Well, Craig, given your uncanny similarity to your role model Sarah Palin, I don’t expect you to be aware of a newspaper called “New York Times”. However, if you visit their web site, you will find an article there on the Medvedev-Luzhkov altercation. In particular, it says:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/world/europe/24moscow.html

But a slight jab at President, Dmitri A. Medvedev could now bring the mayor’s once inviolable authority to ruin. In a recent article, Mr. Luzhkov appeared to criticize the president for indecisiveness, while seeming to call for his predecessor, Vladimir V. Putin, now prime minister, to return to the presidency.

“He intended to try to push a wedge between Medvedev and Putin,” said Gleb O. Pavlovsky, a political consultant who advises the Kremlin.

“As the elections approach, there are people in the presidential administration who are afraid that the mayor will support not President Medvedev, but Prime Minister Putin,” she said in an interview with the Russian news magazine, The New Times, published this week.

In other words, Medvedev took his shots at Luzhkov for the latter’s support for Putin for president in 2012.

Yes, the Russian politics are still feudal, but your thinking that Medvedev is the all-powerfull “king” is sadly mistaken: Putin is still the biggest king, but this last incident gives pro-european-minded Russians hope that Medvedev is finally beginning to fight against the Putin cabal.

On the one hand, I applaud your tolerance and the fact that you don’t filter or censor posts. On the other hand, there must be a limit to how much damage a saboteur like Andrew can inflict on your site. Andrew’s modus operandi at the LR blog is: whenever he sees a topic that’s damaging to what he perceives as his “cause”, he takes a dump of thousands and thousands of lines of totally irrelevant off-topic cut-and-paste garbage, thus making the topic unreadable. That’s what he has done to you here on this page. I would recommend deleting any dump like that. Make the cut-off at, say, 2,000 words and delete the rest.

@Peter who wrote: “Sorry to disappoint you, but Putin did say “Stalin” instead of “Lenin” — but clearly this time it was just a verbal slip…“

No. Can’t you read? Let me remind you:

Владимир Путин выдержал паузу: – “У меня встречный вопрос. Кромвель был лучше или хуже Сталина?”

In case your Russian is rusty, this says:

Putin took a long pause: “I have a counter-question for you. Was Cromwell better or worse than Stalin?”

“Counter-question”! That means “a different question”. So, Putin changed from Lenin to Stalin on purpose and openly told the journalist that he was asking a DIFFERENT question. Unfortunately, the original translation here was: “another question”, which hides this fact. So, everything was on the up and up. As always, it was lost in the translation.

Peter continued: “… rather than yet another demonstration of his hopeless inability to handle unscripted questions.“

Nonsense. You are for some weird reason confusing Putin with Bush. Putin is the smart one. Bush and Palin are the retards. Here are some typical videos and quotes of Bush and Palin answering unscripted questions:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2008/1001/couric-strikes-again-asks-palin-impossible-question

Couric strikes again – asks Palin impossible question:

It was a pretty simple question. “When it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?” Couric asked.

“I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media,” Palin responded.

You think Couric may have had a follow-up to that response? You’d be correct. And it wasn’t a devious follow-up. In fact, it was two words. “What specifically?”

Same response. “Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years,” Palin said.

Palin On Foreign Policy
“Exclusive”: Katie Couric talks with Gov. Sarah Palin about her foreign policy experience and Alaska’s proximity to Russia

Bush Speech on Tribal Sovereignty
“Mr. President, what does tribal sovereignty mean in the 21 st century?”
“Tribal sovereignty means that: it’s sovereign. it’s, you’re a, you’re a — you’ve been given sovereignty, and you’re — viewed as a sovereign entity……. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and —– tribes is one between —— sovereign entities.”

Bush “Fool Me Once…”
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee—I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee…. — that says: “fool me once – shame on……… shame on …… you? You fool me—you can’t get fooled again!”

“You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” –interview with CBS News’ Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushismvideos/youtube/bushharmamerica.htm

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” –Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushvideos/youtube/bush-obgyns.htm

“Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.”

“Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?” -Florence, South Carolina, Jan. 11, 2000

“I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.” –Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008

“The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.” –Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 2001

“I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.” –Washington, D.C., March 13, 2002

“Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.” –in parting words to world leaders at his final G-8 Summit, punching the air and grinning widely as those present looked on in shock, Rusutsu, Japan, July 10, 2008

“I wish you’d have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it…I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn’t yet…I don’t want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I’m confident I have. I just haven’t — you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I’m not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.” –after being asked to name the biggest mistake he had made, Washington, D.C., April 3, 2004

“For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It’s just unacceptable. And we’re going to do something about it.” –Philadelphia, Penn., May 14, 2001

“They misunderestimated me.” –Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000

“I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound largemouth bass in my lake.” –on his best moment in office, interview with the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, May 7, 2006

George W Bush Comedy Quotes

“I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.” –Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000

“Do you have blacks, too?” –to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2001

Reporter: Is the tide turning in Iraq? — Bush: “I think – tide turning – see, as I remember, I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of, it’s easy to see a tide turn……….. Did I say those words?” June 14, 2006

