Ignoring our rules, someone left a comment titled "anonymous" on our most recent post about Russia Blog, seeking to defend that malignant institution of lies and deception. For this reason, and because Russia Blog doesn't publish comments from us, this pathetic "comment" won't be published. However, we feel compelled to respond to its absurdly dishonest claims since they undoubtedly represent some of the lies being told about us within the warren-like dark places of the Russophile minions.

This commenter stated: "You have fewer published comments than Russia Blog." It's quite clear that this commenter, in the classic style of the Russophile idiot, made no actual attempt to count the number of comments the two blogs have received since he/she failed to state the numbers. Apparently, he/she thought we wouldn't do so. We have, and we admit we're a bit surprised by the results. In the month of June 2007, this blog received 430 comments. During that same period, Russia Blog had just 90 comments -- over four times fewer than LR had. Russia Blog generated 34 posts during June and nearly a quarter of them (eight) received zero comments, while an additional eight received only one comment (for a total of nearly half Russia Blog's posts generating one or zero comments). Only ten posts (less than a third) had more than two comments. Once again, the mendacious lies from the animals at Russia Blog and their crazed "readers" is exposed as a pathetic sham. Note that this doesn't even count the comments received by LR on the Publius Pundit blog, which if included would make the picture even more overwhelmingly lopsided. Our most-commented-upon post of the month, about Nashi, had almost twice as many comments (27) as Russia Blog's most-commented-upon post (15) about their extremist wacko leader's weird little trip to Russia (after which he purports to be an expert).

Now, let's be clear: La Russophobe has never said she wishes to attract comments, has never bragged about getting them, nor has she ever said that the number of comments a blog receives is an indicia of its quality. The purpose of this blog is to record history, not serve as a discussion forum, but we are happy to allow comments within reasonable limits. Comments are no part of the LR index (though given the above data, maybe they should be; if they were, the gap between LR and Russia Blog would grow even wider). Many fine blogs don't even allow comments, or actively discourage them, or simply don't receive them for whatever reason (Robert Amsterdam and David McDuff leap to mind). The only reason we even mention this issue is because of the SPAM-like comment we've received from this Russophile slob, perhaps (indeed, probably) from the publishers of Russia Blog itself in disguise . What we've said is that the ridiculously small number of comments received by Russia Blog belies its claimed level of traffic, indicating that SPAM technology is being used to generate artificial traffic. The same can be said of the puny number of links from other blogs that Russia Blog has received when compared to its alleged monumental traffic (with far less traffic, for instance, Robert Amsterdam generates far more Technorati links per month than does Russia Blog). Our point is simply this: Russia Blog claims to have thousands of visitors every day. If they are legitimate visitors, they should be leaving far more comments than they do (unless of course Russia Blog is simply censoring a mountain of criticism, which we admit is quite possible). That's all we've ever said, and we wouldn't expect the illiterate publishers of Russia Blog (or their insane cohorts) to understand.

The moronic and egregiously dishonest anonymous commenter also stated: "Your method of measuring traffic, based on Technorati tags from blogs, is a joke." Our method of measuring traffic has nothing whatsoever to do with Technorati. We rely on Alexa, the most respected source of information on blog traffic, for that data, and we have repeatedly acknowledged that Alexa shows Russia Blog has a higher level of traffic than any other Russia blog (the crudely dishonest, thug-like commenter chose to ignore that fact). We use Technorati information, unquestionably the leading source in the blogosphere, for data on links from other blogs, as do many substantial corporations who based investment decisions on Technorati data. La Russphobe far exceeds Russia Blog in Technorati links per month of existence and Technorati favorites, two more indications that its traffic is a sham. But the best indication of all of the hollowness of Russia Blog's traffic claims is that they are not transparent. Russia Blog has never provided any data whatsoever to document its claims despite specific requests that it do so, and it doesn't even have a public counter. We blend Technorati and Alexa data so that a range of criteria, fair for all blogs, is utilized -- and when we do, we come out on top. Naturally, that's much to the chagrin of the scum-sucking parasites at Russia Blogl, and they respond in the only way they can -- with bile.

And to top it all off, this asinine wacko actually had the audacity to complain that "nobody knows who you are" (referring to LR). This from a little microbe who couldn't even think of a name for himself, much less create a blog to stand behind it. This is yet one more indication of the nature of the opponent we are struggling with, an opponent who thinks nothing of telling the most ridiculous lies in order to get what it wants, just like the old USSR used to do. In that way, it's a perfect embodiment of neo-Soviet Russia -- utter failure, embarassing to anyone who sees it.

To this commenter we say: We doubt you have the guts to stand behind your outrageous statements, but if you do then we demand an apology for your recklessly false statements. However, we greatly appreciate the confirmation of the fundamentally dishonest nature of both Russia Blog and its readers.