Here's a powerful statement by Alexei, the Russian publisher of the Russian Dilettante blog:

I have always argued that most Russians are simply too uneducated to make qualified decisions outside their private lives, and that the ruling elites have no interest in educating the masses. I am consistent in this.

Now, if La Russophobe were to make a statement like that, she'd be accused by the Russophile wackos of being a "racist" or a "bigot," wouldn't she?

When describing widespread Russian ignorance (isn't it ironic that Russians project themselves to foreigners as a highly educated, erudite population, especially compared to Americans?), Alexei adopts a tone of irony and sarcasm. La Russophobe asked Alexei whether he didn't think this tended to undercut his message somewhat, making it seem that pursuing the education of the Russian people was a matter for joking, an impossibility. He responded:

My irony, in case you did not notice, is a simple device to conceal pain and dispair -- a device necessary in this postmodern age, when expressions like "saving your country" can only earn you ridicule.

Indeed, La Russophobe does often call upon Russians to take action to save their country, and the response is quite often ridicule. Apparently Alexei has himself been victimized by this treatment once too often and, like many Russians, has given up trying. Thank goodness for the indomitable fortitude of La Russophobe.

Alexei is certainly right in saying that the Kremlin doesn't want an educated population in Russia. That's why it keeps the salaries of teachers so low, preventing talented young people from entering the profession. That's why it censors textbooks and controls curriculum. If Russians received a real education, then they'd become free thinkers, and free thinkers are much more difficult for the Kremlin to control. For the same reason, the Kremlin likes to keep the Russian population suffering from all manner of sickness, which further weakens critical powers.

But how does the Kremlin manage to convince Russians that, despite actually being ignorant, they are clever and well-educated? That's quite a trick, isn't it? Truly, the one area where Russia leads the world is propaganda.

Alexei himself is even a victim. For instance, in a recent post he claims that reporting by the Associated Press about the Kondopoga race riots was "misleading." Alexei (who La Russophobe believes is a Slavic Russian) makes the general charge that "liberal Western media are picturing the riots as an unprovoked attack on defenseless immigrants." Yet, in his post he doesn't make reference to one single specific statement made by the AP reporter which was allegedly inaccurate or misleading. This is the style of the Soviet propagandist, and Alexei has been victimized by it, though he may not even be aware of the crime.

And it gets worse. Alexei then seeks to tell us the "real story" of what happened at Konodopoga. How does he do it? What are his sources, superior to the Associated Press? Well, let Alexei tell you in his own words:

Using Russian online sources, including internet forumes and LiveJournal.com postings, I have tried to understand what actually happened in Kondopoga in the late August and early September of 2006.Can you believe it?

Alexei chooses to rely upon anonymous blogs written by Slavic Russians he not only doesn't know but whom he can't verify were ever anywhere near Kondopoga, much less firsthand witnesses to the events there. Even if they're not simply lying, they could be basing their statements on what they see on state-controlled, propagandizing Russian TV. But Alexei doesn't even warn his readers about this possiblity, he takes theirs statements as gospel (and doens't even link readers to the posts so they can read them for themselves).

Based on reading Russian blogs, Alexei comes up with this amazing statement:

About a hundred young men left the town square and, heated by alcohol, rushed to set fire to the restaurant where it all started, owned by a "Caucasus ethnic." (Likely not a Chechen. A telling detail though -- a few years ago, the owner's son shot a Russian girl and walked free.)

So, Alexei says that in fact the Slavs of Kondopoga were not guilty of an "unprovoked attack on defenseless immigrants" but rather were defending themselves from a cruel murderer of children. The only thing is, there isn't one single shred of documentation for this claim to be found on Alexei's website, not even the simple identity of the blog writer who said it. The Russian blogosphere is full of racist websites and all forms of racist propaganda, and it is a classic form of Russian igorance, the kind Alexei decried, to repeat a statement like this with no warning as to how reliable it is. Shame on you, Alexei!

And for the final show of ignorance, what did Alexei do when La Russophobe called him on this behavior? He just refused to speak to her anymore about it, and plunged his head further into the sands of ignorance. In other words, yet another classic Soviet response.

This is the way it depressingly goes in Russia. Even when you have a Russian who gets it half right, he inevitably manages to get the other half twice as wrong, negating progress. For this reason century after century Russian government looks oddly similar and the nation continues its downward spiral. And when occasionally someone comes forward to get up in their faces about it (Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitisyn) they are inevitably shouted down, imprisoned, exiled or simply killed.

And so it goes in Russia.

A Step at a Time blog points out an argument by Russian analyst Aleksei Pantykin, who "says the Kondopoga events highlight the danger that 'the Russian Federation may collapse in the same way the USSR did.'" ASAAT's David McDuff continues:

He bases his argument on the fact that the reaction of Russian officialdom and even many Russians resembles all too closely the disastrous misreading of the start of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a conflict that ultimately contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union. At that time, he recalls, one Politburo member (V.I. Dolgikh) travelled to the region and bemoaned the fact that tehre was a dispute between "two Muslim peoples," a statement that not only distorted the facts - Armenia is historically Christian - but highlighted the extent to which the Soviet leadership was out of touch with reality. Citing the observation of Ortega y Gasset that elites must restrain their peoples, Pantykin suggests that at present many elites in Russia are doing just the reverse, pushing both sides in the conflict in Kondopoga toward more and broader conflicts rather than calming the situation.

Others agree: Pavel Svyatenkov noted that Russia was rapidly becoming a place in which one section of the country might decide to fight another, a situation unthinkable elsewhere: "even in a nightmare," he said, "it is impossible to imagine Texas forces advancing on California". And Oleg Kashin argued that Russian elites bear much of the responsibility for this deterioration, not only by failing to discuss what is going on but by offering television time to extremist Russian nationalists like Yegor Khomogorov to advance their agendas.

But however valid or invalid these generalizations may be, the Kondopoga events are already having three major consequences. First, officials in both Karelia and Moscow have rushed to blame the non-Russian immigrants for what happened rather than exploring the complex of causes behind this explosion. Second, non-Russians in major Russian cities are rushing to say that their communities will never destabilize the situation there, however bad things may get. Indeed, the head of the Uzbek community in St. Petersburg said his people would remain calm despite recent knifings of its members. And third, in some Russian cities, officials now feel themselves empowered to repress non-Russians and especially people from the Caucasus even more harshly. In Kaliningrad, ANN reported on Tuesday militia have been going house to house and asking: "Are there any suspicious people there? Any persons of Caucasus nationality?"