“You are working hard to put food on your family.” –Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000

“My pro-life position is: I believe there’s life. It’s not necessarily based in religion. I think there’s a life there, therefore the notion of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” – Quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 23, 2001

“Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better” September 24, 2001

Tell me: can a man, who signs Glenn Beck’s paycheck, be trusted with the lives of Americans?!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100820/bs_yblog_upshot/news-corps-number-two-shareholder-funded-terror-mosque-planner

News Corp’s number-two shareholder funded ‘terror mosque’ planner

The opponents of the proposed Cordoba Initiative Islamic center planned for Lower Manhattan are fond of suggesting, by way of lengthy and often confusing chains of causation and association, that its principal planner, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is connected to terrorism. “The imam has been tied to some shady characters,” Fox Business Channel’s Eric Bolling recently said, “so should we worry that terror dollars could be funding the project?” Blogger Pamela Geller, who has become a regular talking head on cable-news channels to denounce the mosque, has noted Rauf’s involvement with a Malaysian peace group that funded the group that organized the Gaza flotilla under the headline, “Ground Zero Imam Rauf’s ‘Charity’ Funded Genocide Mission.”

On last night’s “Daily Show,” Jon Stewart skewered these antics as a “dangerous game of guilt by association you can play with almost anybody,” and proceeded to tie Fox News to al-Qaida by connecting Fox News parent News Corp’s second-largest shareholder, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, to the Carlyle Group, which has done business with the bin Laden family, “one of whose sons — obviously I’m not going to say which one — may be anti-American.” But Stewart didn’t need to take all those steps to make the connection: Al-Waleed has directly funded Rauf’s projects to the tune of more than $300,000. If Fox newscasters can darkly suggest “terror dollars” are sluicing into the Islamic center’s coffers via “shady characters,” then are Al-Waleed, and News Corp. leader Rupert Murdoch, by the same logic, also terror stooges? (The “Daily Show” video appears after the jump.)

————————-

And BTW, notice the uncanny resemblance between this Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal character and Father Guido Sarducci:

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100727-707630.html

MOSCOW (Dow Jones)–BP’s new chief executive designate Robert Dudley and outgoing incumbent Tony Hayward will travel to Russia to meet with government officials and BP’s business partners in Russia, a company spokesman said Monday.

Hayward, who already served on the board of BP Russian joint venture TNK-BP from 2003 to 2007, will be nominated again for that board as he’s replaced by Dudley at the helm of BP Oct. 1. Hayward in the past regularly met with Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, the powerful official who overseas Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s energy policy, and Hayward has a good working relationship with the energy czar, the spokesman said.

“He was coming regularly, coming to Moscow every two or three months,” Buyanov said. He declined to comment on Hayward’s possible compensation.
———————

In other words, Hayward was trained in Moscow by SVR to destroy the American environment, and having succeeded, he now returns to Moscow for further training.

Will the FBI arrest him before he leaves America? And what kind of a mass murderer will they exchange him for?

Your reply to me puzzled me in its absence of logic. You have twisted and spun everything.

“So you’ve shown us that you can cherry-pick lovely Russian songs and mean, nasty English, American and French songs. So what?”

Are you serious? I didn’t “cherry-pick mean, nasty English, American and French songs.” I quoted national anthems. Do you understand the concept of the national anthem? it is the most important song in the country. Every American, Brit and Frenchman – especially Presidents/PMs and other political leaders – sings these lyrics many-many times each year.

And I didn’t ” cherry-pick lovely Russian songs”. We are talking about one particular song – “Where homeland begins” – that Putin sang. It has a beautiful (to Russians) melody and very normal, inoffensive peace-loving lyrics. So, what’s wrong with singing it? My own parents were anti-Soviet dissidents and they sang it.

“The point is that Putin sat around singing Soviet patriotic songs,…“

Yes, it is patriotic. Yes, it is a song. Yes, it was written by two Jews and sung by a third Jew during the Soviet period of 1917-1991. But it is not a “Soviet patriotic” song. It says nothing about Lenin, Stalin, communism, socialism or collectivization. It doesn’t even mention Soviet Union. It is a universal song, saying that patriotism means love for parents, neighbors and friends; love for the countryside; and love for one’s own language, books and learning. The lyrics apply to any country. Here is a YouTube video applied to Israeli patriotism:

It has received 37,223 views so far. Ironically, the singer of that particular version is an Estonian: Georg Ots.

“He didn’t sing patriotic Russian songs…“

This is not a patriotic Russian song?! Why? Because you don’t consider Russian Jews to be Russians?

What do you mean by “patriotic Russian songs”? Songs like “God save the Czar”? Very few popular songs in Russia, USA or anywhere else pre-date 1917. The vast majority of the popular songs were written after 1917.

“He didn’t sing folk songs. He didn’t sing pop songs…”

Yes, he did. “Where homeland begins” is a stereotypical pop song. To this day, it remains in the top 100 all-time most popular pop songs to listen and in the top 20 to sing, not only in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, but even as far as Israel. What are the most popular Russian pop songs in America?

