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> The value is in creating chaos. In the Clinton case, in order to believe there was substantive criminal activity, one must believe that the whole of the FBI and intelligence community were in cahoots with Clinton.

No, it's more than that, there's still too many people looking at the whole Russia-Trump-Clinton thing through the eyes of US politics, let's be clear here, the morning Wikileaks leaked the damaging material on Clinton, Nigel Farage attempted to sneak into the Ecuadorian embassy to meet with Julian Assange - the US House Intelligence Committee has since received intelligence that this was to provide Assange with a thumb drive and that Farage was a Russian conduit:

https://www.theguardian.com/po...

https://www.france24.com/en/20...

If you're looking purely through the lens of "My candidate won, you're just bitter" then you're missing the point here. Let's be absolutely clear - Nigel Farage is incredibly friendly with a guy in British politics called Arron Banks. Arron Banks is a guy who no one had ever heard of until he dramatically appeared on the British political scene around 2015 with a story about how he was going to defect from being a major Conservative party donor to being a UKIP donor, despite the fact no one in the Conservative party had any idea who he was, he suddenly had £1million pounds to dramatically donate to UKIP. Since then he has come under investigation, because no one can explain the source of all his wealth as it's hidden incredibly well behind a cascade of fake businesses in places like the Cayman Islands which are well known conduits of Russian money. Of course, you could fairly trivially dismiss this as paranoia if it weren't for the fact that Arron Banks is married to Ekaterina Paderina. Who you ask? Someone a Russian defector described as one of their greatest intelligence assets, someone who had an affair with a much older MP who just happened to be in charge of one of the constituencies where Britain's nuclear submarines are housed:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/...

On top of that, Farage has consistently refused to condemn Russia even when it annexed Crimea, he has attended Russia's far right convention in St. Petersburg where a number of far right anti-EU parties in Europe were granted support and funding from Russian state entities:

https://themoscowtimes.com/art...

So at this point, if anyone things it's about Clinton or Trump, they really are failing to see the bigger picture. There's a massive web here with ample evidence trailing all the way back to Putin's doorstep, and what's more, it stems from before Trump was even a US political candidate at all, which in itself highlights the fact it's got nothing to do with "bitter Hillary" supporters or whatever justification people like to use for refusing to acknowledge it.

At this point, if you really don't think Russia is involved in interfering in Western politics in an incredibly serious manner, and if you don't think Putin had anything to do with Brexit, Trump, Hungary's Jobbik, France's NF, Greece's Golden Dawn and so on and so forth then you're in denial over such an overwhelmingly large body of evidence that you genuinely only can be either pro-Russian and anti-Western, or the kind of useful idiot that these kind of intelligence operations rely on in the first place.

Assange and Wikileaks are just one part of a massive web

I'd wager the answer is rather simple; in 1991 the West thought the Cold War was won, and stopped fighting it.

Russia never stopped, we should've seen the warning signs in 1999 when Putin became leader and declared the fall of the USSR the greatest tragedy of the 21st Century. We should've paid attention in 2004 when Russia poisoned Viktor Yushchenko to try and force their man into control of the Ukraine, we should've paid attention in 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia, we should've paid attention in 2014 when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea.

Unfortunately we didn't pay attention, and as a result, a nation that seeks nothing other than to do the West harm in the hope of rebuilding it's own empire has now had a 25 year head start in propaganda development, spy recruitment, and general black ops against the West, whilst Western intelligence agencies have been focusing on angry tribesman in backwaters like Afghanistan and cutting the amount of Russian speaking agents to pay for it.

For what it's worth, communism really has nothing to do with it anymore, under Putin's stewardship for the nigh on last 20 years, he's been supporting, strengthening, and growing the far right across Europe; his go to populist weapon now is fascism, not communism, so you could punch communists in the face all you want, but meanwhile the far right will continue to rise until you stop and punch them in the face instead.

But perhaps the saddest part of all is the fact that after all that happened last century that we allow the far right even an inch of leeway, by playing along with it's attempts to try and make itself acceptable by rebranding as "alt-right", that we allow the far right any leeway at all, given that it's never been a succesful political ideology and has never led to anything other than death, war, and poverty - never at any point in history has the far right political agenda ever led to any kind of net benefit. Really, when someone says alt-right we should just ignore it and call it what it is, far-right, when they cry Godwin we should point out that Godwin himself agreed that crying Godwin doesn't apply when the people you're calling far-right really are far-right, and really are neo-Nazis. The far-right cry about political correctness and yet ironically use political correctness against their opponents by declaring it not politically correct to call them far-right, they cry about freedom of speech but are the first to demand their opponents be silenced. It's likely a lot of these tactics are part and parcel of Russia's 25 year intelligence campaign to fund and support the far-right in the West with propaganda tactics. The point at which Russia's far-right operation really kicked into high gear and the far-right started succeeding in campaigns to support things from Brexit to Trump, and Orban to Austria's current far-right government was off the back of the St Petersburg convention in 2015;

https://themoscowtimes.com/art...

Thankfully, it wasn't a complete success - the operation in France failed thanks to the appearance on the scene of Macron, and similar Merkel never fell as they hoped. The lack of complete success means Putin has now angered powerful opponents who can finally start fighting back, if we're lucky the Brits and Americans will wake up soon too and abort Brexit, and ditch Trump - both of which were clearly now funded by Russian money and propaganda give the wealth of evidence available, and some case, lack of even trying to hide it - the money they gave to France's NF for example was done rather flagrantly and openly as it was in other cases, whilst in some cases like UKIP it was done very covertly, but even the evidence for that has come out now and is in the hands of the police.

This isn't simply about the West, Russia has been doing this for over a decade, they first really kicked this kind of thing off in Ukraine in the 2004, when they tried to poison one of the candidates.

They since continued doing this in places like Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Armenia, and so forth.

In by 2010 they were beginning to use the financial crisis to stir in countries like Greece, Hungary, Romania, Malta and so forth.

All that's changed is that they've now moved onto the big fish. They've been found to be complicit in Brexit, there's evidence they interfered in the US presidential election in 2016, but we also know they've been funding the far right across Europe, for example providing funding to France's NF, attacking Macron's election campaign, funding the AfD in Germany and so on and so forth, hell, it's not even a secret:

https://themoscowtimes.com/art...

