Russian adoptee was made to drink hot sauce by his new mother, or the incident where a mother returned her adopted child to Russia).

But good luck getting Russians to manage as much as a yawn when they learn about shocking acts of abuse by Russians against foreigners — that is, if state-sponsored Russian media even report such incidents at all, which they usually do not.

Take for instance the brutal gang-rape of a young Malaysian student at Bellerbys College in London, where tuition is £30,000 ($50,000) a year.   The wolf pack of four Russian students who drugged and then attacked her over the course of more than two hours, filming the savage assault with a cell phone and “celebrating like footballers” as they mauled the helpless fellow student, showed “callous disregard for (the victim) as a human being and a callous disregard for her as anything other than an object” according to the judge who sentenced them to prison in Woolwich Crown Court.

EDITORIAL: Mickey Mouse, Banned in Russia

EDITORIAL

Mickey Mouse, Banned in Russia

In 1995 the Russian artist Alexander Savko painted a series of images interposing the face of Mickey Mouse onto famous historical scenes, like the one above.

Last week, a Russian court determined that Savko’s image of the Sermon on the Mount with Mickey Mouse (shown after the jump) was “extremist” and illegal and banned it from public display.

Georgia Exposes Russian Barbarism

Alexei Pankin, writing in the Moscow Times:

It is difficult to imagine a greater joy than visiting Georgia.

Amazingly, the blood spilled in the Russia-Georgia war three years ago has not cooled the warm feelings that Georgians feel toward Russians, and that is the result of several centuries of living together in one nation. And because few Russians now visit the country — made worse by the fact that there are only three overpriced flights per week between Moscow and Tbilisi — those who do come are treated to an outpouring of the great love that Georgians feel for all Russians.

Remembering the Last Iron Curtain as the New One Descends

Vladimir Kara-Murza, writing on his blog Spotlight on Russia, remembers the end of the old Iron Curtain as the new one descends across the continent:

Just the same, no simpler
Are the tests of our times:
Can you come to the square?
Dare you come to the square?
Can you come to the square?
Dare you come to the square?
When that hour strikes?

— Alexander Galich, St. Petersburg Romance (1968)

On August 19, 1991, Muscovites awakened to the sound of tanks. In a fitting conclusion to the decades of Soviet tyranny, the tanks that once rolled on the streets of Budapest, Prague, and Vilnius, came to the heart of Russia. By mid-morning, Moscow was occupied by troops. Television channels were broadcasting Swan Lake, interrupted only by pale-faced news anchors who read out decrees by self-proclaimed “acting president” Gennady Yanayev declaring a state of emergency, suspending most constitutional rights, shutting down newspapers and radio stations, and announcing the formation of a new governing body—the “State Committee on the State of Emergency” (known by its Russian acronym, GKChP), composed of the top Communist leadership, including the vice president, the prime minister, the minister of defense, and the chairman of the KGB. Their objective: to save the rapidly crumbling Soviet dictatorship

If history was any indicator, the coup was bound to succeed.

Russian Sin in Cincinnati

Such a mysterious (and painful) orb!

The stadium court in Cincinnati, Ohio, stood humiliatingly half empty on August 21st as the women’s final of the WTA’s Western & Southern Open began.

The reason was simple: Russia’s second best player, the hapless and grating Maria Sharapova was playing. Had a second Russian stood on the court opposite, the place might well have been entirely vacant.

PHOTOGRAPHS: Russia Comes to Life

Artemy Lebedev is a Russian designer and restauranteur who blogs as “Tema” on the LiveJournal forum.  He recently posted a series of four photographs taken by another LJ blogger, Internallife, which we republish after the jump.  They are interesting because they seamlessly integrate partial animation.  In one photo the model’s belly rises and falls while she breathes, in other she blinks her eyes, creating a startling contrast.  The images drew nearly 700 comments on Lebedev’s blog, and show that Russians are capable of doing really clever things sometimes, if they choose to apply themselves.