1. “Moscow Nights” – a patriotic song about the majestic beauty of Russian countryside, a song of equal level of “patriotism” as “”Where homeland begins”.

2. “Katyusha” – a very patriotic song about a girl writing a letter to her beloved, a soldier, telling him to defend his country. It is infinitely more military-related that “Where homeland begins”.

“…including one from a movie about spying on foreigners.“

First of all, what difference does it make for what movie genre this song was originally written for? Most people don’t even remember which movie it came from. What matters are the words, which are good.

Second, the “foreigners” that you are talking about are German Nazis! I am trying to be as polite as I can, but anybody who considers it wrong to resist the Nazis and to spy on them – he is a degenerate neo-Nazi in my book.

Look, I can’t say that this is the first time I read somebody condemn anti-Nazi resistance. I have been around Usenet long enough to encounter many posts from white supremacists. But even they, when condemning anti-Nazi resistance, acknowledge that their view is in the minority in America. But you and Craig say that it is bad to spy on the Nazis with such aplomb, as if such opinion is commonplace in America. Isn’t it considered noble to have spied against the Nazi, or is my perception of the American public opinion skewed by the fact that many of my friends are Jewish-Americans and thus hate the Nazis?

Third, don’t Americans and Brits enjoy listening to and singing songs from movies about spying on foreigners? Take the master spy Bond, for example. James Bond. Agent 007. Stirred not shaken. There is a whole slew of songs from his movies that became highly popular. Many-many dozens, including one that I like a lot:

Carly Simon – Nobody Does It Better

Here is a Wikipedia article on them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond_music

Would it be wrong for a US President to sing this song just because it originally comes from a movie about spying on foreigners?!

Extreme russophobes like yourselves expect Russians to bury and forget all the cultural works developed between 1917 and 1991 just because Russia was part of a communist dictatorship called USSR. And I surely agree that cultural works, devoted to propaganda of communist ideology, should be forgotten or at least redone. But not songs and movies about resisting the Nazis or about the love for friends or for mothers or for countryside or for books.

Just because the government or the political system in a country during a certain period was bad, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be proud of its art or music or literature. Sure, to the narrow-minded brainwashed people on the outside, anything created in the Soviet Union may be “criminal”. Just as to some people, anything created in South Africa during the apartheid, may look “criminal”. But that’s not the case.

Or let’s take something that’s a million times worse than even the apartheid: human slavery. Look at the United States in the 18th and 19th century, when it not only practiced slavery on a mass scale, but also exterminated Native Americans and expropriated their lands. The entire continent! What can be more despicable than that? And yet, should we ban the American anthem, that was written during those horrible times, and all other patriotic songs written before 1860s? Should we erase all mentioning of Thomas Jefferson and other American Founding Fathers because most of them owned slaves? And while owning human slaves, these hypocrites wrote that “all men are created equal”. What was the value of as black man then? Was it three fifth that of a white man? Should all pre-1860 American patriotic works be banned? You tell me.

“Actually, at the last Olympic Games Russians were proved to have been the very worst cheater of all nations present“

A lie. Not a single Russian athlete was caught at cheating at the Vancouver Olympic Games. Not one.

And thanks for admitting that no Russian would win the TDF. They didn’t. Not even a top-three finish.

Wrong. Denis Menchov just finished in 3rd place in Tour de France, just 2 minutes behind the winner:

Denis Menchov didn’t make as many headlines as Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck or Lance Armstrong. But Menchov did ride an amazing 2010 Tour de France and finished on the podium. Menchov took third.

The best American finished only in 10th place, 12 minutes behind the winner and 10 minutes behind Menchov. And keep in mind that USA’s population is more than twice that of Russia.

As far as American cyclists are concerned, all their achievements in the last 20 years are due to doping and cheating:

Lance Armstrong – accused of constant cheating by his own American teammates Frankie Andreu and Floyd Landis, currently under investigation by the US criminal authorities

Frankie Andreu – convicted dope using cheat

Tyler Hamilton – convicted dope using cheat

Floyd Landis – “won” TDF but was convicted dope using cheating and had his TDF crown taken away

George Hincapie – alleged by former U.S. Postal teammate Floyd Landis to have participated in systematic doping in the early 2000s

US Postal Office team – entire team engaged in non-stop doping

La Russophobe continued: “Much less did any Russian even dream of repeat wins like Armstrong, the greatest biker in the history of the world.“

Of course not. Armstrong won by doping. Why would Russians dream of imitating a despicable doping cheat like Armstrong?