If you think this is just about a boogeyman for the US then you're about 10 million miles wide of what's actually going on. This isn't a US centric issue, this is a resurgent Russia undermining the West to further it's goals of reclaiming control of large parts of Eastern Europe by attempting to destroy Western unity through crippling of the EU by creating Russia backed veto states, damaging NATO, and causing general economic harm to Western nations through triggering of trade wars and so on and so forth.

The West stupidly thought that when the USSR fell at the start of the 90s, that that was it - the cold war was over. They naively failed to realise that Russia never conceded defeat, and has never stopped fighting the war. Now we're on the back foot because they've spent 20 years building up their attack infrastructure for information warfare whilst we naively believed it was all calm and peaceful, and that the biggest threat to our way of life was a few angry nomads in Afghanistan, or China making knock off copies of our iPads.

Do not fall into the trap of believing this is just sour grapes over Hillary - if it was just that then what would be the relevance of the Europe side of the equation? How would the Democrats have manufactured time travel to create evidence of meddling in Western elections and nations from before Trump was even a candidate? I'm pretty sure the Dems aren't capable of sending Europe's far right back in time to attend a far right convention, and to provide funding for France's NF.

The world is bigger than America, and Russia is more than just sour grapes, it's a real actual problem whose harmful reach is felt throughout many places outside of America.

No insult to Korolyov, it was a great rocket for its time... but it's time is long past.

but it continues to live forever and currently the ***only*** vehicle to put people into space. Yes, there are other vehicles being developed but so far all keep pushing their first crewed launch further into future as time marches on. But then one of these days one of these rockets and capsules will put someone into orbit from US soil. Then can it be done repeatibly (or need more flight tests)?

As far as the Angara rocket, I'd put it in the good-luck-with-that dept. unless Putin is willing to give up a few billion he regularly skims from Russian economy. https://themoscowtimes.com/new...

That should be easy to weaponize!

Furthermore, you're citing a poem as evidence of... what?

The failure of your Moscow reform school to educate you on either Literary Analysis or American Civics?

Oh well, no worse than usual.

I heard the GOP is still trying to convince folks that Sutherland, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Pulse, and the Boston Massacre were all personally orchestrated by Hillary Clinton's secret underground pizza ring.

Meanwhile, nobody can deny that Roy Moore dated teenagers in the 1930s at the height of the Depression. Wait, wait, I mean, Roy Moore's inability to deny dating teenagers while in his thirties sends the GOP senators into a depression.

It's OK though, you are secretly planning to take your cyanide pill a week early.

Yeah, I'm very much on the side of believing Russian interference is a big problem now, in part because I'm not stuck in an American bubble - I'm not stuck with the very American partisanship thing in believing it's a Trump vs. Hillary thing. There's widespread evidence of it across every European country too, and some of it's not even hidden or in dispute - i.e. the Russian money given to Le Penn, the hosting of European far right parties by the Russian government Russia etc. and the impact of Russian money and expertise at Cambridge Analytica in both the Brexit AND US presidential vote - these things were all either done in public or are now out in public (the UK's electoral commission investigation highlighted the Cambridge Analytica foreign funding issue in the Brexit vote), thus I don't think Russian support for divisive parties in candidates is even in dispute at this point, it's merely a question of how deep and how far.

Most debates I see here revolve around US partisanship and that claims of Russian interference are just sour grapes by the losing party, but that attitude shows a profound ignorance of the bigger picture over the last few years, i.e.:

https://themoscowtimes.com/art...

https://www.ft.com/content/010...

If you think it's just sour grapes you're just a useful idiot - this is an attack on the West that stretches way beyond and above mere American partisanship. Even if you ignore the stuff that's mere hearsay and speculation right now, there's enough other evidence to show the threat and problem is genuine and real to at least some real and problematic extent. Saying "We do it too" isn't an excuse, maybe we do, but for all it's flaws, I prefer the Western way of life over the poverty and corruption stricken neo-Soviet way that afflicts Russia and it's hijacked states (e.g. Belarus), so it's still something we should all stand against if we hate corruption, hate the idea of police states, and hate the idea of seeing a reduced standard of living and quality of life - you should be against all that whether you voted for Hillary or Trump, and that means standing against the Russia state, not white washing it because you're scared about accusations your candidate may have benefited from it.

But even I think this is maybe pushing it out there a bit, I'm not saying it isn't possible that the Russians were involved but I think it's more likely to be the case that state employees were inept in the way they looked after and managed these machines and just wanted to cover their tracks - no one wants to be sacked for being the person that let something this badly misconfigured or generally weak be used for critical infrastructure. Let's face it, it's quite likely that when the issues came out, whether Russian interference was proven or merely imaginary, heads would still probably roll based on the general weakness of the device and the ineptitude of those responsible for securing them.

If Putin is stooping to make fake posts on Slashdot, he's doing a thorough job of it.

Oh you can be sure he is. How do I know? There are Russian professional trolls even in Finnish news articles and forums which have a readership that's a fraction of Slashdot's. The estimates on how many people are actively working for the so called troll brigades vary, but we're probably talking at least a couple hundred. It's an extremely well orchestrated global operation:

Today, FAN forms the core of a media empire consisting of 16 news websites. Collectively, they employ over 200 full-time journalists and editors whose content attracts more that 30 million pageviews every month.

The monthly cost of running FAN and its sister sites is in the area of 20 million rubles ($350,000), RBC estimates. The source of the funding is unclear too, but most of the websites in the empire attract little if any ad revenue. Allegedly, the group has a mysterious sponsor, believed to be Yevgeni Prigozhin, who also known as “Putin’s Cook.”

Everyday, the sites churn out dozens of articles every day that praise Putin, cast Ukraine as a failed nazi state and expose the nefarious machinations of the United States. Still, FAN stands out. It exploits the unstable media labor market to lure in journalists from other publications with salaries above the market average. FAN even employs foreign reporters — RBC reports they are the most likely to be sent to Syria to provide coverage.

- -

At least one popular pro-Trump, anti-Clinton Facebook group called Secured Borders, says RBC, is managed from the St. Petersburg troll factory.

