If you look up an organization called "The Discovery Institute" on Wikipedia you will find that it is identified as "a conservative Christian think tank" founded in 1990 and devoted to the teaching of intelligent design (according to Wiki "An overwhelming majority^[4] of the scientific community views intelligent design as pseudoscience").

Discovery Institute describes itself, however, as "a nonpartisan public policy think tank conducting research on technology, science and culture, economics and foreign affairs." It was founded by one Bruce Chapman, currently its president. Its website currently offers vistors the chance to sign a petition called "Stand up for Science" by boldly declaring: "I agree that teachers should equip students to critically analyze evolutionary theory by presenting them with the scientific evidence both for and against Darwinian evolution." According to Wiki, DI refuses to divulge its financial contributors because it fears they will be harrassed for providing support.

Harrassed? Why harassed? Wikipedia explains. It states that DI has regularly been called on the carpet for intellectual dishonesty:

At the foundation of most criticism of the Discovery Institute is the charge that the institute and its Center for Science and Culture intentionally misrepresent or omit many important facts in promoting their agenda- essentially a charge of intellectual dishonesty, in the form of misleading impressions created by the use of rhetoric, intentional ambiguity, and misrepresented evidence. It is alleged that its goal is to lead an unwary public to reach certain conclusions, and that many have been deceived as a result. Its critics, such as Eugenie Scott, Robert Pennock, Richard Dawkins and Barbara Forrest, claim that the Discovery Institute knowingly misquotes scientists and other experts, deceptively omits contextual text through ellipsis, and makes unsupported amplifications of relationships and credentials. A wide spectrum of critics level this charge; from educators, scientists and the Smithsonian Institute to individuals who oppose the teaching of creationism along science on ideological grounds. Specific objections with examples are listed at the Center for Science and Culture article.

Would it surprise you then, knowing all this, gentle reader, to find out that DI's "Director of Foreign Policy" is a 24-year-old Russian "composer" with an undergraduate degree from a Russian "Tax Academy" whose parents were Soviet aparachiks? Would it surprise you that said "Director of Foreign Policy" - Mr. Yuri Mamchur, who operates Russia Blog - twists facts to suit his ideology? Perhaps not. What might surprise you, however, is that Mamchur is using DI's own tactics to undermine conservatism itself, which ought to be (and is) vigorously opposing the rise of the Neo-Soviet Union, which Mamchur by contrast does everything he can to facilitate.

On Mr. Mamchur's personal website, where he tries to sell his music, it states: “I turned 24 on January 8, 2006. Right now I’m working as a Director of Foreign Policy at the Discovery Institute. Part of my job is the RussiaBlog (www.RussiaBlog.org), which provides commentary and dialogue on a lot of interesting stuff about modern day Russia.” This means, of course, that the Discovery Institute is responsible for the gibberish Mamchur spouts on that blog, it's their handiwork. On his personal website he breathlessly says of his work: "It is challenging to compose, practice and record along with a full-time job, but I’m hoping to get it all done." Indeed. Thank GOD for the vigor of youth. Maybe Yuri will also get the chance to be a fireman and an astronaut!

The DI website sets forth Yuri's qualifications as follows: "Yuri is also a PhD candidate and graduate of the Russian Tax Academy School of Law in Moscow. During his studies (and following) he served as the Director of International Relations for the Sodeystvie Fund, the oldest charitable foundation in the Former Soviet Union." It further states: "His parents, who still live in the city, both held high ranking positions in the former Soviet government (his father was a speechwriter and spokesman for the defense ministry). After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Mamchur family worked through the challenges facing Russia's new democracy and succeeded in post-Soviet society. For the past six years, Yuri has traveled between Moscow and US and immersed himself in American culture. Yuri took classes at Georgetown University; he volunteers with Tacoma YMCA and teaches piano to young students in his free time."

So let's see now: Yuri is the ripe old age of twenty-four. He has an unspecified undergraduate degree from a Russian institution called the "Tax Academy School of Law." And this qualifies him as an expert on foreign policy (actually, as the manager of other experts)? Hard to see how, but perhaps the voice of God was whispering in the ears of the folks at DI when they hired Yuri. Do you dare to imagine the qualifications of the folks they rejected? An image of the three stooges leaps to mind. Can you imagine who Yuri's subordinants might be? Perhaps a kindergarten class somewhere. Is he an accountant? A tax lawyer? Neither seems to imply an educational program that would ground him in foreign policy. Certainly, he's never actually made any himself. Where exactly is he currently seeking his PhD? Don't ask, dear reader, don't ask. La Russophobe tried to ask Discovery Institute's director of media relations Robert Crowther by e-mail, but got no response.

If you Google the "Tax Academy School of Law," you will find out exactly nothing about it. In fact, you will get only three hits for that exact phrase on Google, and all three will be for Yuri's biography (which, conveniently, does not provide any links or further information about his alma mater). This is a matter of significant concern, since even people casually familiar with Russia know that it is full of unlicensed, fly-by-night educational institutions whose diplomas are not worth the paper they are printed on. Director Mamchur, and DI, ought to come forward with more detailed information about this school (La Russophobe asked Mr. Crowther but, so far, has received no response).

As for the phrase "worked through the challenges facing Russia's new democracy and succeeded in post-Soviet society," La Russophobe can only leave that to the reader's imagination? Sounds kind of like Boris Berezovsky, though, doesn't it?

The consequences of all this are emminently foreseeable: screwball propaganda. If, for example, you looked to Mr. Mamchur to learn what the most important facts are in regard to the recent bombing of the Cherkizovo outdoor market in Moscow, which killed a dozen or so people and has been reported as a racist escalation, then here's what you learned in Yahoo Yuri's own words (an outraged reader has brought them to La Russophobe's attention):

1. "This explosion is the first terrorist violence Moscow has suffered in many months."

2. "If not for the vigilance of ordinary citizens, many more people would have been killed when the bomb exploded."

3. "Ultranationalism is on the rise in Russia. It is not supported by the government, but it is hard to control because it grows up like a poisonous mushroom from the grassroots."

4. "While Moscow and other major cities are boasting wealth and new luxuries, the rest of the Russian nation is just trying to survive. The fast tempo of recent economic growth has not been enough to trickle down and meet the expectations of these forgotten Russians."

5. "Immigrants, who come from former Soviet republics, are sometimes more successful than many native Russians. Immigrants from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Abkhazia tend to be very well represented by their respective mafias in major Russian cities, and these organizations control most of the public markets and other businesses."

Does all that sound suspicously, and eerily, like Soviet propaganda to you, dear reader, being spouted from spawn of Soviet aparachiks? Does it unnerve you somewhat to hear that Moscow had been a paradise of harmony recently until this shocking event that nobody could control, especially not the government, an event that was dramatically minimized by the heroic efforts of Russians, and that it only happened in the first place because Russians are so poor and destitute, innocent victims of circumstances? Does it sound even more eerily like racist apology or even propaganda to accuse dark-skinned victims of violence of being associated with the mafia and of amassing disproportionate wealth in an article purportedly about race violence against them? Do you then notice with increased suspicion how lily white Mr. Mamchur himself is (he's the smiling caucasian pictured at left)? Can you imagine how Martin Luther King would have reacted if someone had wanted to discuss black crime rates while he was talking about KKK lynchings?