La Russophobe continued: “ Russia has never produced one such figure in any of the leading athletic contests in world history.“

You are an idiot. Here are just a few examples of famous Russian/Soviet athletes. And keep in mind that the entire USSR had a smaller population than USA:

SOCCER
Lev Yashin – the greatest goalie in history, European champion, bronze medalist of the World Cup

ICE HOCKEY
Vladislav Tretiak – greatest goalie – 3 Olympic Gold medals
Kharlamov, Fetisov, Konstantinov, Bure, Fedorov, Igor Larionov, Firsov, etc – great hockey players

GYMNASICS
Larissa Latynina – won more Olympic medals than anybody: 18 medals, of which 9 are gold
Olga Korbut – 4 Olympic Gold medals
Nikolay Andranov – the greatest male gymnast in history, 15 Olympic medals, 7 gold
Boris Shakhlin — winner of 13 Olympic medals, 7 gold
Alexei Nemov – 12 Olympic medals
Viktor Chukarin – 11 Olympic medals, 7 gold
Polina Astakhova – 10 Olympic medals, 5 gold
Alexander Dityatin – - 10 Olympic medals
Ludmila Tourischeva — 9 Olympic medals
Nellie Kim – 5 Olympic Gold medals

FIGURE SKATING
Irina Rodnina - the greatest modern figure skater – 3 Olympic Gold medals
Urmanov, Petrenko, Yagudin, Plyushcnko, Kulik, Baiul, Pakhomova and many dozens and dozens of Olympic gold medalists

Cross-Country Skiing
Lyubov Yegorova – 6 Olympic Gold medals, 9 total
Raisa Smetanina — – 10 Olympic medals, 4 Gold
Galina Kulakova — – 4 Olympic Gold medals, 8 total
Larisa Lazutina – 5 Olympic Gold medals
Nikolay Zimyatov – 4 Olympic Gold medals

Speed skating
Lidia Skoblikova – 6 Olympic Gold medals
Yevgeny Grishin – 4 Olympic Gold medals

Fencing
Stanislav Pozdniakov - 4 Olympic Gold medals
Elena Novikova 4 Olympic Gold medals
Viktor Sidyak - 4 Olympic Gold medals
Vladimir Nazlymov – 6 Olympic medal, 3 golds
Viktor Krovopuskov – 4 Olympic Gold medals

Biathlon
Alexander Tikhonov – 4 Olympic Gold medals
Anfisa Reztsova – 3 Olympic Gold medals

Swimming
Vladimir Salnikov – 4 Olympic Gold medals
Alexander Popov – 4 Olympic Gold medals

Valentyn Mankin – Sailing - 3 Olympic Gold medals

Athletics
Valery Borzov – greatest sprinter, 2 Olympic gold medals, 1 silver
Viktor Saneyev – triple jump – 3 Olympic Gold medals
Tatyana Kazankina - running – 3 Olympic Gold medals

Canoeing
Lyudmila Khvedosyuk-Pinaeva - 3 Olympic Gold medals
Sergei Chukhray - Canoeing - 3 Olympic Gold medals
Vladymir Morozov – Canoeing 3 Olympic Gold medals

Rowing
Vyacheslav Ivanov 3 Olympic Gold medals

Wrestling
Alexander Medved 3 Olympic Gold medals
Buvaisar Saitiev - 3 Olympic Gold medals
Alexander Karelin - 3 Olympic Gold medals

TEAM HANDBALL
USSR/Russian men – 4 Olympic Gold medals, 6 total
USSR/Russian women – 2 Olympic Gold medals, 5 total

TEAM VOLLEYBALL
USSR/Russian women – 4 Olympic Gold medals, 5 silver
USSR/Russian men – 3 Olympic Gold medals, 8 total

In fact, among the top 20 Olympic medal winners, almost half are from Russia/USSR.

La Russophobe continued: “Your lies are really quite silly and neo-Soviet in character.“

You are a little spoiled retarded child.

“BTW, Dave was referring to the fact that the product weighed 50% less than the label stated.”

Really? Where exactly did Dave say that “the product weighed 50% less than the label stated“? Quote form his text please. Dave Essel wrote:

“I have just today been comparing two brands of crispbread, one Russian and one imported. The imported one costs 50% more for a packet of the same approximate volume. Only problem with the Russian one is that having got it home, I now notice it weighs at least 50% less (I’ve been ripped off on the actual content, which is mostly air) while quality-wise the imported item is made of best rye flour and the Russian one is a nasty mix of air and biscuit.“

He doesn’t even mention the word “label’ at all. What he says is that the “Russian” crispbread weighs 50% less than the “imported” one.

“Guess you were too stupid to understand plain English….“

You guessed wrong. But that’s what happens to all apes who cannot think, cannot read and have to rely on blind guessing. When was the first time the doctors diagnosed a severe mental deficiency in you? Was it the result of your mother dropping you on the cement floor, or were you born that way, Andrew?

You have been through the same motions many times before, constantly accusing others of mathematical stupidity and “lying”, only to find out that it is you who suffers from severe mathematical/logical inadequacy and of non-existent reading comprehension.

Like the time when you couldn’t comprehend the concept of per capita averaging and stupidly accused me of math deficiency using such epithets as “Obviously maths is not Ostaps strongpoint… Learn to read bender boy.“. It took me three of four excruciating rounds of explanations before you finally understood this concept.

Or the time when on May 1, 2010 at 9:53 am I posted direct quotes from Yury Foreman that he is a Russian Jew:

“In Russia, I was a Jew. In Israel, I was a Russian… We went to Haifa City Hall and begged for a little place for a Russian Jew to put up a ring. They told us ‘go box with the Arabs….You are a Russian Jew and they know that. They were trying to hurt you,” Foreman says of the fighters training there.