They also so how utterly corrupt Russia really is, because they show up only in the context of borderline pornography and other low pursuits, some actually criminal like hacking and piracy.  Though the photographers assure readers that the model is of legal age and employed, she looks like a child, and why must this technique be shown in this context? Why not something a little more . . . civilized? Why can’t these Russians see that that if they need to assure readers the woman is of legal age, they probably should have considered a different model, or an non-sexual way of showing their talent.  Such moral thoughts seem totally beyond Russia’s ken.  In light of our editorial in today’s issue about a brutal gang-rape of a drugged female student in London, these photos offer a terrifying type of insight about the attitude of Russians towards their women.

Anyway, it’s too much Russia in a nutshell (and we do mean nut!) for us to overlook.  If you cannot see the animation, try a different browser or click through the original on Tema’s website.

WARNING:  NUDITY FOLLOWS! EXERCISE DISCRETION!

August 19, 2011 — Contents

FRIDAY AUGUST 19 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Sacrilege at Seliger

(2)  EDITORIAL:  No to WTO

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Putin Spits on Russia

(4)  EDITORIAL:  Oops! Ouch!

(5)  Ostrich Putin

(6)  One Picture is Worth a Thousand Screams

NOTE:  LR founder and publisher Kim Zigfeld’s latest piece on the powerful and influential American Thinker blog examines the latest love fest between the American-hating dictator of Cuba and the equally America-loathing dictator of Russia. 

NOTE:   Leading opposition activist Vladimir Milov has married a hottie.

EDITORIAL: Sacrilege at Seliger

EDITORIAL

Sacrilege at Seliger

Vladmir Putin is no stranger to hypocrisy. For example, though calling the USA a “parasite” whose economy is not based on productivity and which therefore is unreliable and harmful, under Putin Russian investment in the US economy has increased by a stunning one thousand six hundred percent.

Putin deals with hypocrisy of this kind they way Soviet rulers like him always have: He lies to his people, seeking to cultivate a nation of thoughtless automatons who can do nothing but worship at his feet.  It all begin with the youngest, at summer camp, the way it always did in the USSR.

In the photo above, two participants in the Kremlin’s Hitler-Jugend variant, Camp Seliger (one with a bra with eyes drawn on the outside of her t-shirt) walk past a billboard showing the faces of Dmitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin weirdly fused into a single person, with the explanation “they are interchangeable.”

Elsewhere at the installation, campers walk by a row of photographs of Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Boris Nemtsov, Eduard Limonov and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, under the banner:  “Losers of the Year.”

EDITORIAL: Russia in the WTO? Just say NO!

EDITORIAL

Russia in the WTO? Just say NO!

Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) was another of Yeltsin’s ideas – and with much the same purpose. If implemented, that idea would make Russia dependent on imports of foodstuffs and just about everything else the exporting countries would like to sell against their Russian rivals, after the latter were to give up their competitive price advantages, such as cheap energy, cheap land, cheap transportation, cheap fertilizer, etc. So, if Russia were a democracy, the WTO terms of accession for Russia – now 18 years in the negotiation – wouldn’t have a chance of acceptance.

We are not shy about saying that we want to see Vladimir Putin’s police state in Russia utterly destroyed.  Nor do we disagree with the brilliant John Helmer’s analysis, quoted above, which concludes that admission to the WTO would be extremely harmful, if not a fatal toxin, to the Putin regime.  But we still vehemently oppose Russian admission.

EDITORIAL: Putin Spits on Russia

EDITORIAL

Putin Spits on Russia

The most outrageous and repulsive feature of the USSR was its brazen, naked contempt for its own citizens. It tortured and murdered them with reckless abandon and it lied to them as if they were idiotic children.  Proud KGB spy Vladimir Putin, a decrepit relic of the USSR, is continuing that tradition with relish.

EDITORIAL: Oops!!! Ouch!!!

EDITORIAL

Oops!!!  Ouch!!!

Oops!!!  Oops II!!!

Ouch!!! 

Nuff said.