A Russia Blog reader called Comrade Mamchur on the carpet for these outrageous statements. Here is Director Mamchur's response in full:

Georgian and Armenian mafias have been the strongest mafias in Russia since early nineties. As a kid I personally witnessed three grenades thrown at potato trucks of native Russian farmers coming to public markets and not willing to pay the “fee”. Owning a business in Moscow working with Ukraine I had to deal with the problem myself. The wealth of the minorities is very obvious, and I personally know many successful families of Georgian and Armenian roots owning multi-million dollar estates in Russia and outside of the country; their kitchen aids and drivers are native Russians. Two drivers I’ve known were named Yuri, in their mid fifties with families they were supporting through having these jobs. I do not blame Russian “minorities” for being successful, I think it’s great to create wealth and employ people, no matter what ethnicity or origin you are. I do blame Russians for the lack of entrepreneurship, and lawmakers and police for taking bribes and allowing the mafias to operate their businesses. If you click on one of the links of the post, you will read RussiaBlog’s earlier article speaking of Putin calling for law and order in relation to this topic. Russian government and Parliament have a lot of ethnic minorities. There are very few truly black Russian citizens, and an idea of them running for a seat is intriguing, but barely possible due to their low representation in Russia and every day occupations – they usually work for foreign businesses, or after receiving education go abroad. Few months ago one of Russian TV stations ran a report about a bright black student who is helping a small town administration run successful agricultural business in the region – he is very well respected person in local community. I personally take offense in being blamed for being a part of the racist problem. “Russians like you” sounds offensive and not language-appropriate for this blog. Lenard, your ideology, attacks, inability to read proper links and writing style remind me a lot of our former commenter Kim Zigfeld, who was banned from this site. I love being challenged, and I usually respond with evidence and respect, however I can’t make it my everyday job to re-post the links and information which can be easily found through RussiaBlog’s search , Google/Yahoo search engines and general education on the topics.

So, it appears that not only did 24-year-old Yuri run a charitable institution in Russia, but he also "ran a business." My, how impressive. What kind of business and where did he get the capital to launch it? Don't ask, dear reader, don't ask. What exactly did Director Mamchur mean when he referred to "native Russians" as opposed to dark-skinned people? Can't native Russians be dark-skinned? Actually, no they can't, not in the eyes of a Slavic Russian. Isn't there just a little bit of hypocrisy in Yuri complaining about the phrase "Russians like you" while spewing forth "native Russians" with impunity? Do you sense a bit of classic racist resentment on "Director" Mamchur's part when he thinks about Slavic "native" Russians being ordered about by dark-skinned people?

And what was Director Mamchur smoking when he wrote that "Russian government and Parliament have a lot of ethnic minorities." Does he really think he can bamboozle his audience with such audicious, unsupported whoppers? Has he ever watched the Duma on TV? Would it it have been too much trouble to name TWO high-ranking members of Putin's cabinet, people with real power, who are dark-skinned? If the Russian government were really full of dark-skinned people, would there be wanton race violence in Russia's streets (see the story below for just one example)? Wouldn't there be a host of dark-skinned politicans publicly crusading against it, a veritable army of Russian Martin Luther kings? But such considerations do not concern the Neo-Soviet propagandist.

La Russophobe must say, she's flattered by the comparison to the commenter, and hopes she's doing half as well rooting out Neo-Soviet racism. It's quite revealing that, when asked to support his factual statements by a commenter, Screwball Yuri tells readers to go look it up themselves because he can't be bothered to document his facts, and then lauches a personal attack on those who dare to question him, telling them to go to hell. Instead of going there, the reader brought these concerns to La Russophobe (granted, quite similar destinations in Yahoo Yuri's mind, as well as that of all crazed Russophiles everywhere), so let's deal with them, shall we? Interesting, too, is it not dear reader, that although Yuri (who is lying blatantly, as La Russophobe has already explained in detail) claims Ms. Zigfeld was "banned" from his site, her lengthy posts about Maria Sharapova and Victor Yanukovich, as well as the dozens of comments they generated, are still proudly on offer at Russia Blog? La Russophobe takes this opportunity to once again ask Yahoo Yuri to remove these posts from his blog, since they are obviously infectious bacteria dangerous to the health of his readers. La Russophobe is certainly embarassed to have her content associated with Russia Blog, which she didn't adequately check out after stumbling across on the Internet, and she apologizes for this lapse. Therefore, she feels it is her responsibility to warn readers about the dangerous content at every opportunity.

You may remember, gentle reader, that when last we met Mr. Mamchur he was brazenly misrepresenting to readers about the new Russian law on "extremism." Mamchur accused the Wall Street Journal of mischaracterizing the new law as an assault on democracy. He totally ignored reams of reporting from other respected sources coming to the same conclusion, characterizing the Journal as somehow going out on a limb, and grievously mischaracterized the content of the extremism law as well. After we launched our salvo exposing his hypocrisy and inaccuracy, and also in response to reader outrage about Russia Blog's dishonesty on this point (and others), Mamchur backed off his ridiculous claims and, to his credit it seemed, even apologized. It turned out that he had really been engaged in an attempt to attack on the prestigious Carnegie Foundation, a competitor of his own Discovery Institute for think-tank donation dollars, and had launched his attack veiled as a criticism on the Western newspapers that relied, foolishly in Mamchur's view, on Carnegie instead of himself. This came out, however, not in an actual post correcting his original misstatements, or in a comment to the Wall Street Journal post, but buried in the comments section of a post about a child sex ring which itself had come under attack as misleading. Unfortunately, as can be seen in his discussion of the market bombing, Yahoo Yuri is none the wiser for the experience. Actually, given the Discovery Institute's questionable relationship with the truth, it could be that Director Yuri would get himself in trouble with his employers if he actually offered a reasonable facsimile of it on his blog.

Ultimately, Mamchur is not only advancing Neo-Soviet propaganda but also giving the blogosphere a bad name (and conservative Christians too, for that matter). Mamchur's posts are regularly devoid of citation to factual evidence and source material, and when it is produced it is often proved bogus. In fact, as readers of this blog already know, La Russophobe herself, previously a contributor to Russia Blog, disengaged from the site for the very reason that its publishers had such a loose attitude towards substantiation of facts (and Yuri then, as previously reported her on La Russophobe, lied about the reason for her departure, as he does again in his statement above). The site even goes so far as to regularly publish the rantings of Russophile nutjob Mike Averko, allowing him to mislead readers as to his credentials.