Officials there say they are doing this to enhance security in advance of what they hope will be a visit to that non-contiguous portion of the Russian Federation later this month. But few people be they Russian or non-Russian will fail to conclude that what is going on is something bigger than that. And to the extent they are correct, one of the two more apocalyptic conclusions offered above - either a repressive Russian nationalist state or the disintegration of the Russian Federation - could prove true, despite the expectations or hopes of many in virtually all camps

One thing above all can't be questioned: If Russia really is doing well economically, then these acts are truly barbaric indications of latent and fundmental racism permeating Russian society that need not rely on economic motivations. If the acts are driven by poverty, then all the claims about Russia's oil revenues are proven nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

It is now being reported that "a Russian-made Tupolev 154 aircraft blew a tire, skidded off a runway and caught fire while landing in northeastern Iran on a few hours ago, killing up to 80 of the 147 passengers aboard. The Tu-154, the workhorse of passenger airlines in the former Soviet Union, has been in commercial service since 1972. More than 900 have been built and more than 160 exported to airlines around the world. Due to noise and pollution regulations, the planes do not fly to Western destinations." As previously reported on La Russophobe, a Tu-154 crashed during a thunderstorm in Ukraine on Aug. 22 while en route from a Black Sea resort to St. Petersburg, Russia, killing all 170 aboard. That craft was owned by Russia's Pulkovo Airlines, and was only the latest in recent string of Russian air disasters.

A few minutes ago La Russophobe was pleased to welcome the 10,000th visit to the blog. Visit #10,000 came from Egham, Slough, United Kingdom.

It took La Russophobe 153 days to reach this milestone, meaning that she averaged 65 visits per day during the first 5+ months of her existence (visit #10,000 came six days after her five-month anniversary). At her current rate of traffic, it will only take about 105 days for her to accrue a second 10,000 visits.

Though she knows she's still a baby, La Russophobe is already a force to be reckoned with in the Russia-watching world because she is the most heavily trafficked and most content-rich Russia specialty blog on the planet.

If you are reading these words, (and especially if you are writing or commenting on others) you are a part of La Russophobe and her accomplishments are yours as well. But her challenges are also yours, and there is a long, long way to go before even a reasonable semblance of democracy or freedom arrives in Russia, much less a benign, non-imperial government (if it ever does). La Russophobe thanks all her readers and especially her contributors for their continuing support and courage in the face of the rising Neo-Soviet monstrosity.

The Moscow News reports that Russia has attempted, in the manner of the Bay of Pigs, to funnel support to Georgian coup plotters seeking to destabilize Georgia's elected government in order to avoid Georgia falling into the evil clutches of NATO and the European Union. In combination with the dire state of human rights in Russia as documented on La Russophobe this can only be viewed as a shocking escalation of Neo-Soviet behavior and naked imperialism. It is truly breathtaking hypocrisy for Russia to intervene in Georgian and Ukrainian politics while screaming to high heaven if any foreign country interferes with Russia in Chechnya. And it is truly horrifying to imagine that Russia is now so drunk on oil revenues that it is prepared to court disaster with such provocative behavior.

Nearly 30 people were arrested in Georgia on suspicion of plotting a coup against the government, officials said. They say those detained are supporters of Igor Giorgadze — the fugitive former head of the state security service. Lawyers for those arrested deny the coup accusations, saying the arrests amount to political persecution.

Giorgadze fled Georgia after being accused of trying to assassinate then President Eduard Shevardnadze in 1995 — a charge he denies. “They will be charged under Article 315 of the Georgian criminal code — plotting against the state and overthrowing the government,” Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili told reporters.

Among those detained are officials of two opposition parties — the pro-Russian Justice Party and the Conservative Monarchists.

The Russian newspaper Kommersant wrote Thursday that Georgia has accused Moscow of backing the plotters. Vano Mirabishvili announced that an attempted coup financed by Russia had been prevented. The opposition says that a new political era has begun in Georgia as “the authorities try to hold on to power through repression alone.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Georgian security forces broke raided apartments of the leaders of Justice Party, Anti-Soros Movement and Conservative Monarchists Party across the country. Those parties make up the so-called Igor Giorgadze bloc. Police operations were also carried out at the homes of his relatives. After searches were conducted, 29 opposition leaders and activists were arrested. Searches of the opposition groups’ offices were conducted simultaneously and, according to official accounts, charter documents, computers, money and weapons were seized.

Georgia also accuses Moscow of backing separatists in Georgia’s breakaway provinces, while Russia has banned the import of certain Georgian goods.

RIA Novosti says that the problems are far from over:

TBILISI, September 7 (RIA Novosti) - A Georgian opposition party, Justice, called Thursday for a national disobedience campaign to topple the president and his government as 14 party activists were charged with preparing a coup.

The interior minister said Wednesday the country's law enforcement agencies had information that supporters of controversial former Georgian minister and security chief Igor Giorgadze were preparing to overthrow the government and making arrangements for Giorgadze's return from exile. In all, 29 people were detained in raids and 14 individuals who remained in custody Thursday were officially charged.

But Justice party representative Irina Sarishvili told a news conference that her party would seek to bring down President Mikheil Saakashvili, who himself came to power on the back of popular protests, and his government.

"We propose setting up a national disobedience movement and starting large-scale actions with only one demand: that the country's current leadership resigns," said Sarishvili, who runs the Igor Giorgadze Foundation in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.

Justice party leader Giorgadze himself is said to live in Russia after fleeing the country in 1995 when he was accused of organizing an assassination attempt on then-president Eduard Shevardnadze. He has denied the claims.

"If these authorities want revolution, they will get it," said Sarishvili, who also claimed Wednesday her office was being searched by security officers.

Georgian law enforcement agencies carried out an operation Wednesday to arrest supporters of Giorgadze, his Justice party and other public and political organizations, including the leader of the opposition Conservative Monarchist party, Teimuraz Zhorzholiani, and of the Anti-Soros political movement, Maya Nikoleishvili.

President Saakashvili told journalists in Poland, where he is on an official visit, that the alleged plotters would be dealt with harshly. "They will get what they deserve, and those who finance them can be sure of that," he said.

But Sarishvili rejected a statement by the Georgian Interior Ministry about an alleged conspiracy aiming at overthrowing the authorities at a party conference on May 4. "There was no conference and, of course, no plan to overthrow authorities," she said.