Putin Fails, then Sticks Head in Sand

Pavel Baev, writing on the Jamestown Foundation website:

The volatile turbulence that battered the world economy last week should have passed Russia by, but it did not. Indeed, Russia is not burdened by a massive debt, is spared political feuds about budget cuts and is not even exposed to the looming Greek default; nevertheless, its stock exchange fell deeper than most. The Dow Jones index, for that matter, opens this Monday on about the same level where it was a week ago, while the RTS slipped from the plateau of about 11,600 to a low of 9,600 and barely bounced to 9,900 on Friday (Kommersant, August 13). Certainly, the speculative games are only a symptom, and not necessarily a reliable one, of the real economic trends, but statistics suggest that Russia’s economic growth slowed down in the second quarter, and experts argue that the country is entering into the new phase of turmoil, for which it is not any better prepared than it was in mid-2008 (www.newsru.com, August 10; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 12).

One Photo is Worth a Thousand Screams

A Ukrainian Gestapo goon pulls down the pants of a helpless FEMEN protester for a little peek at her anatomy while dragging her down from the roof of a vehicle as she heroically protested the clearly illegal prosecution of Yulia Tymoshenko in Kiev last week.

August 12, 2011 — Contents

FRIDAY AUGUST 12 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Obama the Traitor

(2) EDITORIAL:  Another Russian Stock Market Crash

(3) EDITORIAL:  Ukraine off the Reservation

(4)  Russia was the Aggressor in Ossetia

(5)  Russians are Big Losers Under Putin

(6)  Moscow is Hell on Earth for Shoppers

(7)  A Russian Catastrophe in Carlesbad

EDITORIAL: Barack Obama, Traitor to his Country

EDITORIAL

Barack Obama, Traitor to his Country

On August 2, 2011, ITAR-TASS published an interview between its CEO Mikhail Gusman, appointed to his job by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin because ITAR-TASS is the Kremlin’s official newswire mouthpiece, and U.S. President Barack Obama.

In it, Obama stated:

I think it’s important for us to look back over the last two years and see the enormous progress we’ve made. I started talking about reset when I was still a candidate for President, and immediately reached out to President Medvedev as soon as I was elected. And we have been I think extraordinarily successful partners in moving towards reset.

Reading this statement, there is only one conclusion that a thoughtful, well-informed Russia watcher can come to: Obama is a liar and a traitor to his country who must be immediately impeached and removed from office.

EDITORIAL: The Dog Days of August for the Russian Stock Market

EDITORIAL

The Dog Days of August for the Russian Stock Market

The Dog Days of Russian August put the Bite on the Russian Stock Market

August is historically a nasty month for Russia.  And true to form, in the first ten days of the month this year, the Russian stock market lost a truly breathtaking 20% of its value, plunging from 2000 to 1600 on the dollar-denominated RTS index.  The losses were actually far worse than they appeared, because the Kremlin had been feverishly pumping Russia’s precious reserves into the market to artificially inflate demand and limit the damage.

But even worse than the numbers was the reason for them.  Julian Rimmer, a broker in Russian shares at CF Global Trading in London, explained:  “Russia is entirely hostage to external factors. The only thing which can arrest the decline would be some form of concerted — and simultaneous — central bank policy response. The perceived lethargy and lack of unanimity is extremely damaging.”

“Entirely hostage.”  Ouch.  “Lethargy.”  Double ouch. Nice work there, Mr. Putin!

EDITORIAL: Ukraine, off the Reservation

EDITORIAL

Ukraine, off the Reservation

Victor Yanukovich

What we are witnessing these days in Ukraine is truly one of the most astounding developments in the modern history of the region.

When Victor Yanukovich was elected president of Ukraine in February 2010 over rival Yulia Tymoshenko, many Russophiles may have thought it was a big win for Russia.  But recent events indicate it may become one of Russia’s biggest nightmares.

On the surface, Yanukovich’s sensational arrest and prosecution of Tymoshenko following his election may have seemed like an aggressive move to silence a tough critic of the Moscow Kremlin.  Looking deeper, however, it’s anything but that.

Get it Straight: Russia was the Aggressor Against Georgia in 2008

In a truly epic act of personal and professional courage, hero journalist Yulia Latynina sides with Georgia against Russia in the 2008 war, telling it like it is for all to see regardless of the consequences, in the mighty pages of the Moscow Times:

There are two versions of how World War II started. The first is that the Polish military attacked a German radio station in Gleiwitz. The second is that Adolf Hitler’s army invaded Poland.