RBC claims it obtained a screenshot of the group’s advertisement statistics (available only to a Facebook group’s administrator) from someone who claims to be its owner, which confirmed that the group is managed from St. Petersburg.

Secured Borders boasts 140 thousand subscribers, and just one of its posts published at the height of the election campaign and heavily advertised on Facebook, reached 4 million people on Facebook, was “liked” more than 300 thousand times and shared more than 80 thousand times. RBC also reported that a right-wing Twitter account called Tea Party News, which is followed by 22 thousand other accounts, is also run from the St. Petersburg hub.

All in all, RBC’s sources say that at the zenith of the U.S. election campaign, the troll factory’s accounts across different social media platforms would churn out as many as 50 million posts a month, with anti-Clinton messages getting the most attention.

The Russians have an upper hand in this struggle of propaganda at the moment because they can generate any number of conspiratorial blog posts and 'alternative news' and then circulate them throughout social media through different fronts and groups as well as bot-accounts. The thing that makes this so effective is the level of precision in targeting that modern social media platforms allow them to have: you can craft several entirely different or even contradictory attack ads about someone and then target those so that they're only shown to people who're most likely to be influenced by said points.

So for example you can target people for whom gun rights are important and run ,material saying the opposing candidate is going to take your guns away. Meanwhile for the liberal crowd that doesn't care as much about gun rights you can use the 'in bed with bankers' card Etc.

It doesn't have to be true. The point is to flood the key areas/states with enough disinformation and misinformation to tip the balance over to the preferred side. And if you look at the amount of voters that secured him the win in the key states, we're talking about

In Soviet Russia you service the dog.

" until everyone realized". This is a good example of Argumentum ad populum or "appeal to the majority" - a fallacious argument

No, it isn't. It was a glib expression that intended to convey the notion that even the Russians/DNR/LNR, who are usually thick as fuck, realized that their own side was responsible for that particular shelling of civilians. Perhaps you don't understand that because English isn't your first language; perhaps you're just being a little too desperate in stitching together your attempt at an argument.

You are constantly calling separatists "Russians". They are not Russians, they are Ukrainian citizen

Russia's DNR and LNR terrorists generally consider themselves Russian, and their ranks contain an abundance of Russian mercenaries. The lowest estimate I've seen (from DNR sources) is that the DNR/LNR are 30% Russian mercenaries, if you exclude the Russian commanders and regular Russian military that fill their ranks; the highest estimate I've seen (from a Russian ultranationalist DNR commander, and confirmed by an Armenian DNR mercenary) is that they''re 80% Russian. The commanders who issue their orders are Russian, and they function as divisions of the Russian army, so there's nothing wrong with calling them Russian.

You are such an obvious Ukrainian doing his job.

Yep, you got it. The cash-strapped Ukrainian government has nothing better on which to spend its money than slashdot posts. It's not Ukraine, but Russia that has an army of trolls, who flood message boards with disinfo. Incidentally, the post to which you responded was +3 Informative, until daylight broke in St. Petersburg, and it got modded down to 0 by your compatriots, who seem to think they have magical powers to determine who is/isn't Ukrainian, but still can't get the hang of using an article properly.

During the war they were shelling separatists who were in the cities among civilians.

At what point did anyone say that this doesn't happen? It probably does, as the Russians have a habit of using civilians for human shields, just as Putin promised they would. None of this would be happening if Russia hadn't invaded Donetsk. Your own FSB agent, Strelkov, said that if he hadn't kicked off the war in Donbas (he was sent by Russian security services, under the guise of working for nationalist oligarch Malofeev), there would be no war. He would eventually say that the war has ruined Donetsk, and if he could have known in advance what would happen, he would never have invaded. Russia is responsible for every single war casualty in Ukraine by virtue of being the aggressor nation - can you get that through your thick, nationalist skull?

Controversial U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for Russian aircraft showing a "lack of respect" for America to be shot down "at a certain point,"

https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/trump-says-russian-planes-should-be-shot-down-at-certain-point-52743

"You have actual evidence of this or are just making shit up?"

Actually there's a shit load of evidence of this, if rather than simply trying to declare the other person's post false you could've simply Googled it. Given that an AC appears to have done that for you it appears I wont have to. Long story short though, some of it is covert, and some of it is overt. There's evidence of both, but the funding for France's national front for example wasn't even a secret:

https://themoscowtimes.com/new...

Russia also holds an annual meeting of far right European leaders including people like Le Pen, Nick Griffin from the UK's BNP and so on and so forth. Interestingly these groups they host were the same people, and the only people they allowed into Crimea as "international observers" for their Crimean independence referendum - they wouldn't let any actual neutral observers in from the UN et. al. Make of that what you will, it's really not rocket science though.

Frankly, whilst it's easy to dismiss based on an already high distrust in the US for the establishment I don't think this can rationally be dismissed out of hand as mere deflection. It's in the US national spirit to distrust authority, it was the basis of creation of your country and it's enshrined somewhat in your constitution - I get it, but what you can't do is let that national distrust of your own authority blind you to the threats caused by authorities from elsewhere.

Links to Russian money and political players in the Trump campaign are well known and documented, the DNS hacks backed by the Russians have some evidence behind them, but this is all part of a broader picture.

When you step beyond Americas borders you have ample evidence of Russia doing this sort of thing both overtly, and covertly, both historical, and currently. In recent years we've seen Putin fund directly the far right in Europe, openly giving millions to France's NF, and playing host to far right leaders in Moscow:

http://imrussia.org/en/analysi...

https://themoscowtimes.com/art...

But then there's a covert, we know Russia poisoned Ukraine's opposition candidate in 2004:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

But there are also dots that can be joined more recently pointing to continued meddling even in countries such as the UK. In 2010 a British MP, Mike Hancock got into trouble because he was giving a Russian girl around Britain's nuclear submarine sites, a girl whom MI5 had firmly flagged as having close links to Russia's embassy and who Russian military brass eventually admitted themselves was a spy when it all came out. Fast forward a few years, and we have a situation where UKIP, the UK's faux conservative (far right in reality) party suddenly has a guy, Aaron Banks comitting millions in donations to the party - a guy, who pretty much came out of nowhere, and who now seems to largely pull the strings at UKIP. Why is that interesting? because he still is, and was during the time of the affair married to the same Russian girl, Katia Zatuliveter, involved in the affair with the above mentioned MP.