The detained activists have protested their innocence and have said their political work led to their arrest, which prompted Sarishvili to say the detentions looked like the start of a political repression campaign.

A senior Russian diplomat said Moscow, which has had tense relations with Tbilisi since the 2003 "rose revolution" brought Saakashvili to power, regarded the arrests as a domestic matter for Georgia.

"We regard yesterday's arrests of opposition representatives as the country's internal affair," Yury Popov, Russia's ambassador-at-large and co-chairman of the Joint Control Commission for Georgian-South Ossetian conflict resolution, told a news conference.

The diplomat also said it was unsurprising that some politicians in Georgia had accused Russia of financing the opposition's activities. "Georgia by habit blames Russia for all its troubles," Popov said.

On Saturday October 7th, at 1 pm in the 37 Arts Gallery located at 450 West 37th Street in Manhattan, Russian political activist Garry Kasparov will be interviewed by David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker magazine. The cost of attending is $25 and further details can be obtained by calling (877) 391-0545. All those interested in the development of democracy and political alternatives in Russia should consider attending and expressing their support to the valiant Mr. Kasparov, who is risking all to give Russia a choice. The event is part of the 7th Annual New Yorker Festival, and is especially timely in light of the shocking attempt by Russia, detailed above, to subvert the elected regime in Georgia (after attempting the same thing in Ukraine) and the orgy of racism and other human rights violations sweeping the country. Even if you don't specifically support Mr. Kasparov, you should support his presence on the political landscape as way of encouraging other prospective leaders to throw their hats into the ring and give Russians real choices during elections. La Russopohbe has already documented the Kremlin's relentless attacks on Mr. Kasparov and his party, showing how significant they really are and how genuine is Mr. Kasparov's commitment.

Did somebody say "Star Wars redux"? In yet another harbinger of the cold war Russia has provoked with the United States, Russia is now panicking over the U.S. plan to develop a ballistic missile shield. 7Days reports:

The planned US anti-missile shield is a threat to global security as it could lead to another arms race, Russia’s army chief, General Yuri Baluyevski, said in an article published in a Polish newspaper yesterday. "Deploying the large-scale US anti-missile shield threatens to spark a new arms race," Baluyevski said in the Polish daily Dziennik. Of particular concern, according to Baluyevski, was Washington’s intention to base some of the anti-missile shield in central Europe. Poland and the Czech Republic are being considered for the European base of the anti-missile shield, although opposition to that plan is rising in both countries. Other countries where the United States could base its interceptor missiles and radar are Bulgaria, Hungary or Turkey. "We are firmly convinced that, if the US project is carried out, it could lead to the deployment near the Russian border of systems which threaten to upset the strategic balance in weapons positioning," Baluyevski said. The US missile defence system employs radar and satellites to detect enemy missile launches and guide interceptors to their targets. The command centre is based in the southwestern US state of Colorado, and interceptor missiles are located in Alaska and in California. The head of the US missile defence agency, General Henry Obering, said last month he expects to make recommendations in a matter of months on where to position interceptor missiles and radar in Europe.

Meanwhile, the RSNF blog reports that even as it complains about U.S. policy Russia is seeking to unilaterally withdraw from a major SALT provision, the INF medium range ICMB agreement. Russia obviously wants these weapons to terrorize the former Soviet slave states who are reluctant for obvious reasons to come under Russia's thumb, such as Ukraine and Georgia.

Take a look at La Russophobe's item on Publius Pundit summarizing the shocking series of events last weekend on the human rights scene in Russia. As noted below, the story coming out of Kondopoga is getting worse by the hour, and the total picture gives every indication of rapidly spinning out of control. "President" Putin's silence in the face of these events is disgusting to say the least (though hardly suprising). Comments from readers are especially welcome on this important issue.

Radio Free Europe reports that on Tuesday night "a sports school was torched in Kondopoga, a small city of 35,000 inhabitants in the northwestern Karelia Republic. Reports say that one of the trainers employed there is of Caucasus origin and that several families from Central Asia were living in the school at the time."

Looks like Chechens are not the only ones ready, willing and able to launch attacks on Russian schools.

As RFE notes, this comes after "angry mobs burned down the restaurant where the Russians were killed and destroyed a street market and several stores owned by Chechens and other people from the Caucasus. The violence has been accompanied by street rallies in Kondopoga demanding the expulsion of immigrants."

Meanwhile, RIA Novosti reports that huge numbers of dark-skinned people have fled the town and are now refugees, impoverished and imperiled. To its credit, RIA refers to the actions of the local population as a "pogrom."

Even more horrifying than the violence itself, RFE documents various political leaders in Russia expressing support for the racists, while "President" Putin has remained nauseatingly silent:

Several nationalist parties have expressed support for the riots. Some reports claim these parties actually orchestrated them. Aleksandr Belov, the leader of the radical Movement Against Illegal Migration, denies involvement in the rampage. But he backed the protests in Kondopoga during a news conference in Moscow on September 5. "People gathered spontaneously to express their demands," Belov said. "Their demands were simple: [foreigners] get out of here, you have 24 hours. Why? You've come here without invitation and we're fed up with you. These are the two reasons behind the problems in Kondopoga and elsewhere." Belov said representatives of his movement, know for its aggressive xenophobic rhetoric, had plans to station representatives permanently in Karelia to "help," in his words, local residents.

But the Movement Against Illegal Migration is not the only group to publicly support the events in Kondopoga. Nikolai Kuryanovich, a deputy from the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, joined forces with Belov at the news conference. This is the solution he proposed to tackle ethnic tensions in Russia: "Once again, this time totally, subjugate the Caucasus and toughen migration laws," Kuryanovich said. "Total cleansing. All criminal elements must be brought to responsibility -- even destroyed -- like the president said. We are waiting for him to make good on his promise to 'wipe them out in the outhouse.'" Kuryanovich also proposed to build what he called a "wall of China" that would separate the North Caucasus republics from the rest of Russia.

Despite President Vladimir Putin's silence, the crisis in Kondopoga has spiraled into a national issue. Ramzan Kadyrov, the prime minister of the pro-Moscow government in Chechnya, has blamed Karelian officials for failing to stop the riots and has vowed to restore order if necessary.