Such was most certainly the case when Mamchur claimed, as noted above, that it was being widely reported in Russia that a child sex ring had been uncovered in Siberia and that the Western press were irresponsibly ignoring the story. Mamchur claimed that the failure of Western news outlets to report the event showed how confused they were about Russia and discredited their reporting on the rise of the Neo-Soviet dictatorship, whereas he himself was providing the real skinny. He ran a post about the story without a single reference to his source material, and when readers demanded it it turned out that he was relying purely on local papers whose accounts were highly questionable (as everyone except Yuri knows perfectly well, the pages of most Russian newspapers are for sale to the highest bidder), certainly not a basis for instantaneous Western reporting on the allegations.

In La Russophobe's view, Mamchur's approach on the child sex story was classic Soviet propaganda. He wanted to divert attention from the extremism law and other attempts to probe and challenge the Kremlin's authoritarian crackdown, so he tried to interest world media in something else, something that the Kremlin could actually use to justify further authoritarian crackdowns in the name of law and order. It's actually quite clever in its way, or at least it was twenty years ago. Hopefully the world is just a bit too sophisticated for this stuff now.

It's time to take a firm stand against this kind of shameless propaganda and sham credentials and stamp it out, both for the blogosphere's sake and for Russia's. We can't possibly hope to make any strides towards democracy in Russia if we can't stop neo-Soviet propaganda tactics abroad. The ones who should be most furious at Mamchur's activity are conservatives, and especially Christian conservatives. Right now, Vladimir Putin is enagaged in a brutal crackdown on democracy, including foreign Christians, and he is providing massive amounts of military aid to American foes like Venezuela, Iran and Hezbollah. Real conservatives ranging from Charles Grassley to John McCain are rallying against the rise of the Neo-Soviet Union, while pseudo-conservative Mamchur is spewing forth propaganda to prop it up. Liberals, of course, should be no less committed to ending dictatorship in Russia, and will find Mamchur's ties to intelligent design revolting. Everyone, including moderates of every stripe, should spurn Mamchur's free and easy relationship with the facts, which is an attitude that seems to permeate the Discovery Institute according to many commentators.

The Canadian Press reports that mobs of crazed Russian racists have seized control of the town of Kondopoga, spewing forth a frenzy of hatred:

MOSCOW (AP) - A mob rampaged through a northern Russian town, setting fires, smashing windows and throwing stones in a second night of ethnically motivated violence sparked by a deadly fight last week, authorities, activists and news reports said.

Hours of violence broke out after thousands of people gathered in the centre of Kondopoga, about 1,000 kilometres north of Moscow, demanding that police expel Chechens and other ethnic minorities or investigate them for criminal ties.

Russian television networks showed daylight footage of young men throwing rocks that shattered windows at a restaurant that has been a focal point of the disorder, as a line of riot police carrying shields stood on the street outside, and of a fire raging through the restaurant's second storey after dark.

A representative of the Interior Ministry's regional branch in Karelia, the province where Kondopoga is located, told The Associated Press that rioters tried to burn cars and a supermarket in addition to the restaurant, which he said is rented by an Azerbaijani man.

Police detained about 100 people and about 20 remained in custody Sunday afternoon, facing charges of hooliganism, according to the representative, who said was not authorized to give his name to the news media. He gave no information about injuries.

The persistent violence and calls for the expulsion of people who have emigrated from Russia's North Caucasus region came after a group of ethnic Russian and Chechen men clashed last week at the restaurant, Chaika, resulting in the deaths of at least two Russian men, rights activists said. Officials say two people were killed and several others wounded in the fight Wednesday.

The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Karelia's interior minister, police Maj.-Gen. Dmitry Mikhailov, as saying that Saturday night's rioters - mostly young men and teenage boys, many of them drunk - set a car on fire and attacked the restaurant, throwing stones and trying to take alcohol and cigarettes from a storeroom.

RIA-Novosti news agency cited unidentified city police as saying that police used force against rioters in a few cases.

Mikhailov later said that two people from the Caucasus had been arrested on suspicion of murder in Wednesday's fight and that three other suspects were being sought, ITAR-Tass reported. He said 20 to 30 of the people detained during Saturday night's violence faced punishments that could include fines and 15 days in custody.

Mikhailov said commercial disputes were at the root of the unrest, but Alexander Verkhovsky, head of Sova, a Moscow-based human rights centre, said that the violence had clearly taken on a deeply ethnic motivation, with nationalists descending on Kondopoga last week.
Verkhovsky and Alexander Belov, a leader of a nationalist group called the Russian Movement

Against Illegal Immigration, both said Friday that young men were running through town yelling racist slogans, looking for apartments and businesses owned by people from the Caucasus, and burning them down. Belov claimed the restaurant was under the protection of Chechens.

The head of Karelia's administration, Sergei Katanandov, acknowledged that some of the rioters appeared motivated by ethnic bias. "We will not permit ethnic hostility," he added.

Katanandov travelled Sunday to Kondopoga, where he said authorities would meet with rival groups in a bid to ease tension. "I will not leave until you all calm down and until I see that the city is calm," he told a crowd in televised comments.

Apparently seeking to reassure residents who want the Chechens blamed for the deaths to be punished, Katanandov said that "all those who took part in the murder and the fight have been arrested . . . and these people will be held responsible."

Russia has seen a marked rise in xenophobia and racism in recent years, with a spate of attacks on foreigners, Jews and dark-skinned migrants from the impoverished Caucasus region and ex-Soviet Central Asia.

Rights groups say authorities do little to combat the problem, often choosing to prosecute blatant hate crimes against minorities as simple hooliganism.

Following terrorist attacks by militants linked to separatist rebels in Chechnya, Chechens and members of other ethnic groups from the North Caucasus have become particularly vulnerable to ethnically motivated attacks.

If you know that a majority of Russians feel their government's handling of the Beslan terrorist disaster contributed to the apalling loss of life rather than preventing it, then you will not be surprised to learn that the Kremlin brutally crushed an attempt to commemorate the disaster in Moscow on the anniversary. However, given this, it probably would surprise you to know that cowardly, lemming-like Russians continue to favor "President" Putin with 70%+ approval ratings (unless, of course, Putin is rigging the polls, which probably wouldn't surprise you at at all). Reuters reports:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police on Sunday broke up a human rights campaigners' rally calling on President Vladimir Putin to tell the whole truth about the deaths of more than 300 hostages in the Beslan school siege two years ago. On September 1, 2004 pro-Chechnya rebels seized more than 1,000 children and parents attending a ceremony to mark the start of the school year. Two days later, 333 hostages, more than half of them children, died in a chaotic storming of the school. Commemorating the drama in North Ossetia, Russia held a day of solidarity against terrorism and observed a minute of silence on Sunday, and 333 white balloons symbolizing the souls of the dead hostages flew into the sky in Beslan. A religious service was held at the charred ruins of the school gym where the hostages had been held, and a requiem concert will be held in Beslan in the evening.