We've known about Russian meddling in the politics of countries like Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, and so on and so forth decades now, it's not been a secret, nor is Russian funding and support of insurgent parties like Jobbik in Hungary, the National Front in France, Golden Dawn in Greece, and previously the BNP in the UK. It's not a stretch therefore to think that Russia funding and support, i.e. political meddling has extended to countries like the US too especially when there is growing evidence in support of that (i.e. Putin allies advising and funding Trump's campaign).

When Russia argued that Ukraine's revolution as a US funded coup, that was simple deflection. The reality is the head of the country was in Kiev, and the vast majority of people in Kiev (even if not everyone elsewhere) wanted an end to Yanukovych and Russian meddling, claims of US leading it are nonsensical because it didn't need US meddling - Russia had fuck things up with the people of Ukraine enough for them to be willing to put their lives on the line themselves.

What that claim did tell us though is that Russia believed that that kind of meddling is a thing countries do, it was more a reflection of their own guilty in engaging in such things than it was a legitimate accusation against the US. The evidence - i.e. US funding of NGOs doesn't remotely show what was being argued precisely because that funding was entirely transparent and open. I'm not saying the US hasn't done this because we know it certainly has, but what I am saying is that Russia instantly assumed that to be the case because that's what it would do.

It all makes even m

And here come the American Exceptionalists

Subject-change detected — the usual tactics of Kremlin bots. I accept your surrender of the previous topic — of Russia being a dangerous aggressor — and move on to the new one: whether the US "is just as bad".

ignoring the fact that their assistant Secretary of State is on video bragging about spending billions to subvert a democracy

Notably, your bombastic accusation includes neither a link to the video, nor transcript of the actual words.

It is perfectly normal for countries to spend money on legal organizations abroad. USSR has been doing just that for decades fomenting racial strife in the US, for example, as well as the so-called "Peace Movement". In the Middle East KGB kept Arafat afloat and fighting Israel.

In today's world, Russia buys influence among not only its traditional Communist-allies, but the far-right as well.

You joked about Obama being a KGB-agent — had that been true, it would've been "subverting Democracy" in the extreme. And yet, the entire Russia would've found it awesome.

So, blaming the hapless State Department for "subverting Democracy" is rather hypocritical of you, KGB wrote that book — using Western freedoms to subvert them. But that's not all Russia does... Armed invasion is Ok with you to — and not even to dethrone a particularly nasty dictator or right some other wrong (real or perceived), but to simply grab land.

caught on the phone picking leaders after the coup.

And that, even if it were true, equates to an armed invasion in your opinion? Wow...

Everyone know they are satire.

Not everyone, at least Euronews, with screenshot:
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/...

Euronews had mistakenly used an image from a fake Twitter account for Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in one of its TV reports

Oh sure and they are also building the Russia Alaska Superhighway, A fleet of Supercarriers. In the Real World Russia shrank the defense budget by %10 in 2015 and still Russian Reserve Fund running empty

Wow, that's a pretty absolute statement to make.

It's a binary thing, and I'm not relying on anecdotes. I know what I heard, and I've heard a lot of conspiracy stories since. I've discussed it with family and friends since - who also remember the actual event - as opposed to someone who says someone told them, and they all say the same thing. Of course it's possible everyone but your sources were brainwashed (or part of the conspiracy), and the original recording were doctored to match the broadcast records (length of the broadcast). But I'll give more weight to the simplest explanation.

Don't you think you are being a little bite arrogant?

No. Your response is arrogant - or do you call dismissing the opinion of the majority in favor of the opinions of a few, open-minded?

I said, 'Anecdotal'

Noted on the first read. You're not new to /. so you know the anecdote adage.

I was speculating on what the Russian government wanted investigated about the moon landing because it didn't say in the article.

It didn't? Which article - the one referenced by the /. story? Or the one it sourced?:- "We are not contending that they did not fly [to the moon], and simply made a film about it. But all of these scientific — or perhaps cultural — artifacts are part of the legacy of humanity, and their disappearance without a trace is our common loss. An investigation will reveal what happened," Markin wrote. ref1

I suspect it's just a case of "don't criticise us about the Ukraine or our hosting the 2018 FIFA", amongst other things - hard to tell from the google-translate of the source article, unless you happen to be fluent in the language. He's a politician, and he writes a blog, or at least someone does in his name - it may have just been the first thing that popped into the writer's head when they spent two minutes trying to think of something suitably click-bait for the day's feed. What is clear is that he does not question whether the Lunar landing occurred or not.

I do know that it was at least 2 people who told me the same thing and they had adult mature brains with an adult capacity for memory, making them approximately 20 years older than you at the time.

What are you trying to say? That you can't do maths - or am ad-hominen attack properly? (if they're 20 years older than me they've been pensioners for some time - maybe there's an organic explanation? see that's how it's done) That my parents, uncles (including one who worked at Parkes as a non-NASA employee at the time), aunties, teachers and many thousands of other "non-school age" Australians are part of the same conspiracy? (bear in mind we didn't have fluoridated water in our youth).

I read about a U.S Congressman asking Congress question about exactly the same statement by Apollo 11.

I'm curious and wouldn't be at all surprised if that happened, not that it'd mean that much given that members of congress believe all sorts of wacky shit - and represent some truly weird beliefs. (as do some of our senators e.g. the shower of stupid that came down prior to the Bill of Rights referendum). Do you have a reference for that, and how much weight do you believe it adds to the conspiracy?

Being a nationalist requires that you view yourself and people of your group to be superior to other groups, else there would be no point in it because the national identity being defended would cease to be meaningful.

This probably explains why you think the Ukrainian people are incapable of seeing other ex-soviet states like Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and so forth look west after the collapse of the USSR and see how much they've gained in terms of wealth and freedom then decide they want that for themselves. It explains why you view Ukrainians as some kind of inferior human that couldn't possibly want the things that most people want by themselves like increased wealth or greater freedom, without CIA interference.