It's quite amazing, even by Russian standards, that a "liberal democrat" in Russia can not only openly call for "ethnic cleansing" but purport to be merely following the edicts of the president of the country, without any challenge from the president himself to that claim, much less public opposition.

Interfax quotes Communist Leader Gennady Zyuganov as seeking to rationalize the violence by claiming that "despair, substandard living conditions, the absence of jobs and respect for the past engender extremism and aggressiveness." It's a sad day indeed, as it was when the Communists presented the only credible opposition to Yeltsin and Putin, when a Commie Pinko like Zyuganov is a source of truth, but he's right when he says Russia is an economic disaster despite the rising price of oil. How can Russians favor "President" Putin with 70%+ approval ratings when this is so? Ah yes, riddle wrapped in a mystery stuff. But Zyuganov likes to overlook the fact that the only reason Russia is in this economic state today is because his party bankrupted it, and the current president is a proud KGB spy.

But the most horrifying prospect of all is "President" Putin using these events as an excuse for even more draconian crackdowns on civil liberties which will do nothing (as he stands mute on the topic) to quell race violence but which will slam the door on freedom and democracy in Russia, dooming the country to a bleak and hopeless future.

Publius Pundit has reported the discovery by America of perhaps 15 billion barrels of oil, enough to meet 100% of America's energy needs for nearly seven years, under the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico. It cites a Globe & Mail story.

Now, just for the sake of argument, let's say that America and Russia are involved in a Cold War, and America wants to destroy Russia's economy, destabilize the Putin regime and drive its KGB miscreants from power the same way it did with the Bolsheviks.

If this oil reserve is as large is predicted, all America has to do is stop buying oil on the world markets. For seven years.

Or it could buy 50% less oil. For fourteen years.

Or it could buy 25% less oil. For twenty-eight years.

Do you have any idea what would happen to the price of oil on world markets if America, by far the world's largest consumer of crude, announced it was going to buy 25% less oil for three decades? The Kremlin would be driven into insolvency and ruin, easily within the first decade if not sooner. If America stopped making purchases entirely, Russia probably wouldn't last the first year.

During those three decades, America would have plenty of time to fully develop the massive Canadian oil shales which can make American energy independent for centuries, making the price drop permanent. That's to say nothing of conservation measures in the U.S. (wind and solar power, fuel cell cars, etc.).

And it's to say nothing of all the other measures America can take to ratchet up economic pressure on Russia's pathetic excuse for an economy and wretched sham of a currency, much less what America's many allies can do.

And, come to think of it, there is a Cold War brewing between the U.S. and Russia. Why, just yesterday La Russophobe reported that Russia had cancelled joint military exercises with the U.S. and filed a lawsuit to block a Western oil company from doing business in Russia. She has a whole sidebar section devoted to the unfolding cold war events between the two countries.

Gee, if La Russophobe were Vladimir Putin, she'd be pretty worried.

If you check out the English language version of the Russophile blog "Intelligent.ru" (a misnomer if there ever was one) on Technorati, you will find that the blog itself isn't even listed there and has only been linked to 20 times by blogs that are listed, mainly the the wacko Russophile blogs "Russian Blog" and "Russia Blog." (La Russophobe for instance has been linked to more than 150 times). That's a good thing, because if people were paying any attention to the crazed propaganda found on this blog, they'd be walking around in a fog of ignorance.

If you check out the biography of one of Intelligent's "authors" (to use the blog's term), Mike Averko, you will learn that he "has served as a consultant for several mainstream American news shows." Interestingly, no mention is made here of Mr. Averko's claim, documented previously on La Russophobe, that he is a commentator published in the likes of the New York Times (as La Russophobe is shown, all he's ever done is write letters to the editor). Oddly, Mr. Averko doesn't care to mention which "news shows" he has "consulted" on -- perhaps because that would make it too easy to ridicule him (or expose him as a liar), and he doesn't identify himself as a TV consultant when he writes for Russia Blog (there, he's a Times columnist). This sort of thing is the classic hallmark of the Russophile propagandist, namely the total absence of any obligation to dwell in the real world, source facts or otherwise substantiate claims. This is the way business was done in the USSR, and it's why the USSR doesn't exist any more.

Other "authors" at Intelligent include Russia Blog's Yuri Mamchur, Russophile extremist Sharon Tennison and wacko Russophile nutjob Kirill Pankratov. Pankratov is not only a scientist but also a writer/pornographer: his website refers to his Russian prose collection by warning "ranging from lyrical to erotic (very explicit, a warning should be added)." Naturally, he's a qualified expert in political affairs, and a regular contributor to that bible of authoritative analysis the eXile, and the author of a really bizarre stream-of-consciousness blabbering article called "America Your Time is Up" on the People's Voices blog. Mamchur, by contrast, touts his being a "graduate of the Russian Tax Academy School of Law in Moscow" as previously discussed by La Russophobe. Tennison is "president of the Center for Citizen Initiatives, USA and Russia." Wikipedia says of her: "President Sharon Tennison is a political pragmatist, favoring the rapprochement of U.S.-Russia relations at the expense of debate on divisive topics including human rights and political freedom issues." She has written a staunch defense of KGB spy Vladimir Putin. It's argued that the Wikipedia article about her has been planted by a sycophant and is not reliable. Note that it's just fine for all these people to hate and scathingly attack America, but if anyone dares to reciprocate where Russia is concerned then they are of course a "bigot" and "racist" (even though Russia isn't a race but nationality, a fact they never tire of ignoring).

If you review the current contents of Intelligent you find a remarkable barrage of Russophile propaganda. First there's Yuri Mamchur's attack on the Wall Street Journal's coverage of the extremism law, already thoroughly discredited on La Russophobe and for which Mamchur apologized on Russia Blog. Then there's the "editor's column" by Intelligent's English version boss, Sergei Roy. Roy is identifed as a linguist. Here's what this crazed, hysterical Russophile has to say about the President of Georgia:

Recently, seven leading medical institutions (Norway’s Tonsberg Psychiatric Center; Norway’s National Institute of Public Health; Germany’s Center for Diseases of the Nervous System at Christian Albrecht University; the Psychiatric Department of Geneva University; Vienna Medical School’s Department of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy; Finland’s Psychiatric Department; and Amsterdam University’s Department of Clinical Psychology) were asked to evaluate Georgian President Saakashvili’s mental health. The evaluation excerpts published in various oppositionist papers in Georgia describe Saakashvili as a negative and aggressive person with extreme egocentricity, a hysteroid typetending toward megalomania and an obsessive or maniacal syndrome characterized by a personal conviction of being destined to be the “chosen one,” etc. etc. There’s lots of this psychiatric gobbledegook in the published materials, but the diagnosis is clear enough: “Expansive type of paranoid dysfunction (according to ICD-IO) combined with narcissist type of hysteroid personality.” Beautiful. To me, it translates into one brief word: psycho

If you look in a Russophile dictionary, you will see that the definition of "psycho" is anyone who opposed Russian hegemony.