Special police dispersed a rally of mourning staged by some 80 human rights activists who gathered in Moscow near the headquarters of the FSB security service. Many human rights activists and some victims' relatives believe that a botched rescue operation contributed to the deaths and that the authorities have deliberately covered up mistakes made by senior officials overseeing the operation. "Putin and (FSB chief Nikolai) Patrushev must share responsibility for the death of people," read a poster held by Lev Ponomarev, head of campaigners For Human Rights. "Storming of the school is the authorities' disgrace," read another. "The Caucasus war spread the cancer of Nazism across Russia," read the one held by a woman standing nearby.

The protesters, carrying lit candles and flowers, attempted to approach a stone erected in memory of Soviet-era political prisoners, but police clamped down on them, dragging around two dozens into buses waiting nearby. Many posters were torn down. Rights campaigner Ponomarev was among those detained. Events in Beslan shocked the world and prompted Putin to launch some controversial political reforms, citing the need to face what he described as a "war declared by terrorists on Russia".

"The massacre of the innocent women and children shocked not only our country but the whole world," Putin said on Sunday. "This tragedy, the inconsolable grief of the parents who lost their most precious -- their children -- will remain our common anguish forever." Prosecutors are still investigating the siege.

Human Rights Watch has issued a report detailing how Russian prosecutors railroaded two former detainees at Guantanamo Bay that the U.S. foolishly released to Russia's clutches when Russia claimed they were terrorists. The sham trials that resulted where pathetic spectacles of the classic Neo-Soviet variety, based on "confessions" that were beaten out of the suspects. HRW stated: "Police in Russia frequently use torture and ill-treatment to extract confessions." It concluded that torture is so omnipresent in Russia that it disqualifies the country from receiving extradited prisoners under the Convention Against Torture to which the U.S. is a signatory. Reading the article, one has the marked impression of a barbaric, third-world political system, not the advanced system of a G-8 country.

La Russophobe will not be posting today, September 4, 2006, to celebrate LABOR DAY and honor the millions of hard-working Americans and American residents who toil tirelessly to make America the world's most vibrant and dynamic economy. (In case you're wondering Big Black, she's going deep sea for blues.)

From The "You Can't Make this Stuff Up!" Department

MOSCOW (The St. Petersburg Times) — Two Egyptian citizens face criminal charges in the Bryansk region for attempting to tunnel under the Russian border using a shoehorn, Interfax reported Wednesday. The Prosecutor General’s Office said Wednesday that the Egyptians, Mohammed Anwar el Maghriby Ali Kuram and Said Ali Taha Mohammed Hassan, hatched a plan in early July to cross the border illegally into Western Europe. They flew into Moscow on tourist visas, then made it to the Belarussian-Polish border by car and train. A statement from the Prosecutor General’s Office said the pair used a shoehorn to tunnel into Poland under a barbed-wire barrier along the border. “Once in Poland, the Egyptians lost their way, and assuming that the next barbed-wire fence they encountered was the border between Poland and Germany, they dug another tunnel using the same shoehorn,” the statement said. “Unfortunately, they wound up back in Belarus instead of Germany.” After a brief stay in the custody of Belarussian border police, the two men were put on a train to Moscow and told to report to the Egyptian Embassy. They got off the train in Smolensk instead, however, and made their way to the border town of Sevsk, where they were detained by border guards as they tried to burrow across the border into Ukraine. The two men are currently in jail awaiting trial in a Bryansk regional court. They have been charged with attempting to cross the Russian border illegally in an organized group. The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

MOSCOW (The Moscow Times - Anna Malpas) Recently, I've been reading a series of very dull interviews in glossy magazines. The only interesting thing about them is that the subjects are all famous Russians, and somewhere in the second-to-last paragraph they all drop in a mention of the mobile phone operator Beeline. The people taking part -- tennis player Yelena Dementyeva and filmmaker Yegor Konchalovsky, among others -- talk to an unnamed interviewer in a Q&A format. Then there are just a couple of sentences where they talk about a convenient way to pay their phone bills. After that, it's back to their latest film, tennis match or whatever. These ads, which have run in Hello! and Seven Days magazines, aren't fooling anybody, since they stick out visually from the rest of the content. But at the same time, they probably leave the participants feeling like they haven't completely sold their souls to the almighty ruble. Konchalovsky takes the opportunity to name-drop at least five productions he's currently involved in. Other celebrities aren't as finicky about putting their faces to products. Film director Fyodor Bondarchuk may have made millions with the buddy drama "Company 9," but that doesn't mean he can't make a little extra cash plugging beer and vodka (separately, not as chasers). Meanwhile, the folksy playwright and actor Yevgeny Grishkovets shows off his Everyman credentials by advertising American Express with the slogan "Either you have it now, or you will." Some of the faces seem to fit the products better than others. One of the less successful combinations was television host Oksana Pushkina's performance for the inexpensive, Russian-made moisturizing cream Black Pearl. Not long afterward, she hit the headlines after suffering ill effects from a cosmetic surgery procedure. On that note, cosmetic surgery might seem like the ultimate no-no when it comes to celebrity endorsement. But Lyubov Polishchuk, an actress who starred in films back in Soviet times, used to have her photograph on ads for a clinic that appeared regularly in Seven Days. True, it seems they've stopped appearing recently, perhaps due to a tabloid story about her temporary paralysis after some terrifying procedure. Sometimes it's not the celebrity's face that's most important when it comes to casting ads. The dancer and stripper Tarzan, who is married to pop singer Natasha Korolyova, can be seen on posters in the metro advertising underpants. The more A-list Russian celebrities often choose to advertise watches, usually very expensive ones. The pop singer Alsu has been photographed wearing a slim Orient watch and the satisfied expression of someone whose daddy is a former vice president of LUKoil. Another singer, Zhanna Friske, is now advertising the same watchmaker in a photo shoot that reverses her usual principle of wearing more makeup than clothes. That's not to say humbler products can't have starry faces representing them. Nikolai Baskov, the favorite pop and opera singer of Russian housewives, recently appeared in a widely printed "news" story about his feelings of nausea after spending a whole day shooting a tea commercial soon to grace our screens. Of course, this vitally important story didn't forget to mention that he still liked the product in question. And a recent commercial featured the one-time goalkeeper for the Soviet soccer team, Rinat Dasayev, reminiscing about his glory days, only to find that his treasured sweat-stained shirt had been washed shiny and new by his housekeeper, using Ariel detergent. A journalist from Komsomolskaya Pravda called up Dasayev to ask whether the shirt used in the commercial was actually one he had played in. Not surprisingly, the answer was short and sharp.