I find it rather odd however that you describe yourself as an American nationalist whilst serving the propaganda goals of Russia and hence necessarily damaging American interests and ideals. You talk of the far right in Ukraine, but the people who have the most to fear from that viewpoint recognise what an absolute lie that idea is:

http://www.jta.org/2014/06/02/...

Meanwhile, we have Russia hosting the far right, and involving British neo-Nazis like Nick Griffin in his election whitewashing:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/...

We have Putin pouring money into France's far right:

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

And in fact, just supporting the far right right across Europe in general:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/...

But it's not just support of course, it's the way Putin acts against minorities, using gay people as a hate target just as Hitler and King Edward I did with the Jews:

https://www.truthwinsout.org/p...

Or simply silencing anyone who hates having their territory illegally annexed resulting in concerned 3rd party nations who are typically Russian allies like India to report on the fact that Turkey is having to send in monitors to make sure it doesn't escalate further than the level of ethnic cleansing that Putin has already carried out:

http://zeenews.india.com/news/...

http://www.aljazeera.com/indep...

Of course, I don't expect any of this to matter to you. I've seen you post here before and I know you're normally incapable of consideration of alternative viewpoints, I know that you have your CIA/Koch brothers conspiracy theories and wont believe anything else. But I've made a point here, a point of linking to news sources in Europe, Russia, India, the Middle East to show you that the things I've pointed out aren't controversial, that the only people that wont accept them are Putin and his supporters. So if you do as you normally do, and refuse to believe what is evidenced in front of you, you at very least must stop pretending you're not just parroting the pro-Putin viewpoint - because as the Moscow Times articles show, even moderate Russians themselves disagree with you - this isn't about Russians vs. non-Russians, this is about Putin apologists as you have been in this conversation so far, against reality.

So you've really a choice, you can wake up and stop parroting long discredited RT propaganda word for word, or

Being a nationalist requires that you view yourself and people of your group to be superior to other groups, else there would be no point in it because the national identity being defended would cease to be meaningful.

This probably explains why you think the Ukrainian people are incapable of seeing other ex-soviet states like Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and so forth look west after the collapse of the USSR and see how much they've gained in terms of wealth and freedom then decide they want that for themselves. It explains why you view Ukrainians as some kind of inferior human that couldn't possibly want the things that most people want by themselves like increased wealth or greater freedom, without CIA interference.

I find it rather odd however that you describe yourself as an American nationalist whilst serving the propaganda goals of Russia and hence necessarily damaging American interests and ideals. You talk of the far right in Ukraine, but the people who have the most to fear from that viewpoint recognise what an absolute lie that idea is:

http://www.jta.org/2014/06/02/...

Meanwhile, we have Russia hosting the far right, and involving British neo-Nazis like Nick Griffin in his election whitewashing:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/...

We have Putin pouring money into France's far right:

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

And in fact, just supporting the far right right across Europe in general:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/...

But it's not just support of course, it's the way Putin acts against minorities, using gay people as a hate target just as Hitler and King Edward I did with the Jews:

https://www.truthwinsout.org/p...

Or simply silencing anyone who hates having their territory illegally annexed resulting in concerned 3rd party nations who are typically Russian allies like India to report on the fact that Turkey is having to send in monitors to make sure it doesn't escalate further than the level of ethnic cleansing that Putin has already carried out:

http://zeenews.india.com/news/...

http://www.aljazeera.com/indep...

Of course, I don't expect any of this to matter to you. I've seen you post here before and I know you're normally incapable of consideration of alternative viewpoints, I know that you have your CIA/Koch brothers conspiracy theories and wont believe anything else. But I've made a point here, a point of linking to news sources in Europe, Russia, India, the Middle East to show you that the things I've pointed out aren't controversial, that the only people that wont accept them are Putin and his supporters. So if you do as you normally do, and refuse to believe what is evidenced in front of you, you at very least must stop pretending you're not just parroting the pro-Putin viewpoint - because as the Moscow Times articles show, even moderate Russians themselves disagree with you - this isn't about Russians vs. non-Russians, this is about Putin apologists as you have been in this conversation so far, against reality.

So you've really a choice, you can wake up and stop parroting long discredited RT propaganda word for word, or

overtake the USA power and begin a real massacre of white Alaskans

Yes, an actual massacre (like this) might be a good enough justification for foreign intervention — though not for an annexation.

But no massacre has happened — not in Crimea, not in Kharkiv, not Lviv, not Zaporizhya, not in even in Mariupol and Slovyansk (the two towns that fell under Russia's control briefly but were retaken).

Entire national guard battalions are formed in the East from people, for whom the first language is Russian — if they are willing to die for their country, maybe, the allegations of the country's plans to "hang them" over their language-preference aren't entirely truthful, huh?

Your fears might've been justifiable for a victim of massive state-propaganda a year ago, but by now — with Ukrainian "junta" in power for over 12 months and yet not one concentration camp, gas chamber, nor even a one-time mass-execution of Russian-speakers in evidence — the excuse is no more.

If you continue to believe — and even parrot — this crap, there must be something seriously wrong with you. Either you are brain-dead stupid, or a (paid) Putin's troll...

There are afaik no Ukrainian schools in Crimea

Not any more, that's for sure — because Russia shut them down.

All of your justifications are repeatedly demonstrated as non-sense and, even if they were valid, they would've justified only a wrong-righting invasion, but not a permanent annexation of any land.

Vatnik much?

Occupation and annexation of Crimea already a staggering success, Russia must be looking into organizing a referendum in Alaska.

Peace-loving Americans will not be objecting — a referendum conducted under occupation going in favor of the occupying power? What "conflict of interest"?

The knuckle-dragging haters will be neutralized by polite men with Russian accents wearing indiscernible uniforms...

It was conceived as presumably cost-effective. It remains to be seen if this will actually be the case.

And here is a link to how the Moscow Times reported on the story:

Don't Mess With Nuclear Russia, Putin Warns at Youth Camp

LAKE SELIGER, Russia — President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia's armed forces, backed by its nuclear arsenal, were ready to meet any aggression, declaring at a pro-Kremlin youth camp that foreign states should understand: "It's best not to mess with us."

Not really any different from the other stories. The reason why is that international relations are conducted by nations and heads of state according to various norms. If you don't understand those norms then you will miss the significance of various statements or events.