Reviewing the other current contents of Intelligent we find an article bashing Israel, accusing the U.S. Congress of insulting Russia's dignity by daring to discuss Russian imperalism, touting Russia's wonderful success at the G-8 Summit (where it got booted out of the WTO and confronted by several world leaders on its human rights record), attacking the U.S. for "disastrous" new Cold War policies and begging the world to "give the Bear some time." Time for what? Time to consolidate dictatorial power and try again to enslave the world? Intelligent also, not surprisingly, published the crazed tirade of Professor Steve Cohen already thoroughly discredited on La Russophobe.

La Russophobe thinks Intelligent is a perfect example of insular Russian and Russophile on-lookers firing bits of propaganda back and forth between themselves and imagining, just as did the members of the old Politburo, that they are conclusively proving their own superiority. All the while, Russia continues sinking into a morass of incompetence and corruption from which it likely will never emerge.

Who funds Intelligent? The website doesn't say, nor does it say that it's a charitable enterprise. Does its money come from the Kremlin? From Yuri Mamchur's Discovery Institute? La Russophobe intends to explore the matter further.

The Moscow Times offers a column from Mikhail Fedotov, secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists and one of the authors of the federal media law, obliterating the obscene Russophile canard (propagated most especially by the nefarious Yuri Mamchur of Russia Blog) that Russia's new law on extremism is a reasonable measure designed to guard against racism.

The author Vasily Grossman once said the hardest problems always generate the simplest and most incorrect solutions. Amendments to the federal media law and administrative code introduced as measures to combat terrorism, which go before the State Duma for a first reading Wednesday, contain a definition of "extremism" that expands the term to the point of absurdity. This in a country where official reaction to real acts of violence against individuals based on their racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious or social backgrounds is rare and selective.

The broader the definition of extremism, the easier it is for the authorities to use it against anyone who has displeased them. The latest amendments define it as "infringing on the rights and freedoms of a citizen or citizens or doing damage to the health and/or property of citizens on the basis of their convictions, racial or ethnic affiliation, creed, social affiliation or social origin."

Translated from legalese, almost any derogatory article can now be interpreted as extremism if the author cannot prove that a statement corresponds strictly to reality. Thus, journalists will need the investigative authority of a prosecutor and faith that a voice recording (which they had better have) will be enough against a high-placed crooked official.

This legal novelty has drawn scant attention from commentators. Everyone has been talking about the fact that the anti-extremism law passed earlier this year includes "the public defamation of any government official" in the definition. The first application of this legal novelty was against Viktor Shmakov, the editor of Provintsiyalniye Vesti, a newspaper in Bashkortostan. He was charged after the publication of the articles "Experienced advice. Instructions for the Behavior of Revolutionaries During Mass Popular Demonstrations" and "The Bashkir Revolutionary Committee Short Program of Emergency and Frontline Measures For the First 100 days After the Revolution."

Shmakov shouldn't be worried, however, as the defamation of officials must be, according to the law, established by the courts. The Criminal Code does not as yet contain such an article.

But this loophole will undoubtedly be closed. Criticizing the authorities will be defamation, and defamation will be extremism. And, according to the new amendments, any media outlet can be closed down for acting as the "cause of damage to the person or health of citizens, the environment, public order, public safety, property or the legal economic interests of individuals or legal entities, society or the state." This net is wide enough to snare just about anyone, especially if those doing the fishing are acting on personal interests and the victim has only the Constitution and the European Court of Human Rights on his or her side.

What is important is that we don't confuse extremism with opposition, criticism, or dissent -- even when these are expressed in extreme terms. Established democracies long ago not only stopped punishing dissent, but also those who promoted it. Those statutes that do remain long ago became dead law. In British law, for example, "incitement to mutiny" remains a serious crime, but since 1945 has been interpreted to cover actions designed to provoke social unrest and civil disobedience with the aim of disrupting the government's legal functioning and has not been invoked since 1947.

French legislation still includes an 1881 statute that criminalizes defamation of a state institution, minister, lawmaker or civil servant. But this law also has not been applied in practice for decades and, in effect, has lost its power. This is the result of the simple fact that these societies now look differently on criticism and interpret freedom of speech more broadly.

All of this has to be balanced against matters of necessity in a Russia where extremism, and ethnic hatred in particular, have clearly become a reality. Horrific events like the murder of a 9-year-old Tajik girl or a Peruvian student in St. Petersburg, or the recent bombing of Moscow's Cherkizovsky market can no longer be dismissed as isolated incidents. Political discussion is rife with conspiracy theories that nationalist groups like the White Patrol and the Movement Against Illegal Immigration are just parts of a highly clandestine extremist nationalist organization seeking to take power. Implicit in these theories is the prescription that only a powerful Kremlin can stop this absolute evil from triumphing.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like law enforcement or security bodies are serious about countering the real growth of extremism in the country. Law-enforcement agencies are themselves hotbeds of xenophobia. A nationwide survey by the Levada Center polling agency said 40 percent of police officers supported the idea that Russia should be a country for ethnic Russians, while 67 percent expressed negative views about people from the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Moreover, state officials still frivolously label extremist acts as simple hooliganism or the escapades of madmen. Statements from the top addressing the issue seriously are interpreted further down the "power vertical" as necessary rituals, but little else. "We know very well all of those who should be [behind bars], and it would only take a couple of days to haul them all in," a friend in law enforcement told me recently. "But nobody seems to be interested in this."

So a vicious circle is forming. The authorities refuse to take systemic corrective action against the growing problem of extremism in society, preferring instead to use it as a pretext for maniacally plugging any cracks through which free thought could have an influence on the political process. In turn, the deliberate undermining of democratic institutions fans extremism further, as it does not allow outlets for protest or opposition on the field of normal political competition. The authorities could still break this vicious circle. The question is whether they have the will, ability or time.