Similarly, there are two versions of how the Russia-Georgia war began in August 2008.

Russians: We are More Corrupt, and Hopelessly Sick, under Putin

Marc Bennetts, writing on RIA Novosti, points out that a majority of Russians now believe their country is more corrupt under Vladimir Putin than it was under Yeltsin, and one member of the Russian Duma believes the country is “seriously sick and may already be untreatable.”

The recent brutal slaying of a family of five – including three small children – in a provincial town near Moscow was enough to shock even Russia, a country with some of the highest murder rates in the world, and led a parliamentarian to suggest the killings were a sign that the country was “sick.” Perhaps incurably so.

The bodies of the 35-year-old woman, her three boys aged four, five and nine, and their grandmother were found stacked up in a bathroom in an apartment in Tula, some 200 kilometers from Moscow, late on August 1.

Moscow’s Hell on Earth for Shoppers, Tourists, Everyone

Briton in Russia Clare Taylor, blogging at the Moscow Times, explains what it’s like to face the Russian retail establishment, which is in no significant way different from what it was in Soviet times. It sees customers as an annoying problem and it is not equipped or interested enough to deal with them properly.  This is why Russian can’t compete in international markets and can’t attract a large number of tourists.  (FYI, children don’t have the experience to know when shoes fit properly, and therefore can’t help parents when seeking to determine if they do. That’s why careful parents want their kids’ feet measured when buying new shoes.)

Back in May, my sons were in need of new shoes, and, I must admit, I had been putting it off. I was hoping against hope that the canvas sneakers I picked up for them in London on a solo trip over there in April would stay the course until our summer break when we would be back in the land of less expensive and — crucially — expertly fitted footwear. What’s that you say? Muscovite children wear shoes, too, and amazingly, they even fit? That fact is obviously true, but based on our experiences shoe shopping in Moscow, for the life of me I can’t work out how.

Russian Collapse in Carlsbad

Another one of those days for a hapless Russian #1.

Russia’s best female tennis player, world #3 Vera Zvonareva, made a little trip out to Carlsbad, California the first week of August to play in the WTA Mercury Insurance Open.  She had her little holiday planned out so nicely.

What made the tournament attractive for Zvonareva was that she would be seeded number 1 and the number 2 seed would be Andrea Petkovic  of Germany, ranked #11 in the world. In other words, no other top ten player besides the Russian even entered the tournament, so Zvonareva would have a cake walk to the title and a pile of virtually free rankings points.

But the best-laid plans of mice and Russians gang aft agley!  Despite her sweet little scheme, Zvonareva barely even made it to the finals and did not come close to taking the title.

August 5, 2011 — Contents

FRIDAY AUGUST 5 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  The Wheels come off the Putin Regime

(2)  EDITORIAL:  The Horror of Russian Barbarism

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Russia Stuffs her Face with American Eats

(4)  Obama Brings down a New Iron Curtain

(5)  Russia will not Last to 2020

(6)  Why do Russians Hate Ice?

(7)  CARTOON:  In Russian Eden

NOTE:  Over on American Thinker, LR publisher and founder Kim Zigfeld reveals that just after calling the USA a nation of “parasites” Vladimir Putin had his bestie Barack Obama put on a postage stamp. That’s because Obama hates Americans as much as Putin does? Nice. 

NOTE:   We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, there’s simply no idiot like a Russian idiot.

NOTE:  We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, there’s simply no maniac like a Russian maniac.

EDITORIAL: The Wheels come Off the Putin Regime

EDITORIAL

The Wheels come Off the Putin Regime

Four stunning recent events showed how the wheels are coming off the dictatorial regime of Vladimir Putin.

First, Putin was humiliated by being denied Germany’s annual Quadriga award after international pressure forced the Germans to publicly withdraw it.

Then, a new public opinion poll revealed that Putin is becoming just as unpopular at home as he is abroad.

Then it got much worse.