But you kept on throwing one hysterical fit after another all day on May 1 and on May 2, claiming that you couldn’t understand what these quotes meant:

Andrew // May 2, 2010 at 6:21 am
“RTR, you said he was a “Russian Jew”. You were lying. Show us where he calls himself a “Russian Jew”… Oops, looks like Voice of Retardation got caught lying again….. Show us where he calls himself a “Russian Jew”. So far you have provided no evidence.”

Why do I need to waste my time trying to explain simple math and logic to a mentally challenged child like you?

Here is my reply to Andrew about the Georgian pilot:

What do you want me to tell you about my meeting at a party with this pilot earlier this year? What do you mean by his “credentials”? Are you asking if he, like your father-in-law, graduated with an “engineering degree” from the Moscow University, which doesn’t have engineering departments, or if he was voted “the best number one engineering student in all of USSR” by the Politburo, as you claimed that your father-in-law did:

“My father in law got a scolarship to Moscow University in 1960. He also finished his engineering course top of the class, and was the no.1 engineering student of his graduation year in the USSR.” / Andrew on September 14, 2009 at 8:23 am/

No, this pilot was not a compulsive liar like yourself and did NOT claim to graduate with an “engineering degree” from the Moscow University and was NOT voted “the best number one engineering student in all of USSR”. What else do you want me to tell you about my meeting with him?

Andrew,

Let me repeat the question for you:

Please give me a link to a video where they confess on camera or a link to direct quotes where these people confess to a court hearing, a press conference or a respectable journalist. All they “confessed” to is being from Russia. Nobody admitted being spies at all. Nobody. Yes, the prosecutors and the FBI claim that some had “confessed to being spies”, but who told you that the prosecutors and the FBI never lie? Prosecutors always spin evidence in order to win cases and if the defendant admits: “I am a Russian”, the prosecutor will spin it to mean that he confessed to be a Russian spy.

What is there to argue about? These people have already had their day in court, and all of them were convicted of nothing more than one

His name was Vakhtang, as I recall.

Andrew // April 12, 2010 at 5:11 am | Reply

I have flown on Aeroflot as recently as 2004.

I can categorically state that it was the most unprofessional service I have ever used.

They have a terrible safety record, including crashes cause by drunk pilots, and one where a plane crashed because the pilot let his child take the controls, putting the aircraft into an unrecoverable spin.

Andrew wrote:

“One of the suspects in the Russia spy scandal confessed after his arrest to working for Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, US PROSECUTORS SAID Thursday”

You have problems with reading comprehension. He didn’t confess to working for Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service. It is the US PROSECUTURS who SAID that he had confessed to them. My entire point is that the FBI and THE PROSECUTORS WERE LYING.

All they “confessed” to the FBI, the prosecutors and the judge is being from Russia and working for some ministry or agency or company run by the Russian government, not necessarily SVR foreign intelligence service. And even that may have been done in order to be able to get their freedom and return to Russia.

Nobody publicly admitted to being a spy at all. Nobody. In the the American adversarial legal system, the prosecutors almost always spin evidence in order to win cases, and if the defendant admits: “I am an employee of the Russian government”, the prosecutor will spin it to mean that he confessed to be “an employee of the SVR foreign intelligence service”.

What is there to argue about? These people have already had their day in court, and all of them were convicted of nothing more than one count of failing to register as an employee of a foreign government. The US Attorney General said that they never engaged in espionage. Not even once. Here is the CNN report:

In Washington, Attorney General Eric Holder said none of the 10 had passed classified information and therefore none were charged with espionage. “They were acting as agents to a foreign power,” he told CBS News, referring to the Russians who had been under observation by federal authorities for more than a decade.

Which part of the Attorney General’s admission that “none had passed classified information and none were charged with espionage” do you find too hard to understand, Andrew?

To be fair, the media have given us too little reliable information about 9 out of 10 of these Russians. Thus, I can’t rule out the possibility that two or three of the arrested people were indeed initially sent by SVR but never got around to any spying in the 10 to 20 years that they were in USA. However, the media have created enough noise about the accused “ring leader” – a silly little airhead girl named Anna Chapman – to know that she was no spy and was not guilty of the rumours that the FBI had spread about her.

First of all, she was too much of a young dumb blonde or redhead to be appointed “a ring leader”. She is 28 years now. If this ring started operating about 20 years ago, as the FBI claims, Anna was 8 years old when it started. How many spy rings headed by 8 year old children do you know? Moreover, she came to USA only in 2006: 4 years ago. Second, she didn’t “assume false identity”. Her name became Chapman in 2001 when she married a British chap named Alex Chapman in Moscow. Third, she has not been hiding her Russian origins. She moved freely between London, Moscow and New York, living in Moscow as recently as in 2006. And in recent months and years, she spent much of her free time on the Russian version of the Facebook under her real name – Anna Chapman – conversing in Russian and describing in great detail her life in USA.