The Chicago Tribune reports on the slavery-like horrors of the Russian labor market:

SOFRINO, Russia - A glimpse of Russia's immigration conundrum can be found behind the pallets of brick, lumber, sheet metal and iron at a sprawling construction-materials yard in this Moscow suburb, where ironworker Abdumalik Kholikov eats and sleeps in a trailer smaller than a prison cell.

The mattresses he and a fellow Tajik laborer sleep on take up most of the space. They store their clothes in plastic bags hung on the walls. A hot plate caked in grease and resting on bricks substitutes as a stove. There's no toilet and no shower; they pour plastic bottles of water over each other to wash.

"I've lived like this for four years," said Kholikov, who sends much of his $370 monthly pay home to Tajikistan to support his wife and five children. "I doubt things will change anytime soon."

Kholikov and legions of immigrants like him from Central Asia's dirt-poor economies are much of the brawn behind Moscow's frenzied building boom - the construction workers, welders, loaders and bricklayers changing the cityscape with every new high rise.

They're also Russia's untouchables, stymied by a bureaucracy that makes attaining legal status virtually impossible, and are routinely exploited by corrupt police and unscrupulous employers.

Estimates of the number of illegal migrant workers in Russia range from 5 million to 14 million. Long before they emigrate, they know the Catch-22 they'll face.

As citizens of former Soviet republics, they don't need visas. But within three days of their arrival in Moscow they must notify authorities of their new residence. Most Russian apartment owners refuse to rent to Tajiks and other Central Asian migrants. So without an apartment, they become instant lawbreakers.

That makes them easy prey in a society where a shadow economy flourishes and corruption is rife.

Construction companies routinely renege on paying wages to Central Asian migrant laborers. The housing they provide workers at job sites amounts to little more than ramshackle one-room cabins or abandoned railway cars. As many as a dozen laborers can be crammed into the cars for several months, often through the Russian capital's unforgiving winters.

In many instances, groups of workers are traded from one construction firm to another like chattel, said Gavkhar Dzhurayeva, head of the Migration and Law Center, a Moscow-based advocacy group for migrant workers.

"The system doesn't allow these workers to become legalized, because there are too many people in government and at these companies with a stake in what's going on," Dzhurayeva said. "The whole system is predicated on these workers being treated as slaves."

Russia needs workers like Kholikov. The country's economy is in the midst of an epic comeback, but a relentless plunge in population has leaders worried about having a labor force large enough to sustain that comeback. Russia's population, now 142.4 million, is dropping at a rate of about 600,000 people each year.

So far, the government has waded gingerly into the problem.

Last year, it embarked on a pilot project to grant amnesty to 7,000 illegal migrant workers in 10 Russian provinces. There was talk of expanding the program to millions of other migrant workers, but no action has been taken. Immigration remains a sensitive subject in Russia, where nationalist-minded segments of the population look upon Central Asians and people from the Caucasus region with deep resentment.

Elena Tiurukanova, a researcher at Moscow's Institute for Socioeconomic Population Studies, cited recent polls suggesting that, while more than half of Russians acknowledge using services provided by immigrants, "60 percent are intolerant of immigrants - they don't want them here."

Employers who rely on illegal migrants have a very different reason for resisting meaningful change in Russian migration laws. By using illegal workers, employers can avoid paying taxes, hold back wages whenever they want and impose 12- or even 14-hour workdays. If a worker complains, they simply turn him over to the police.

Workers rarely complain, though. As bad as they have it in Russia, their lot is worse back home. In Tajikistan, wages are as low as $4 a month and average about $30 monthly. Their desperation is easily witnessed on any given day along Yaroslavsky Highway in the Moscow suburb of Mytishchi.

Each morning, dozens of illegal Tajik immigrants swarm around every car that pulls up. The man behind the wheel offers a handful of jobs, waves a few Tajiks into the car and drives away. Those left behind sit on their haunches or on guardrails and wait for the next car.

Zafar Bachayev, 23, has been a regular along Yaroslavsky Highway for six years. At his last job at a suburban apartment building construction site, his employer promised him $600 and paid him $150. "We slept in a railroad car, 12 people in the car," said Bachayev, who is saving up to finish his studies at a Tajikistan university. "We worked 14 hours a day."

Fellow Tajik Said Vatoyev came to Mytishchi when he was 14 and has bounced between construction sites and odd jobs ever since. "They give us cabins without beds or mattresses and allow us to wash once a week," said Vatoyev, now 18. "We're treated like dogs at these work sites."

The Federal Migration Service expects the situation to improve in January, when the only document that migrant workers will need is a work permit, said Natalya Vlasova, deputy chief of the agency's foreign labor department. Advocates for illegal migrant workers say such steps don't go far enough.

The agency needs to beef up the ranks of its inspectors to ferret out exploitation of migrant workers at job sites, Dzhurayeva said. And Russian authorities need to clamp down on the corruption that makes the use of illegal migrant workers so lucrative for employers and local police.

"For 15 years, a lack of law enforcement has given rise to this entrenched network between employers, authorities and migrant workers," Dzhurayeva said. "Breaking up that network won't be easy."

The Moscow Times reports that Russia has adopted a neo-Soviet textbook review process which will force Russians to continue living in ignorance indefinitely, just the way a dictatorship likes the people to be kept:

India is a continent, the oceans are infested with squid that stretch 20 meters, and the human soul is known to leave the body during sleep. These are just a few of the many, many errors found in grade-school textbooks across the country.

Now, the state is returning to its old Soviet ways to cleanse textbooks of obvious and embarrassing mistakes, although some educators wonder what kind of cleansing is taking place. Last year, a new review process was adopted. A lot of work remains: In 2006, just 18 percent of the textbooks reviewed passed muster.

"There are many typos and errors that are simply ridiculous," said Sergei Sidorenko, a member of the panel from the Russian Academy of Sciences charged with weeding out the errors.

The Education and Science Ministry could not provide exact figures for how many error-filled textbooks were in circulation. Nor is it clear when all books in use will have the Academy's stamp of approval. Svetlana Teterina, who heads the textbook division at the ministry, said the government was targeting fall 2007, but given there are hundreds, if not thousands, of books yet to be reviewed, that date seems overly optimistic.

The problem dates to the Soviet collapse, when the rigorous, communist-era system of reviewing -- and, in many cases, whitewashing or editing -- textbooks ended. Beginning in the early 1990s, publishers were required only to get the approval of two "independent experts," Teterina said. Often, those experts were paid off to facilitate publication.