La Russophobe is in good company. Reader Jeremy Putley points us to a recent report from Izvestia which appeared in the Johnson's Russia List which declares that John McCain, past and future U.S. presidential candidate and one of the most respected and influential people on the face of the planet, is a card-carrying "russophobe." Isn't it interesting how Russians view McCain as "peremptory in the American style"? Russians really think that Ukrainians, Georgians and Baltic people see Russians differently, not at all peremptory, just respectful and reasonable. In other words, they have their heads about a million miles deep in the Neo-Soviet sand. Here is the item:

Izvestia August 30, 2006
Report by Aleksandr Iashvili
"Senator McCain Promises To Protect Georgia From Putin"

Tbilisi -- US Senator John McCain, who is sometimes referred to a "the United States' chief Russophobe," has arrived in Georgia on a three-day visit. Tbilisi's sharpest wits immediately dubbed this trip an "inspection tour" -- hinting at the fact that in Washington it is McCain who is considered the "overseer" of Mikheil Saakashvili and his team of "rose revolutionaries." The inspection is proceeding productively. Together with several fellow-senators, McCain has even ventured into "enemy territory" -- Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, which is not under the Tbilisi authorities' jurisdiction. The American visitors met with South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoiti and engaged him in "an intensive exchange of opinions."That exchange left McCain deeply disappointed. He was particularly displeased by Kokoiti's statement that "the people of South Ossetia see their future within the Russian Federation." At a press conference held in Tbilisi immediately upon the Americans' return from Tskhinvali the senator complained that he had received from his Ossetian conversation partner "no specific answers to the question why the peace plan for the conflict's settlement was not being implemented." The American guest reassured his audience: He said that the United States "firmly supports Georgia's territorial integrity. Your country is a friend of America, and is worthy to become a NATO member," the senator proclaimed. But McCain would not have been his normal self if he had failed to recall the favorite target of his speeches -- Vladimir Putin. He told the Tbilisi journalists that he had been shocked at the sight of a billboard on the road to Tskhinvali that said "Putin is our president." "Putin will never be president on Georgian territory," the senator vowed. While so saying, he had been emotional in the Caucasian style and peremptory in the American style. On hearing such assurances, Mikheil Saakashvili was unable to conceal his delight. He is, after all, convinced (and has repeatedly said so in his speeches) that it is McCain who will be the next US president. On this occasion too, speaking in Mtskheta, the ancient Georgian capital, Saakashvili again referred to the senator as George Bush's possible successor and, for some reason, he dubbed his own country "a smithy where American presidents are forged"

RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday that "the director general of the Kommersant publishing house confirmed that negotiations on the sale of the company to a Russian businessman are underway. 'I do not want to make any comments,' Demyan Kudryavtsev said. 'But the deal is underway.' He said the publishing house is being sold to Alisher Usmanov, the owner of Metalloinvest holding, and that the deal satisfied both parties. The company's previous owner, businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili, earlier said he planned to sell 100% of his publishing business for no less than its market value, estimated at $200 million. Speculation is already rife that this is a move by the Kremlin against one of the last major bastions of critical media in the country. La Russophobe would just like to say for the record that if Kommersant is coopted by the Kremlin she will lose a significant source of insight about Russia and will consider it the beginning of the end for Russia, the first nail in Russia's Neo-Soviet coffin. It hasn't happened yet and now is the time to act to prevent it. The Moscow Times reports:

Senior Kommersant editors Thursday cast doubt on Alisher Usmanov's claim that he would not tamper with the newspaper's editorial policy after he acquired it.

"It would be too early to say now whether I believe promises that the editorial policy of Kommersant will be left unchanged," chief editor Vladislav Borodulin told RIA-Novosti while attending a Beijing forum of editors of Chinese and Russian media.

Another senior Kommersant staffer was more blunt. "All this talk of this being some kind of private investment -- give me a break," he said. Several senior staff members may soon leave, he added.

A senior writer at the paper confirmed that deputy editor Alexander Shadrin, responsible for business coverage, resigned Wednesday.

Tatyana Lysova, the top editor at Vedomosti, Kommersant's main rival, expressed deep reservations about the change in ownership. "We like to see a strong competitor," she said. "In the immediate period after the sale, business readers' trust in Kommersant is likely to drop."

Alluding to Usmanov's senior role at state-controlled Gazprom and his metals assets, Lysova added: "Everyone knows about Usmanov and his range of businesses. At first, readers will be skeptical, looking to spot his influence in the coverage of certain topics."

On Wednesday, Usmanov said he had no plans to change Kommersant's editorial policy. Usmanov is expected to acquire the paper formally within days.

Analysts, meanwhile, buttressed Lysova, saying the newspaper could indeed be facing a drop in readership and other staff departures.

Since Usmanov is a well-connected steel magnate, it is unlikely the paper will retain its objective, often anti-Kremlin perspective, said Boris Timoshenko, head of monitoring at the Glasnost Defense Foundation.

"Practice shows that Kommersant may well lose its face, its influence and its readership," Timoshenko said, referring to Gazeta, Izvestia and Nezavisimaya Gazeta. All these papers have been snapped up by Kremlin-friendly owners and have shifted their reporting away from serious, often probing journalism to more tabloid-style coverage.

Timoshenko noted that Gazeta, also bought by a steel magnate, Vladimir Lisin, had "joined the row of those colorful, superficially successful but bland publications."

Kommersant has a circulation of nearly 123,000 and is distributed in 16 cities in Russia. Since July, there has been a Kommersant Ukraine edition.

In an interview late Wednesday, Usmanov said of the paper: "I've been a kommersant for, what, 20 years, and a fan of Kommersant for 15. I'd have been a fool to pass up this opportunity."

The paper is the flagship publication of Kommersant Publishing House, which is expected to earn $70.4 million this year, with a net profit of $15 million.

The publishing house also owns the magazines Dengi, Vlast, Avtopilot and Molotok, among others. Molotok, a weekly glossy for teenagers, was recently attacked by authorities for publishing obscene photographs and sex advice.

Usmanov, with no known experience or assets in media, will complete the purchase of the publishing house using a recently registered offshore firm, Mediaholding, which has no other assets. Usmanov said the deal was worth about $200 million, while Kommersant reported Thursday that it was more than $300 million, citing sources close to the deal.

Borodulin, the chief editor, said Usmanov would meet the newspaper's staff after Sept. 15. On Thursday, members of Usmanov's business team paid a visit to Kommersant's offices in a former school building northwest of the city center.

Usmanov is also the president of Gazprominvestholding, a 100 percent subsidiary of Gazprom. In that capacity, he is charged with keeping Gazprom's debt in check and handling some of the gas monopoly's assets.

Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, he spent some time behind bars on fraud charges. Following his release, he built a fortune in the iron-ore market. With partners Vasily Anisimov and State Duma Deputy Andrei Skoch, Usmanov cobbled together a 45 percent share of the market. The holding company controlling these assets is Metalloinvest; all three have equal shares. Forbes magazine estimates Usmanov's fortune to be $3.1 billion.

A third senior Kommersant source suggested that Chukotka governor and former oil and aluminum magnate Roman Abramovich had acted as a middleman in the Kommersant sale. There was speculation Thursday that Abramovich might have bought the paper from its former owner, Boris Berezovsky ally Badri Patarkatsishvili, before turning it over to Usmanov.

A spokesman for Millhouse, Abramovich's holding company, dubbed the speculation "just another rumor of the day."

Berezovsky, the owner of Kommersant until he sold it to Patarkatsishvili earlier this year, said late Thursday that he had no detailed knowledge about the transaction.