What spy would be so open about her Russianness? And why did the FBI spread so many lies about her and even appoint her as “the spy ring leader”?

http://www.amazon.com/Wasa-Crisp-Light-Grain-4-9-Ounce/dp/B000EUJLHE

Wasa Crisp ‘n Light 7 Grain, 4.9-Ounce Boxes
Price: $24.37 ($0.50 / oz)

http://www.amazon.com/Wasa-Crispbread-Multi-Grain-9-7-Ounce/dp/B000EUFAHO

Wasa Crispbread, Multi Grain, 9.7-Ounce Boxes (Pack of 12)
Price: $24.37 ($0.21 / oz)

——————————

Was it this one: or maybe this one: ?

And the “imported” brand – from where is it imported? Zanzibar? Rwanda? Because all major crispbreads imported from Europe, Scandinavia in particular, sell both the regular and the aerated versions. Take, for example, the most famous brand – Swedish Wasa. Amazon sells both the regular Wasa Crispbread Multi Grain version:

Wasa Crispbread, Multi Grain, 9.7-Ounce Boxes (Pack of 12)
Price: $24.37 ($0.21 / oz)

and the aerated (airy) Wasa Crisp ‘n Light 7 Grain version:

Wasa Crisp ‘n Light 7 Grain, 4.9-Ounce Boxes
Price: $24.37 ($0.50 / oz)

Notice that both come in packages of identical size and cost the same per package, but the Wasa Crisp ‘n Light weighs half as much and thus costs twice as much per ounce as the regular Wasa Crispbread.

As you can see, in Sweden, Russia and the rest of Europe, regular crispbreads are dense, while gourmet and diet ones are aerated (airy) on purpose. Russians are especially fond of airy products, especially the so-called “porous (aka aerated) chocolates” like “Slava” which became a hit in the USSR back in the 1950s or 1960s. They are described in the Russian Wikipedia. Translation:

Aerated chocolate is produced from liquid chocolate, which is poured into molds to ¾ volume, placed in a vacuum pots and kept in liquid state (at 40 ° C) for 4 hours. In vacuum, due to the expansion of air bubbles, a porous structure of the tiles is formed.

To evolved people, aerated crispbreads and many other foods are a delicacy:

Aerated foods (and drinks) represent the best and most luxurious that the chef or food manufacturer can provide, inspiring praise in the dining room and repeat sales at the retailer… bread, … wafers, vol au vents, crackers, crumpets, crispbreads, pancakes, puff pastry… muffins, aerated chocolate bars, honeycomb, meringues.. – the list is, if not endless, certainly extensive!

Since you didn’t appreciated aerated crispbreads, let me share with you a little trick that my mother taught me when I was 4 years old. If you are buying a product in a store (any product!) and you have no capability to determine how heavily this product weighs in your hand, you can look up its weight on the package label. I am not kidding you! Humankind has been putting weights on food package labels for centuries! Now you know it too. What else can I teach you? How to tie your shoes?

“…Only problem with the Russian one is that having got it home, I now notice it weighs at least 50% less…“

Tell me: does the label on this Russian aerated crispbreads package falsely claim a heavier weight than it actually is, or does the label tell the truth, but you were too dumb to realize that this was a puffed product and was of low density?

“…The imported one costs 50% more for a packet of the same approximate volume…“

Didn’t even THAT alert to to the fact that the Russian breads could be less dense? What were you thinking? That you were getting a bargain? Did you think you were taking an advantage of the gullible Russians who were charging too little?

“I’ve been ripped off on the actual content… “

No, you weren’t. They sold less bread by weight, but they also charged less. The only problem here is that you don’t read labels and can’t estimate weights of things by holding them in your hand.

“…which is mostly air…“

That’s the whole purpose of aerated products: the luxurious feeling of the air inside!

So, let’s summarize. You came across a package of “imported” regular crispbreads and a package of Russian aerated crispbreads. Being an ignoramus, you are not aware of the concept of aerated foods. Being also an idiot, you don’t know how to read labels. All you saw was that the Russian product was cheaper and you grabbed it. And now you blame Russians.

“… while quality-wise the imported item is made of best rye flour… “

How can you know that this rye flour is the best? Did you inspect the mill where it’s produced? Given your ignorance and incompetence, I don’t think that you would be able to distinguish a trough full of bread made from the best rye flour from a trough full of bread made from the worst rye flour.

“…and the Russian one is a nasty mix of air and biscuit.“

OK, OK, we got it already: not being a connoisseur, you don’t like aerated foods, and you blame Russians for your inability to realize that you were buying aerated crispbreads.

BTW, newsflash for you: biscuit is made from rye/wheat flour.

“On the other hand, those same people have plenty of lazy greed. “

No, as demonstrated above, it is you who is both greedy and lazy.

Thanks, David, for brightening my day. Your hilarious comments on crispbreads are a classic example of cluelessness that I will treasure for weeks. No wonder you get your inspiration from La Russophobe:

David Essel wrote: “I say: Fortunately for me, I refuel at La Russophobe and run on quality gas and air. Get better mileage that way (and the gauges are properly calibrated).”