Compounding the problem is the fact that many schoolteachers do not know enough to spot errors.

Larisa, a Moscow-region research biologist with a son in the ninth grade, was appalled by her son's biology textbooks. She declined to give her last name for fear he would suffer consequences in the classroom.

Larisa noted that in her son's textbook, bacteria were incorrectly referred to as bacilli, plant sugars were improperly classified, and a discussion of cell structure omitted the mention of cell membranes. The missing cell membrane -- and the schoolteacher's failure to incorporate it into her lectures -- was noticed by at least one student, who recalled a guest lecture on cells Larisa had given her son's class a few years earlier. After the student brought it to the teacher's attention, Larisa's son was apparently penalized.

"Since then, my son can't get anything above a 4 in biology," she said. Students are graded on a scale of 1 to 5, with five being the highest mark.

These are not the only mistakes and oddities found in Russian science books, Sidorenko said. One biology text, he said, included a section on the soul, which has never been empirically proven to exist. Several chemistry books, he said, assign the wrong formulas to substances.

And math books, Sidorenko observed, are rife with sloppy problems. One problem, he recalled, stated that Masha lived 3 kilometers from school, and Kolya lived 5 kilometers from school, and then asked: How far away from each other do they live? The correct answer given was 8 kilometers. But Sidorenko pointed out that would only be true if Masha and Kolya lived at perfectly antipodal locations, or opposite coordinates. Because the problem does not specify this, the answer could be anywhere between 2 and 8.

Problems like this were largely absent in times past.

Under the Soviet regime, textbooks were reviewed by multiple boards and panels of experts and teachers at the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Pedagogic Sciences (now the Academy of Education), and then were tested in special schools before being mass produced by state publishers.

The education ministry's recent recentralization of the review process is strongly reminiscent of the old, more airtight system, said Dmitry Zuyev, who served as editor-in-chief of Prosveshcheniye, one of the Soviet Union's major academic publishing houses, from 1969 to 1993.

In keeping with their Soviet predecessors, Russian authorities place a premium on history -- once viewed as the scientific basis for socialism, and now considered a key ingredient in the making of an upstanding Russian citizen.

"History books are very important in bringing up Russian citizens," Teterina said. "They receive our special attention and interest." She added that four of the "most responsible publishers" have sent in history books for early review.

Platon Manotskov, who has been teaching history in St. Petersburg grade schools for 37 years, said the only errors he had spotted in textbooks over the years were relatively minor -- for example, wrong dates.

The more serious problem facing history teachers, Manotskov said, was that the education ministry's new teaching mandated jettisoning the traditional, chronologically organized curriculum. Now, he said, students study world history in a compressed, two-year period and then focus on selected periods.

Manotskov was skeptical of the ministry's new review process. "I have a strong hunch that the ministry means something else by mistakes -- not factual errors but rather interpretations of history," he said. "I would not want, as a teacher, to be strictly told to inculcate civic pride or to teach within a certain ideological framework, and I'm afraid that might happen."

Check out La Russophobe's latest contribution to Publius Pundit, a summary of the recent attack on the key independent newspaper Kommersant. The piece is paired with a complimentary item by Sean Guillory regarding the events and provides an opportunity for reader comment regarding these important breaking developments as the Kremlin continues its brutal crackdown on Russian media. The blogosphere is way out ahead of the mainstream press in recognizing and prominently reporting these events, to the shame of the Western newspapers (especially leading so-called liberal outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post, which have yet to do anything with the story). Readers concerned about the fate of democracy in Russia (and in the world) should be writing letters to these newspapers calling for action.

Interfax reports more bad economic news for Russia. Just like in the bad old Soviet days, Russia is having grain problems. Too bad Russians can't drink their oil.

MOSCOW. Sept 5 (Interfax) - Russia had harvested 55.9 million tonnes of grain as of September 4, which is 7.2 million tonnes less than on the same date of 2005, the Agriculture Ministry said.

Grain and grain legumes have been harvested from an area of 25.1 million hectares, which is 57% of the planned area and 3.9 million tonnes less than on the same date of 2005. The yield for grain totals 2.23 tonnes per hectare, up by 0.5 hectares from the yield of the 2005 harvest.

Agricultural enterprises have harvested potatoes from 6.1% of the targeted area, turning over more than 152,000 tonnes of potato tubers with yield of 16.3 tonnes per hectare compared to 15.35 tonnes last year. About 200,000 tonnes of vegetables have been harvested from 22.4% of the targeted area with yield at 10.8 tonnes per hectare, which is 0.5 tonnes per hectare more than last year.

Winter grain crops for next year's harvest have been planted on 2.2 million hectares, which is one million hectares less than on the same date of 2005. Winter tillage has been carried out on 3.3 million hectares, which is 1.8 million hectares less than on the same date of 2005.

Russophiles across the land are groaning at the news that Ukraine's Victor Yanukovich, supposedly the savior of Russia's grand imperialism designs, is cuddling up to Europe in a most unexpectd fashion. And just when it looked like Russia had a chance to dig its claws into Ukraine after Yanukovich weasled his way into the prime ministership! What a tragedy! Ukraine Forum reports that alleged Russophile Yanukovich has joined with Victor Yushchenko to support Ukraine joining the European Union, Russia's ultimate nightmare (combined with NATO membership):

Prime Minister of Ukraine Victor Yanukovich considers that the future EU partners of Ukraine must treat our country as a strong and interesting partner, but not as a suppliant.

“Government of Ukraine sets a task to turn the state from a suppliant, the role of which Ukraine has played, into all-sufficient and interesting partner of Brussels,” Yanukovich said speaking in the parliament.

He considers that the government must do its best to bring Ukrainian legislation in correspondence with legislation of the European Union.

“In this process we will pay great attention to mutual beneficial and good-neignbouring relations with Russia. We are sure this is an obligatory condition to lead the country to the way of speeded up economic development,” the Premier noted.

Yanukovich underlined that the Cabinet intends to guarantee supplies of energy carriers to Ukraine, and through its territory to the European Union. “We are reliable partners of both Russia and Europe, and we will maintain such reputation of our state, establishing energy policy, which answers interests of Ukraine,” the Premier assured the parliamentarians.