Returning to the blogosphere from the vaunted one-month European vacation, Vilhelm Konnander has an excellent review of the oligarch situation in Russia. His piece explodes the myth that Putin is at war with the oligarchs and/or corruption in Russia. What Putin is at war with is somebody else's oligarchs. He simply replaced those of the former system with his own, and established an even more abject contempt for property rights than his predecessor. As Konnander states:

Russia during the 1990s has often been compared to the United States during the early 20th century, when Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and other business tycoons succeeded in forming next to total monopolies in various areas of business. However, this argument falls flat as the Putin administration displays such a blatant disregard of basic property rights - the very nucleus of a working market economy. That the oligarchs may have done the same in the early 1990s is no excuse for a state to follow such conduct. Moreover, one may argue that one oligarchy today is replaced by another, while the spoils of state action against the oligarchs partly end up in the hands of Putin's entourage, thus effectively redistributing assets from private to private hands instead of to government control. Consequently, Putin's people enrich themselves by forcing parts of Russian business into their own hands. Of course, such behaviour is but a parallel to Putin's political agenda, gaining control over all relevant areas of society. Seeing similarities between Russia of the 1990s and the US of the 1910s becomes laughable if turning to president Wilson's credo of "making the world safe for democracy." It is quite apparent that Putin neither makes Russia safe for democracy nor makes Russia safe for market economy.

First there was Peter I. He destroyed Russia's problem with isolation but, in so doing, created Russia's problem of monarchy.

Then there was Lenin. He destroyed Russia's problem with monarchy, but in so doing he created Russia's problem of totalitarianism.

After that there was Yeltsin. He destroyed Russia's problem of totalitarianism, but in so doing he created Russia's problem of oligarchy.

Now there is Putin. He destroyed Russia's problem of oligarchy and is busily in the the process of reverting to totalitarianism, but now based less on conventional weapons and more on weaponization of energy.

Perhaps, if Russia exists that long, someone will destroy the problem Putin created, and replace it with one of his (or maybe even her) own.

Will the cycle ever end?

Today is the five-month anniversary of this blog, and this is, by happy coincidence, our 600th post. On Wednesday, we were proud to welcome our 9,000th visit to the blog and on Thursday our 900th profile view. On Friday, as previously announced, we broke into the top 100,000 blogs in the world as evaluated by Technorati. Who are these vistors, you ask?

For those who may be interested, the chart above shows a graphic representation of La Russophobe's traffic by nation. Just over half of our readers come from the United States, just under half are internationals ranging from Argentina to Switzerland, including over two dozen different countries.

The blog is now averaging more than 700 visits (and over 1,500 page views) per week or close to 3,000 visits (and over 6,000 page views) per month. Before the middle of the month we will record the 10,000th visit to the blog, a major milestone which will come a few weeks before our six-month anniversary. Although the blog has only just begun, it's already clear that there is a substantial community in the blogosphere that is strongly interested in the fate of democracy in Russia, and we welcome all the members of that community to this blog. We thank and admire all those who are willing to take positive steps to stand up for democracy and against tyrrany in the Neo-Soviet Union. History will record that our community sounded the clarion call to action when action was still possible; whether that call will be heeded remains of course to be seen.

Undoubtedly, a number of our readers are also simply worried about the consequences for their own nations, especially those located close to Russia's borders, as the Iron Curtain once again descends across the continent. To them La Russophobe expresses her admiration, fellowship and empathy, since she does not have to bear that particular burden. Part of the reason this blog exists is to make an expression of support for your position. Hopefully, a concerted world effort will protect you.

Finally, there are surely some people who are simply interested in Russia as a hobby, and La Russophobe, averaging more than 100 posts per month, is the most content-rich Russia speciality blog in the world, so these readers know they can find something new and interesting about Russia on this blog every single day. Those with an interest in Russia are always welcome to submit material for publication on this blog.

When Russia is offended by the behavior of Georgia, does it negotiate or does it impose trade sanctions on wine and water?

When Russia is disturbed by the actions of Ukraine, does it discuss and investigate or does it cut off gas supplies?

As the world well knows, Russia goes right for the jugular.

But apparently Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov doesn't approve of his own government's actions. Reuters quotes him as follows: "We take into account the experience of the past and we cannot ally ourselves with ultimatums, which all lead to a dead end. Yes, there are countries whose policies raise doubts, and cause discontent, but we all live in the same world and we need to ... draw them into dialogue, and not isolation and sanctions."

Was Lavrov speaking about Georgia and Ukraine? Dream on. What he was talking about was the world's effort to impose sanctions on Iran due to its nuclear weapons program. Or, he might just as well have been expressing Russia's indigation that the U.S. would dare to sanction Russia by denying WTO approval.

In other words, it's just fine for Russia to sanction OTHER COUTRIES, just like its fine for Russia to launch military attacks on those groups RUSSIA SAYS are terrorist. But let the United States attack Iraq the way Russia attacks Chechnya, or let the world seek to limit Iran's nuclear program the way Russia tries to limit the actions of Ukraine and Georgia, and then Russia is morally outraged.

Is it any wonder that Russia stands alone in the world, utterly without allies? This kind of hypocrisy is hard to live with, hard indeed.

If the Foreign Minister is remotely serious about his comments, he might want to look into Russia's announcement of sanctions against the Polish milk industry. Or Russia's announcement of sanctions against the U.S. meat industry. Or Russia's boycott of an Israeli trade fair to protest Israel's actions against close Russian pal Hezbollah. Or any other direct actions Russia has taken, instead of negotiating and "being reasonable." But of course, he's not the least bit serious.

Check out La Russophobe's latest post on Publius Pundit, where she reviews the most recent data on Russian economic growth and pops some bubbles about its significance. Information of this kind is regularly mischaracterized in the press and the topic cannot be dealt with too often. Feel free to add your own thoughts about economic growth in Russia in the comments section.

Sean's Russia Blog contains a fantastic double post on Chechnya, the first documenting the obscene failure of the Russian people to demand honesty from their goverment concerning the ongoing military casualities being suffered in the region, and the other documenting, based on a New York Times story, the horrors of the Kremlin-sponsored Kadyrov regime that governs the region (the article appears in full below). As Sean brilliantly and succinctly puts it: "It seems that Kadyrov’s Chechnya is turning out to be no different than the late Shamil Basaev’s would have been." Russia will only become a great country when it realizes that this is the statement of a true Russian patriot and make a hero out of the speaker instead of trying to silence him.