Are you the same Rev. David Essel who is prominently displayed by Google when searched for? You describe yourself as “For over 25 years, Rev. David Essel, Master Inspirational Coach, Motivational Speaker, Author, Adjunct Professor and Radio/TV Host has been inspiring and empowering people to take charge of their lives. David can help you, too, create an exceptional life by tapping into the power of your mind – body – spirit connection….”“.

I can see that you are very good at monetizing and profiting from your “motivations” to your clients, dear Reverend, through such materials as “God Speaks Through the Heart of A Young Monk $15.00 ( FREE S/H within Continental U.S.A. )” and “The Fastest Way To Get Everything You Want $15.00″. My neighbour tried to become a motivational speaker like yourself. He bought a certificate that he was a “Reverend”, just like you did, and also started to sell books and tapes and videos. But, unlike yours, his racket went nowhere.

So, La Russophobe is your idol, eh? Since you call yourself a “Reverend”, I assume that she is not your only idol. Jesus and money (not necessarily in this order) are your other idols. Could you remind me what the Ten Commandments say? “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself other idols. You shall not bow down to them or worship them”.

I also have this question for you. You wrote: “crispbread, one Russian and one imported.” So, the Russian crispbread is “domestic” to you? Does that mean that you live in Russia? Is it Moscow?

Here are more images of an aerated chocolate bars:

Stop looking for excuses. The fact is that for the last 10 to 20 years a gigantic team of top-notch and highly paid FBI experts have wasted $hundreds of millions of hard-earned taxpayers’ money on spying against dozens if not hundreds (yes, hundreds, because usually for every indicted suspect there are ten unindicted) of middle class American residents just because they, like many other immigrants from Russia and all other countries (for example, Ayn Rand aka Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum), had changed their names when they came to America. Take Anna Kushchenko, who married a British chap (man) Alex Chapman and kept her husband’s name Chapman after divorce. How sneaky! How spy-like! Well, my own ex-wife also kept my last name after our divorce. And my children also bear my last name. They all must be spies!

And having wasted these $hundreds of millions, all the FBI managed to discover is that all these suspects have no interest in any secrets and haven’t stolen a single one over almost 20 years of surveillance. And the FBI had to settle for charging all 11 of these “suspects” with not registering with the government that they receive money from Moscow and not reporting this income to the IRS. BTW, money for what?! Why would the stingy Russian government pay millions of rubles per year to each of these people for almost 20 years just so that they would enjoy their life in the American suburbia and do nothing to find out one measly little secret in 20 years? If we were to believe the FBI story, the Russian government must have paid these 11 people a total of at least $10 million over the past 10 to 20 years for doing absolutely nothing. Have you ever heard of the KGB wasting $10 million over 10 years on a spy ring that produces absolutely nothing and still keeping it on the payroll?! Give me a break.

Let me see… Among the accused are an alumnus of John F. Kennedy Graduate School of Government at Harvard University, a journalist with the largest and oldest Spanish-language newspaper in America and other top-notch people. And we are to believe that for the last 10 years they have been trying to get in contact with top decision-makers in USA to find out American secrets, but failed because they are Russians, and all Russians – even those who are smart enough to be accepted to and graduate from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy Graduate School of Government – are too stupid to accomplish anything?! Nonsense.

The incompetent party here are not these 11 poor slobs who did nothing wrong other than under-reporting their taxable income. The incompetent party is the FBI that has wasted the taxpayers’ money on nothing and is now making a hysterical and “heroic” headline story out of its arrest of 11 people for tax cheating. Hold the presses! Sensational news! Eleven vicious Russian spies posed as taxpayers and cheated the IRS out of $hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue! This is the first time in history that somebody has been arrested in America for cheating on their taxes! … Yeh, right. The FBI is engaged in the most bizarre PR campaign here.

Dave also wrote: “My guess would be that a group of sweet little Russian airhead neo-nazis were recruited at some Seliger-style summer camp“

Sweet little Russian airhead Neo-Nazis graduating from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy Graduate School of Government? I think you are the one who should drive to the nearest gas station and check the air pressure in your head.

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Here is the most pro-FBI and anti-arrested-Russians piece I have seen seen so far on any American network. Watch the video here:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/video/can-we-stop-the-spies/2011/

Need to Know, PBS

Can we stop the spies?
July 2nd, 2010

The round-up of 11 alleged Russian spies — 10 living in America, one abroad — caught nearly everybody by surprise. They went by names like Murphy and Foley and Lazaro, used old-school spy techniques like invisible ink and encrypted Morse code, and passed coded messages through photos posted online. They seemed like perfect neighbors — except when they were tipping off headquarters in Moscow.

The KGB is no longer called the KGB, but the agency’s mission is still alive and well, as these latest arrests prove. Could they have posed a real threat to national security? And what is the capability of our intelligence services to stop other spy rings?