The Moscow Times reports that, of course, "President" Putin was lying brazenly when he spoke about increasing the salaries of teachers; now paid horrifying slave wages of less than $200 per month, 1/3 below the national average, Putin claimed that teachers would recieve a 25% increase of about $40, but the MT reports that it has not materialized. Even if it had, Russian teachers would still be earning well less than the national average, and even that average constitutes appalling slave wages, not sufficient for a teacher to rent her own apartment and live an independent life, much less to own a car or to travel.

"President" Putin would not raise teacher salaries significantly even if he could. To do so would risk creating a class of independent, free-thinking educators who could seriously undermine his dictatorship. Far better to keep them servile and dependent.

What qualified young people would dream of entering the profession? None, of course. But that doesn't matter, because Russia's population is falling so rapidly (including especially its population of school-age students, as previously reported on La Russophobe) that the need for new teachers is minimal.

It bears remembering that Russian young people are being tought in the main by a staff of creaking old men and women who are relics of the Soviet past, many of whom regret its passing. How can such teachers teach Russians how to become civilized, democratic people? They can't. And that's just the way Putin wants it.

When President Vladimir Putin vowed to inject billions of rubles into education this school year, teachers across the country held their breath. The education system has languished in the post-Soviet era. Seeking to address declining standards, the government last year identified education, along with public health, housing and agriculture, as one of its top-priority national projects.

Under the plan, teachers are entitled to a 26 percent raise. Those who take on homeroom duties -- assuming primary responsibility for a group of students and acting as a liaison between parents and the school administration -- receive an extra 1,000 rubles ($37) per month. As the new school year got under way Friday, however, many teachers and school administrators -- especially outside of Moscow -- said Putin had yet to make good on his promise.

"The project looks great on paper, but in reality we haven't seen much benefit," said Yelena Vyazovskaya, principal of School No. 6 in Anna, an impoverished town of 20,000 in the Voronezh region. In Vyazovskaya's school of 300 students, only homeroom teachers have received extra money.

"Even that small amount is a significant raise for our teachers," Vyazovskaya said. "But the people in charge of the national education project should be trying to increase the social status of teachers and to revive the prestige of our profession," Vyazovskaya said.

Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko told reporters in the Far East last Wednesday that he was pleased with the implementation of the national education project.

"We have seen how little is needed to get the education system moving forward again," Fursenko said, Interfax reported. "Now we have to make good on the promises we have made.

"The most tangible result of the national project is financial support," Fursenko said in a statement released Thursday. "But the other aspect of the project -- raising the status of teachers, [encouraging them] to take greater responsibility for their work and [to promote] kindness and attention to the children -- is far more important than what you can put in your pocket."

Vyazovskaya had a different opinion. "It's always nice when someone says 'Thank you,' but considering our financial situation, I'd prefer for an envelope with cash in it to accompany the kind words," she said.

Moscow schools are better off than their counterparts in the regions, but their relative health owes more to the policies of the city government than the national education project, educators in the capital said. "I don't know if it's a result of the national project or not, but we get raises on a regular basis," said Irina Khakhamovich, vice principal of elementary education at School No. 1278 in central Moscow, as she greeted first-graders on the first day of school last Friday. City Duma Deputy Yevgeny Bunimovich, who also teaches mathematics at the Moscow Experimental Gymnasium, said educators in the city had benefited less from the national education project than their counterparts in the regions.

"The most productive component of the national project is the additional money for homeroom teachers," Bunimovich said. "And most of these teachers have received the money." At least 10 percent of Moscow's homeroom teachers, however, have not received the salary increase because of bureaucratic snafus, Bunimovich said.

Some 900,000 homeroom teachers nationwide are entitled to the extra money. The Finance Ministry has allocated 7.7 billion rubles specifically for this purpose, yet at least 80,000 homeroom teachers, 7 percent of the total, have not received the money. Most of these teachers are employed in military and correctional schools and so-called lyceums.

Putin publicly chastised Fursenko in April for failing to deliver the much-anticipated raises for homeroom teachers. Yury Karasyov, a history teacher at Lyceum No. 2 in Kazan, is one of the homeroom teachers who did not receive the raise. "We were shocked to find out that we do not quality for the raise -- as if we work less than other teachers," Karasyov said.

"As a homeroom teacher, I was counting on the extra money," he said. "The current payment of 100 rubles isn't enough to compensate for all the effort we put in." Karasyov earns 4,000 rubles ($150) per month, and gives private lessons to make ends meet.

In Moscow, teachers on average earn 13,500 rubles ($505), Bunimovich said.

Under the national project, the government plans to spend 48.6 billion rubles on education in 2007, an increase of 66 percent from this year.

Six billion rubles were allocated this year to install computers in 28,500 schools across the country and to hook them up to the Internet.

The need for more school buses and new equipment, especially for poorer rural schools, is also being addressed.

Next month, the government will award 10,000 teachers 100,000 rubles each in recognition of their outstanding job performance. Three thousand schools will receive 1 million rubles each as a reward for their innovative approaches to teaching.

Karasyov entered his lyceum in the innovative teaching competition, but did not qualify. Last week, however, he learned that he had been chosen to receive the 100,000 ruble award for outstanding teachers.

"Competitions like these bolster me professionally," Karasyov said. "They have given me a better understanding of how my career should develop."

Two of Karasyov's pupils also won prizes for their knowledge of history.

Bunimovich noted, however, that the procedure for entering the competitions was so complicated that many schools had opted not to take part.

Schools in Moscow have received no money under the national education project for new computers or Internet access because the city had already addressed this need, Bunimovich said.

"This money could be spent on new software and teacher training, but the Finance Ministry doesn't seem terribly interested in these things," he said.

Putin and other senior government officials paid traditional visits to schools and universities Friday to welcome students on the first day of the school year.

The president visited the Energy Machine-Building College in Khimki, a town just outside Moscow, a statement posted on the Kremlin's official web site said.

Mayor Yury Luzhkov delivered a lecture on economics and politics at the International University, in which he called for Russia to develop its real economy before entering the World Trade Organization.

The St. Petersburg Times reports that two-faced Russia will field a player on its Davis Cup tennis team, Dmitry Tursunov, who resides in California and considers himself 50% American. Similarly, Russia has repeatedly begged Maria Sharapova, who speaks English on the court and owns plenty of expensive American real estate, to play for its Fed Cup team. Wouldn't it be nice if Russians were as flexible in deciding who is "Russian" when it comes to race relations? Dream on.