Right now, Showtime network is airing its breathtaking documentary "Three Days in September" narrated by Julia Roberts (click the link for video clips, photos and other information). Catch it if you have not seen it already, it is truly a harrowing work of genius. It tells the story of the Beslan hostage tragedy and tells viewers many facts the Kremlin would like them to forget. For example, that there was only one meeting between the terrorists and the government during the four days of the crisis; that Putin spent virtually no time in Beslan when he visited in the aftermath and did not go to the site at all (the pictures of Putin's cold, shark-like eyes as he visits the wounded in their hospital beds is perfectly ghastly); that one of the terrorists helped save the life of one of the children during the frenzied attack by government forces; that the government needed nearly half a day to subdue the two-dozen terrorists in the building; and that the government lied brazenly during the crisis about how many children were inside. People outside Russia know more about the crisis than the Russians themselves, because the Russian people choose to close their eyes to the outrageous actions of their government. The same is true for what goes on inside Chechnya.

If the Russian people sit in craven silence allowing both civilians and soldiers to be butchered in secrecy, not even knowing the correct number of their casualties, if they will not protect their children, then who can feel sympathy for them as they plummet into the abyss?

Here is the New York Times piece cited by Sean Guillory in full (a ghastly video presentation is available for those with strong stomachs, click here to watch):

ARGUN, Russia, Aug. 26 — The humiliation of Malika Soltayeva, a pregnant Chechen woman suspected of adultery, was ferocious and swift.

Ms. Soltayeva, 23, had been away from home for a month and was reported missing by her family. When she returned, her husband accused her of infidelity and banished her from their apartment. The local authorities found her at her aunt’s residence. They said they had a few questions.

What followed was no investigation. In a law enforcement compound in this town in east-central Chechnya, the men who served as Argun’s police sheared away her hair and her eyebrows and painted her scalp green, the color associated with Islam. A thumb-thick cross was smeared on her brow.

Ms. Soltayeva, a Muslim, had slept with a Christian Russian serviceman, they said. Her scarlet letter would be an emerald cross. She was forced to confess, ordered to strip, and beaten with wooden rods and hoses on her buttocks, arms, legs, hands, stomach and back. “Turn and be condemned by Allah,” one of her tormentors said, demanding that she position herself so he could strike her more squarely.

The torture of Ms. Soltayeva, recorded on a video obtained by The New York Times, and other recent brutish acts and instances of religious policing, raise questions about Chechnya’s direction.

Since 2004, the war in Chechnya has tilted sharply in the Kremlin’s favor, as open combat with separatists has declined in intensity and frequency. Moscow now administers the republic and fights the remaining insurgency largely through paramilitary forces led by Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the powerful young Chechen premier.

Mr. Kadyrov’s public persona is flamboyantly pro-Russian. He praises President Vladimir V. Putin and has pledged to rebuild Chechnya and lead it back to the Kremlin’s fold. “I cannot tell you how great my love for Russia is,” he said in an interview this year.

But beneath this publicly professed loyalty, some of Chechnya’s indigenous security forces — with their evident anti-Slavic racism, institutionalized brutality, culture of impunity and intolerant interpretation of a pre-medieval Islamic code — have demonstrated the vicious behavior that Russia has said its latest invasion of Chechnya, in 1999, was supposed to stop.

Human rights groups and Chechen civilians say that these security forces’ ambitions and loyalties are uncertain and that their actions are unchecked. The republic’s course, they say, is dangerous for Russians and Chechens alike.

Few people have yet compared the current disorder with the end of the brief period of Chechen autonomy, in the late 1990’s, when rebels and foreign Islamic mercenaries operated terrorist training camps in the forests, and when Islamic courts sentenced criminals to execution by firing squads, which were broadcast on Chechen television news. But Mr. Kadyrov’s police and security forces, known as kadyrovsty, are staffed mostly with uneducated young men, some of whom have been fighting for years, including many former rebels who have changed sides.

Recent videos of their conduct, provided to The New York Times by outraged Chechens, show an unsettling pattern.

One shows a man and a woman in the town of Shali, each married to someone else, who were suspected of flirting in a car this summer. The police swarmed around the couple, jeering at them, and directed the man to kick the woman. The couple was then forced to dance a brief lezginka, a traditional and often sexually charged dance. The police kicked the woman, too, and pulled her scarf and hair.

Although the faces of several of the officers are clear, they have yet to come under investigation by higher authorities.

Another instance of unrestrained behavior occurred in late July in Kurchaloi, when one of Mr. Kadyrov’s units killed a rebel, Akhmad Dushayev, and beheaded his body. The severed head was displayed on a pipe in the town’s center, residents said in interviews.

Videos show that, later, the kadyrovsty, many in police uniforms, casually amused themselves with the head, joking as they displayed it in a garage. Another video shows the head adorned with a cap and with a cigarette in its mouth.

Residents said the police justified the beheading by saying that Mr. Dushayev had previously cut off the head of a pro-Kremlin Chechen fighter, and that the vengeance was fair play. Ms. Soltayeva’s own experience, much of which was captured on video, was an accumulation of terror, pain and loss.

She was seized March 19, and mocked throughout a torture session that lasted nearly two hours. “Call for Sergei!” one of the policemen said, using the name of her assumed lover as he beat her. “Sergei! Help!”

Next they told her to dress, and drove her to her husband’s courtyard and made her dance before her neighbors. “Look how ugly you are,” another policeman said.

When she staggered away, several of them kicked her with their heavy black boots. Two days later she miscarried, and has been largely out of public view since.

The episode, which took place five months ago, was not investigated, even though videos showing the torture were passed along on cellphones throughout Argun and other Chechen towns. The videos circulated widely enough that accurate details of her abuse were known by roughly half of the Chechens interviewed by The New York Times.

“It is just outrageous lawlessness,” Ms. Soltayeva said in an interview in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital.

As is common in crumbling marriages, the details of Ms. Soltayeva’s family life and behavior are in dispute. Her former husband’s family says she had an affair with a Russian serviceman she met at a store where she worked as a cashier. She says that she did not, and that she was faithful to her husband even though he beat her.

Her whereabouts in the weeks leading up to her beating are also a source of contention. Ms. Soltayeva said she was away from home because she had been abducted by masked men who eventually released her, a phenomenon in Chechnya that is common enough that her own family says they believe her. Her husband’s family, and the police, say that she left Chechnya to try to live with her Russian lover, and that she returned when it did not work out.

Natalya Estemirova, a staff member at the Grozny office of Memorial, a private human rights group, said she tried to bring the case to the Chechen authorities, but they threatened Ms. Soltayeva with criminal charges for falsely claiming to have been kidnapped. They showed no interest in the police violence, she said.

Allegations of state-sponsored horrors, and claims that Russian and Chechen officials have allowed servicemen to commit crimes with impunity, have been a regular accompaniment to the Chechen wars.

Human rights groups have documented mass graves, extralegal executions, widespread use and tolerance of torture, illegal detention, rape, robbery and kidnapping.

Some cases have seemed a matter of policy, as when suspected rebel supporters have been abducted during police and military sweeps. Other cases appeared to flow from the rage, drunkenness or frustration of ordinary soldiers fighting a savage guerrilla war.

What has made several recent cases different is that many of the kadyrovsty, unsophisticated gunmen who have had little contact with the world beyond Chechnya, have acquired cellphones with small video cameras and have casually, even gleefully, recorded their own crimes.