It was made during a verbal question and answer session some days ago. You can read a transcript of the full thing, without western media's blatantly selective quoting and bias, right here [kremlin.ru]. Do go read it for yourself. The press has been having a field day with taking individual sentences out of context, in many cases not even mentioning that Putin was responding to questions from Russian citizens, to make it look like he's issuing press releases about Ukraine specifically. It's the most amazingly dangerous set of selective quotations I've ever seen. In this case Putin wasn't even talking about Ukraine!

The Moscow Times relates the same meaning as reported in the other stories. The problem isn't that the reporting is wrong in this case but that you reject it. International relations by nations and heads of state are conducted according to various norms, and Putin's statement has to be understood in that context. If you don't understand that then you are trying to make judgments about things for which you have no measure, no guide. As a result you are prone to make misjudgments as you apparently have.

Don't Mess With Nuclear Russia, Putin Warns at Youth Camp

LAKE SELIGER, Russia — President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia's armed forces, backed by its nuclear arsenal, were ready to meet any aggression, declaring at a pro-Kremlin youth camp that foreign states should understand: "It's best not to mess with us."

For some reason The Moscow Times is clear about it, how is it you aren't?

Don't Mess With Nuclear Russia, Putin Warns at Youth Camp

LAKE SELIGER, Russia — President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia's armed forces, backed by its nuclear arsenal, were ready to meet any aggression, declaring at a pro-Kremlin youth camp that foreign states should understand: "It's best not to mess with us."

Nothing's proving Russia right when there's a wall of evil doings proving the counter. Snowden is one of the few things they can genuinely cling on to.

For all of the US' wrongs there's nothing changing the fact that Russia is an evil empire, well, that's a lie, it's not an empire any more thank god, it just wants to be, but it's still evil.

Let's just look at a few of the things they've done this year alone, let's start near the beginning of the year where the scene is that there is a popular uprising against Russian influenced Yanukovych, during these protests a number of key protesters were abducted by men with accents from Russia itself, some were left to die but managed to live to tell the tale:

http://www.rferl.org/content/u...

http://www.rferl.org/content/u...

Others weren't quite so lucky:

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldn...

The uprising was eventually successful, in response, Russia sent in breach of the Geneva convention soldiers into Crimea posing as civilians and annexed the territory, despite the fact that only a few weeks prior it was clear that there was nothing like majority support for joining Russia:

http://www.cityam.com/blog/139...

Coupled with the unverifiable "poll" and the followon fuckup by Russian bureaucrats in posting the actual results that show there was actually no majority support for joining Russia it became fairly obvious it was an illegal annexation of foreign territory. Of course, it didn't stop there. The Crimean Tatar population that did not want to join Russia have since been treated like Jews in Nazi Germany circa 1939 with their houses being marked:

http://www.turkishpress.com/ne...

Other Tatars have simply been disappeared by death squads:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/maga...

The rest of them? Well, they just get silenced and beaten:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/...

If this sort of thing doesn't send chills down your spine as to how close it is to the way the Nazis operated then there's something wrong with you.

Since then of course there's been the case of Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine, the debate goes on about whether they're genuinely Ukrainians that want to join Russia, or whether they're simply Russian special forces, or a mix of both, but either way, what's not in dispute is the following and that Russia wholeheartedly supports them:

- They admitted having Buk and shooting down MH17 believing it was a Ukrainian military transport:

http://www.reuters.com/article...

http://www.themalaysianinsider...

- They've been abducting, torturing, and parading civilians:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

- They've admitted to carrying out summary executions:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...

- And they've been preventing all males from leaving the warzones they've been part of the

It's because Russia's offering $$$ for a TOR hack...
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/...

on the bright side, TOR will be better in the end because of it.

In possibly related news, Russia is building their own Internet! With central control! And domestic payment system! And in fact, screw the whole "inter" thing...

Under a heart-warming name "Cheburashka".

Not sure if this is directly related to the 28% Cisco orders decrease.

What they told us to do in the event of a nearby nuclear strike was to hold our AK in front of us in outstretched arms.

When asked what that was supposed to accomplish, our "initial military training" (yes, it's a real thing that they teach in schools) teacher told us that it is so that melting steel won't drip on the government-issued boots, increasing the chances that they might serve another recruit in defense of the Motherland.

Only if he does not get away in time.

The military intelligence service (Pesikunnan Tiedusteluosasto General Staff Intelligence Division), which is accountable to the Defence Minister, has no separate legal basis. It is responsible for ensuring the territorial integrity of the country and to that end it monitors the national territory, in cooperation with other authorities, by land, sea and air. It also carries out signals intelligence via the Communications Experience Facility (VKL).

And there is good reason for it to do this:
Russia and China may have been responsible for large-scale hacking into the Finnish Foreign Ministry's computer networks, a Finnish television channel reported.
And
Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja has said at a press conference on October 31 that revelations of large-scale data Russian surveillance in foreign ministry systems are embarrassing to Finland and to the ministry of foreign affairs.

The simple fact is, that Finland is spied on by everybody AND they are also spying on other nations. And to be honest, I do not have an issue with my friends spying on me. I esp. do not mind it, if they point out a terrorists act from elsewhere, or they find somebody else spying on us and then tells us about it.

I would expect these agencies to produce "evidence" that denigrates his position, and I would not at first glance accept it.

Do you take Snowden at his word? Snowden to newspaper: I took contractor job to gather evidence

That means he took the job under false pretenses, he both lied to get the job, and continued lying while he was working. He certainly wouldn't have gotten the job if he had told them he wanted it to steal secrets, would he? Nor would he have been granted the access he was given if he had told them he wanted to steal secrets.

And who was speaking for Snowden in Russia?

Russian attorney Anatoly Kucherena — who also happens to be the head of public council for the Federal Security Service (FSB)* — has announced that Edward Snowden may leave the Moscow airport on Wednesday. -- ...Russian Intelligence Speaks For Edward Snowden

Snowden had his birthday party at the Russian embassy in Hong Kong and made arrangements with them for his trip to Russia. This connection was lied about at multiple levels, and multiple times. Why?