Need to Know host Alison Stewart talks with former New York Times intelligence reporter Tim Weiner, author of “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA to illuminate this murky underworld.”
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This former New York Times intelligence reporter Tim Weiner is a real dinosaur bigot, a leftover from the 1970s Cold War. And yet, even he blurts out the following (watch the video):

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At 0:44: Alison Stewart: “Joining us is the author of “Legacy of Ashes: the History of the CIA” Tim Weiner, who is a former New York Times intelligence reporter and is currently writing a book on the history of the FBI. “

At 7:00 Alison Stewart: “How do we know if this particular network did any damage”?

Tim Weiner: “The clue – and it is a rather large one – is that these people were not charged with espionage. They were charged under a 1938 law, which J Edgar Hoover demanded the Congress pass – of failing to register as foreign agents. If you are a foreign lobbyist, for example, if you are working for South Africa or Israel of Paraguay and you come to this country as a lobbyist, you have to register your presence. It’s a law. It carries a 5 year penalty. And because they moved the money in and out of the country, they are also charged with money laundering. But not espionage. That is – if not proof – rather strong evidence that THESE GUYS NEVER STOLE A SECRET. “

At 2:30 Tim Weiner: “The FBI waited for years and years and years for this network to actually commit espionage, that is steal secret information from a friend or from a friend of a friend, from somebody who knew classified data. THEY NEVER DID IT. These people spent years clawing their way up the greasy pole to the very middle of American society but they never got close to an undersecretary of Defense or a CIA officer or anybody who new anything of deep value. “

At 1:15 Alison Stewart: “These people have been in the US for a very long time: 10 to 20 years. Why would Russia invest that kind of time in people who live very mundane lives?”

Tim Weiner: “This entire story could have been filmed as a black-and-white movie in the 1930s and 1940s, because these are the time-honored coded messages, invisible ink, brush passes where we are walking down the street and you hand me a suitcase and I take it and nobody notices, except possibly the FBI.”

Alison Stewart: why do you say “**possibly** for the FBI?”

Tim Weiner: “Because the FBI has clearly been investigating these people for a decade and it looks like the FBI got into their game and penetrated their computer network and maybe messed with one of their computers”.

At 3:35 Tim Weiner: “And these folks had kids, who are American citizens. My guess is that in time, their kids would have been recruited into the game and so on for generations.”

Tim Weiner: “The Russians wanted some understanding of how we, Americans, work, what makes us tick. They don’t really get us. They wanted to essentially create Americans, who can think like Americans think, speak their language, and learn something about how our minds work, to get inside our heads”.

Alison Stewart:” One was an opinionated poltical columnist…”

Tim Weiner: “It’s perfect cover. Being journalists is THE perfect cover for a spy. You ask questions. You go into strange places and ask strange questions of strange people. We don’t do that! But the Russians do! These people spent years essentially [LAUGHS] learning stuff that you and I can learn by surfing the web, reading the New York Times, reading books, or going to a foreign policy seminar at the Brookings Institution. It’s a clear insight into how much Russians don’t understand anything… [A VERY LONG PAUSE] … deep about America. We are so different. Our alphabets are so different, our histories are different. “

Alison Stewart: “Should we assume that there are other networks out there, in the suburbs of Dallas, in the suburbs of LA?”

Tim Weiner: “Oh yeh!”

At 9:50 Alison Stewart: “Is the FBI getting better”?

Tim Weiner: “The FBI HAS gotten better since 9/11. They can clearly pose as Russians, they can pose as Islamic terrorists, they can pose as the kind of people that we want to stop. They have become an intelligence service. The FBI is an intelligence service, that is primarily dedicated to protecting the USA against enemy attack and enemy subversion. It has become what it always was at the beginning: an operation primarily designed to defeat people who want to hurt the USA. This is the story I am writing [for my book].”
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I will comment on this interview tomorrow.

Things weren’t quite so bad. In women’s singles, Vera Zvonareva proved to be the second best woman in the world after the untouchable high-testosterone phenom Serena Williams, a woman that takes machismo to new heights.

In women’s doubles, Vera Zvonareva and Elena Vesnina defeated the greatest doubles pair – Williams sisters. Many call the Williams sisters a mixed doubles pair.

Vera Zvonareva and Elena Vesnina reached the Final but lost. But don’t be too upset: one of the Wimbledon doubles winners is also a Russian girl form Moscow: Yaroslava Shvedova.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaroslava_Shvedova

Yaroslava Vyacheslavovna Shvedova (Russian: Яросла́ва Вячесла́вовна Шве́дова, born September 12, 1987 in Moscow) is a Russian-born professional tennis player representing Kazakhstan[1]. She has won 1 WTA singles title, 3 ITF Women’s Circuit singles titles and 2 doubles titles, including the Wimbledon Ladies’ Doubles title in 2010.

She began playing tennis at age 8 when her father introduced her to the sport in Moscow. Although she was born in Russia and continues to live and train in Moscow, Shvedova changed her nationality from Russian to Kazakhstani in 2008 as part of the country’s attempts to boost its sporting profile.

Country: Kazakhstan , Russia
Residence Moscow, Russia
Date of birth September 12, 1987
Place of birth Moscow, Russian SFSR
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So, she has been a Russian for the fist 21 of her 23 years and she continues to live and train in Moscow as always. You may say that she is more of a Russian than Sharapova.