The video sequences are then shared, multiplying as they swiftly pass from phone to phone. In a long interview earlier this year, Mr. Kadyrov said that his units were being professionalized and that the armed men under his command integrated into formal government structures. He insisted that they would be able to provide security and competent policing.

[On Aug. 29, The Times provided Mr. Kadyrov’s office with four videos of Ms. Soltayeva’s torture. Mr. Kadyrov said through a spokeswoman that upon viewing them he had ordered the Chechen Interior Ministry to investigate. “Criminal charges will be brought against all responsible for this,” said the spokeswoman, Tatyana Georgiyeva.]

Ms. Estemirova said that the unit in Argun that seized Ms. Soltayeva had been formally disbanded in the spring, but that its members were simply transferred into new “professional” battalions, known as North and South.

“They were assimilated into North and South and never checked by prosecutors,” she said. “Now they are more difficult to arrest.”

In an icy blast delivered at a prestigious U.S. conference on energy, Senator Richard Lugar has equated Russia with U.S. energy foes Iran and Venezuela as "hostile regimes" where U.S. energy security is concerned. Drunk on arrogance and oil, Russia has provoked the United States into a second cold war and the consequences for Russia are inevitable and unavoidable. Kommersant reports:

The new charges against Russia were heard on Tuesday in West Lafayette, Indiana, at the so-called energy summit held under the patronage of Perdue University and Sen. Lugar. Major figures on the energy market and eminent experts on energy were present. The main topic of discussion was energy resources and their use in foreign policy. Lugar set the tone for the conference in his speech about challenges and threats. He is a 74-year-old veteran politician who was first elected to the Senate in 1976.

In his list of threats to U.S. national energy security, Lugar listed “hostile regimes, from Venezuela to Iran and Russia” neat the top, saying that they consciously use energy levers to pressure their neighbors. By placing Moscow in the same category as Tehran and Caracas, Lugar practically placed the Russian authorities on the same level as the regimes in those two countries. “We are used to thinking in terms of conventional warfare,” Lugar said, “but now energy is becoming the preferred weapon in the hands of those who have it.” Lugar called on U.S. authorities to develop a new national policy for energy resources to escape to avoid the “geopolitical threat from oil-rich regimes.”

Another entry on Lugar's list of six basic threats was authoritarian regimes that control the production and delivery of oil within their own countries. The money those receive from the sales of energy resources feeds corruption, Lugar said. As a consequence, a retreat from democracy happens in the best case and, in the worst case, the petrodollars are spend on the support of international terrorism. The senator was particularly upset by the fact that the U.S., by continuing to import oil from those countries, is contributing to the problem. “Our economic health depends on forces that are located far beyond the limits of our control, including in hostile countries,” he summarized. Although the senator did not list those hostile countries again, the same states that were listed earlier fell within his description.

What Lugar left unsaid was filled in by another participant in the conference, Rice University researcher Emmy Meyers- Jaff. “Bolivia, Venezuela and the Middle East are unstable regions,” she said. “And then there is Russia, where oil fields are being taken away from companies that have legally acquired the rights to produce oil. That happens when someone close to President Putin wants to make money himself. So remember, when you buy a gas-guzzling Hummer, you are voluntarily putting yourself in their hands,” she said.

The massive criticism of Russia is one response to concept of energy security proposed by Russia at the G8 summit. The American energy elite has made it clear that it does not consider Russia a guarantor of energy security, but a threat to it.

The four other threats to American energy security did not elicit as great a level of response at the conference. They concerned global warming, natural disaster and price growth due to consumption by economic giants like India and China. Lugar considers the last point a threat because high energy prices strike at developing countries' development, which often remain afloat only thanks to American aid.

Lugar's speech shows not only that the U.S. has firm intentions of fighting for its energy security and interests, it also shows the American establishment's position toward the Kremlin, both in the White House and in the Senate.

Ariel Cohen, senior analysts at the Heritage Foundation, told Kommersant that Lugar's statements the widening front of supporters of a harsher policy toward Russia. Cohen included congressmen John McCain and Tom Lantos in that cohort. In Cohen's opinion, Lugar's joining the ranks is bad news for Moscow because of his closeness to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Another Kommersant source tied Lugar's speech to the introduction of a document on the Senate on sanctions against French and Russian companies that do business with Iran.

A Kommersant source in the White House said that Lugar's speech should not be taken as a new turn in U.S.-Russian relations, but as a continuation of old tendencies. “He didn't say anything that U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney didn't say in Vilnius,” the source noted. “Condoleezza Rice has been talking about the same things for a long time.” That source made it clear that the U.S. would no longer remain silent if Moscow's behavior upsets it, and the uses of energy is just one of those things that upset it.

Here's a hot one: Writing in Asia Times, Federico Bordonaro, "senior analyst" with something called the Power and Interest News Report, exposes the truly outrageous and horrifying nature of Russian support for global terrorism. He also documents the Kremlin's consolidation of power. And his conclusion? It's unbelievably this: Russia is only supporting international terrorism because of an inferiority complex engendered by the expansion of NATO. In other words, Russia got its feelings hurt in the 90s, that is why it is supporting global terrorism in the 00s. All we need to do to control these actions by Russia is to strike a "grand bargain" with Putin (you know, the same kind Chamberlain struck with Hitler), showing Russians that we love them and respect their opinions, and then they'll become civilized. Psychological forces sure are at work here, but Mr. Bordonaro is their victim. It's so much easier and more comfortable to think of the Putin regime as "misunderstood" than evil, isn't it? That means all we have to do is be nicer to it and it will be nicer to us. On the other hand, if the Kremlin is dominated by a clan of crazed KGB functionaires steeped in hatred of the west and yearning for revenge not because of what happened after the USSR fell but because of the fall itself, that means we're in for decades more cold war with the risk of a thermonuclear hot one. It's the Chamberlain Complex: the preferred response among cowards is to stick your head in the sand and hope for the best.

It appears that Neo-Soviet Russia will replace the communist ideological element of Sovietism with, ironically, religion. No sooner did Neo-Soviet Russia block all non-Russian Christians from broadcasting on Russian radio waves than it announced that Orthodox Russian Christianity will soon be taught in Russian schools (Hitler was also a great fan of religion as a political weapon). As RIA Novosti reports:

The teaching of Orthodox Christianity in public schools will hurt Jews and other minorities in Russia, a Russian Jewish leader has said. Berel Lazar, one of Russia’s two chief rabbis, was quoted Wednesday by JTA as saying in an interview with a Moscow radio station that the introduction in four Russian regions of a new subject called the “Foundations of Russian Orthodox Culture” will “divide children into different classes” and ostracize minorities. Russian Muslims have also been reported to criticize the new subject that will become obligatory in certain regions of central Russia starting Friday. The curriculum change was first reported Wednesday.Russia is a multi-confessional state with the Russian Orthodox Church seen as the most popular religion. Other religions include Islam, Protestantism, Judaism, Buddhism and a number of less popular confessions.