I'm sure he'll enjoy his new homeland.

So, I think the answer to your question (What is really going on? ) is pretty clear, but not one you or most people here will accept.

*Federal Security Service (FSB) took the place of the old KGB - Committee for State Security, the Soviet secret police that was responsible for keeping the Soviet Communist Party in power.

Nothing can beat the NSA in the surveillance event competition!

I don't know man, the Jamaicans are always tough and the Russians are not to be dismissed. Not sure how China's team is this year.... but I hear they are big.

I wonder what Snowden has to say about this? Since The Moscow Times says that Spying Is a Sovereign Right, and a key spokesman for Snowden in Russia is the head of public council for the Federal Security Service (FSB), I would guess not much. Just as well: NSA Is No Match for the FSB

I wonder what Snowden has to say about this? Since The Moscow Times says that Spying Is a Sovereign Right, and a key spokesman for Snowden in Russia is the head of public council for the Federal Security Service (FSB), I would guess not much. Just as well: NSA Is No Match for the FSB

"Syrian" hackers on a U.N. Peacekeeping Mission:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/syria-cyber-war-opens-new-front-in-russia/452200.html

Syria Cyber War Opens New Front In Russia

02 February 2012

By Jonathan Earle

The cyber front of Syria's year-old civil war spread to Russia this week as pro- and anti-government bots splashed criticism and expressions of gratitude across the Russian Internet, and Syrian hackers attempted to commandeer the website of a Russian embassy.

The attacks are a response to Russia's ongoing resistance to proposed UN sanctions against Damascus and willingness to sell weapons to the Syrian government, which has been accused of killing thousands of civilians to stem a popular uprising that began in March.

On Sunday, the Syrian National Council, the main opposition coalition, called on Syrian expatriates to stage protests at Russian embassies and consulates and "exert pressure" on Russia.

Syrian electronic activists appear to have heeded the call, as Dozhd television said its website started receiving three to four comments per hour beginning Monday night.

Thousands of Syria-related comments have since appeared on Russian news websites and Facebook pages. Most comments are sharply critical of Russia's defense of President Bashar Assad. "Russia sold its humanity when it sold weapons to a criminal regime" user Abu Mujahid al-Hamwi wrote on President Dmitry Medvedev's Facebook page Tuesday morning.

A small percentage of the comments — which appeared in Arabic, Russian and English — expressed gratitude to Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, such as one from user Hamoud Youssef: "A heartfelt thank you to Russia. Thank you for the veto."

The comments were ostensibly posted by users with Syrian-sounding names, but the high number of identical entries suggests that the effort is largely automated. Several comments appeared dozens of times from multiple users on Facebook pages belonging to Slon.ru, Afisha, and Lenta.ru.

Meanwhile, a senior official at the Russian Embassy in New Delhi said Syrian hackers tried and failed to commandeer the embassy's website, Vesti.ru reported Monday. The official denied earlier reports that hackers had posted photographs of children allegedly killed by Syrian security forces.

For months, Russia and its allies have resisted growing pressure from Western governments and much of the Arab world to take a harder line against the Syrian government, which opponents say is using tanks and heavy weapons to slaughter opponents. The UN estimates that more than 5,000 have died in the crackdown.

The Syrian government says it is battling terrorist groups, and Russia has called on both sides to reject violence and come to the negotiating table. In October, Russia and China blocked a UN Security Council resolution calling for sanctions against Syria within 30 days if the government did not stop attacks on protesters.

In December, Russia agreed to sell 36 Yak-130 trainer-fighter airplanes to the Syrian government in a $550 million contract, Kommersant reported this week. Last month, a Russian-owned ship laden with munitions arrived in Syria after being temporarily detained in Cyprus.

Analysts have speculated that Russia is eager to hold on to a longtime ally and prevent a repeat of NATO's intervention in Libya. Also at play are billions of dollars worth of arms contracts and a naval base in the Mediterranean city of Tartus, Russia's only military base outside the former Soviet Union.

America is the world's debtor, not the world's creditor. It is you who "owes" us money.

Yes, not only is the American government in more debt than it can handle to China, American citizens are in a very large amount of personal debt as well. So, that is two kinds of debt for America. Meanwhile Russia is doing well enough to let some of America's old friends borrow some money for a while, and make something the U.S. gov't does not want them to have: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/vietnam-gets-9bln-loan-to-build-first-nuke-plant/448380.html -JS

Space Failures Raise Uneasy Questions - The Russian Space Industry starved after the fall of the USSR. The workforce aged and retired and there was a lack of new hires due to non-competitive pay scales with industry. Now the agency faces a lack of skilled workers that will only worsen as corruption has devoured all capital investments. New engineers and technicians take years to become proficient, it's not like working at you're local 7-11 as some folks seem to think.
You can draw a direct parallel to the US human spaceflight program. Now that the shuttle program has ended the majority of laid-off contract workers (i.e. USA, BOEING, Rockwell) are dispersing out of Brevard County - Florida to other aerospace jobs across the United States. Any future US manned space program will spend much treasure and likely a few lives to restore the talent that was let go, APOLLO all over again.

and if you don't think Putin still runs the show, there's a bridge I'd like to speak to you about...

Putin *clearly* runs the show and has been working on amending the Russian Constitution to do away with the pesky term limit rule. Just recently hinted he might run in 2012.

Googling for Putin and constitutional changes brings up the Reuters link as well as numerous articles on the subject back when the PM job was 'created' for him in 2007/2008. Not a lot since, which is a wee bit telling since Putin/Medvedev have a habit of closing newspapers they don't like.

Assange picked a very odd place in introduce Wikileaks...

Shortly after getting WikiLeaks off the ground, Assange flew to Kenya to attend the World Social Forum — a yearly symposium dedicated to the redistribution of wealth and the eradication of capitalism — where he delivered a presentation about his new website.
The Founder of WikiLeaks and His Secret Life *

..if he truly favors free enterprise, a proposition of which I'm a bit skeptical....

Australian acquaintances say he was bitterly disappointed by the outcome of the Cold War with a resounding global victory for the United States and its allies. Mr. Assange then began identifying with the defeated "progressives," from the pensioned-off millions - on starvation stipends - of the old Soviet nomenklatura to the innocent dupes who never realized that the World Peace Council was a KGB-controlled organization ....
DE BORCHGRAVE: International Subversives

Oddly enough, some other people also have a different view of Assange....

