Sean's Russia blog has really wandered disturbingly far from the path of insight, leading readers astray often and egregiously. First it found wisdom in Rolling Stone, the eXile and crazed Russian nationalist Boris Kagarlitsky, attracting the lurid nutjob Mike Averko as a commenter. Then it rationalized Russian racism after condemning the nation of Kazakhstan for banning the Borat film, refusing to give it any credit for its progress while giving Russia a free pass (saying that, although it's press was unfree, that had to be seen in the context of a global tightening of press freedom and ignoring the fact that Kazakhstan had a higher score for press freedom than Russia) and condemning America (calling George Bush an "idiot" for praising Kazakhstan's progress). Now, as the Moscow Times reported Thursday, Russia has done what it always does to those who try to help it, stab them in the back. As if just to humiliate Sean for his remarks, in yet another classic neo-Soviet move, Russia too has banned Borat:

Borat Sagdiyev may have taken the United States by storm, but he won't repeat his box-office success in Russia. Less than three weeks before a feature film about Borat, a character created by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, was to open in Russian movie theaters, the Federal Culture and Cinematography Agency refused to license it out of concern that the film could offend audiences in this country. The movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," about a misogynistic, wife-beating Kazakh journalist with a penchant for mustaches, thus becomes one of the first non-pornographic films to be banned since the breakup of the Soviet Union. It was scheduled to open in 300 theaters nationwide Nov. 30. The movie opened in the United States on Nov. 3, and took in $26.49 million in its first weekend, setting a box-office record for movies that opened in fewer than 1,000 theaters