Assange and the Anarchist War Against the U.S.

In the late 1960s, I attended a university in Singapore. My dormitory roommate was a 19-year-old American student. He hung pictures of Che Guevara and Mao Zedong on the wall and spent days on end writing a treatise about when and how the “rotten capitalist system” in the United States would be overthrown.

In the 1970s, I worked as the Soviet consul in San Francisco. Every month or so, a crazed American anarchist would approach me and ask the consulate to provide dynamite or Kalashnikov machine guns to fight the “imperialist pigs” in Washington and cleanse U.S. society of the “capitalist filth.” .....

Now, in the 21st century, we have WikiLeaks founded by anarchist and anti-imperialist Julian Assange who is driven by a hatred for capitalism and the United States. In the modern age of the Internet, Kalashnikovs and dynamite are no longer necessary to try to overthrow the enemy. Modern technology and outstanding hacking skills allow anarchists to help weaken the United States, the citadel of capitalism.

Undoubtedly, WikiLeaks delivered a heavy blow to the United States. First, it showed the world that U.S. diplomats might smile to your face while they sharpen their knives behind your back.

Second, WikiLeaks exposed the vulnerability of the world’s most powerful country. Seasoned spies used to hunt for years for a single page of classified information, but WikiLeaks and its alleged main leaker, U.S. Private Bradley Manning, in one fell swoop scored more than 500,000 classified and secret U.S. military and diplomatic documents.

Third, the leaks will surely discourage the world from dealing candidly with the United States. Let’s say, for example, that Russia (or any other country) wanted to sign a secret agreement with Washington on a plan to arrest a top Afghan drug lord. Before any U.S. partner signs the agreement, it will wonder if the details of the operation will be splashed across the Internet before the plan can be executed.

Finally, WikiLeaks will surely inspire copycats who are just as zealous as Assange to undermine the United States at all costs.

Thanks to the cables, Russia and most of the world are once again laughing at Uncle Sam’s gullibility and criticizing the United States for being two-faced. Surely, Russia’s diplomats will now be more tight-lipped in dealing with U.S. diplomats. .....

Of course, radical, anti-establishment rebels like Assange and Che Guevara will always make themselves known in the modern

Eh, what are you talking about?

Found resources by drilling more oil? Gee that was hard, anyhow Russian military is a joke -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7837342.stm. Everything that is still valuable, like the nuclear industry, was built in Soviet time, and hasn't yet completely fallen in disarray, this applies to the space agency as well; for comparison the budget of NASA for 2009 is 17 Billion, Roscosmos 2.4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Federal_Space_Agency) even if everything is very cheap in Russia, which is not, the difference is staggering.

About nuclear power -- let me remind you in which country Chernobyl happened and this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seversk, and lots of other really bad things. As much as I like the idea of nuclear power, Russia doesn't have a particularly good track record using it even for 'peaceful purposes'. Anyhow, the latest government's pet project is this -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station which in my view seems to be a rather dumb idea.

There's no manufacturing capacity to speak of, most of the manufacturing facilities built in Soviet Union are now gone, you have no idea how hard Soviet economy crashed, all that's left, are manufactures that prepackage and deliver raw materials like oil, natural gas, nickel, aluminum, the list goes on. There's also a car maker that is getting bailed out over and over again -- http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/united-russia-to-save-avtovaz/390702.html and if you think that GM and Chrysler got a sweet deal from the government, think again. On a related note, Americans really don't appreciate American cars.

The myth that Russia is strong and it is rising is perpetuated by the Russian government to disguise the fact that those who in charge are just interested pumping more oil, and if you don't approve of current government, you want Russia to fail, I am not kidding -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Gryzlov#Memorable_quotes, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704187204575101510173019130.html

Russia is slowly dying and things will not change unless the resent government suddenly vanishes. I read on some forum in 2002 or so that Mr. Putin's Russia will end up being a version of Soviet Union with healthcare system, army and education removed and it seems that that's the way it has been going all these years.

  Also a paper to about a downfall of Soviet Union, I don't think that too many things have changed since then -- http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/72997307.html

Actually, those two journals are print journals I normally pick up in a bookstore. As for online sources, I'm not aware of any academic journals that are freely available online (unfortunately). For free online stuff, reading a nice variety of newspaper-like sites is probably as good as one can get. A few worth reading:

Science:

Eurekalert, Scientific Blogging, National Academies

Politics/Current events:

Moscow Times, Al Jazeera, PressTV, YNet, UN News Service, People's Daily

All this plus heavy use of Google News with custom sections, of course.

None of this is as good as the journals, but it's more current.

Google turned up this article mentioning Kaloi Akhilgov from three weeks ago. Magomed Yevloyev is mentioned in that repeated calls to him went unanswered. Apparently the editor of ingushetia.ru fled the country in the middle of July.

If anyone cares to read the article they'll find these paragraphs near the end:

"Violence against journalists in Ingushetia is a well-known and well-documented fact," Guseinova said, citing the November abduction and assault of Ren-TV journalists by uniformed men.

Malsagova could easily convince foreign governments that her life and the lives of her family members are in danger, because Ingush authorities have demonstrated that "any means are acceptable" in dealing with the media, Guseinova said.

Nothing about it in the Moscow Times crime section. But don't feel bad, there is this story instead: Filmmaker Murdered, Flushed Down Toilet

Nothing about it in the Moscow Times crime section. But don't feel bad, there is this story instead: Filmmaker Murdered, Flushed Down Toilet

The Moscow Times had this last month. Better pictures at Wired, though.

For those hardcores with a taste for Cyrillic, the Museum's website is www.15kop.ru

Those in the UK could see some of these games at Swindon's Museum of Computing, as this BBC article from 2004 states. Not sure if they're still there.

no one else could habe written harry potter, for example.

Why should the Harry Potter woman get to write all the Harry Potter books? Any professional writer can do it! All you need is your plucky British schoolboy characters, your forces of evil, your ominous foreboding, your grave peril and your totally unexpected plot twists. In fact, I'm going to write the next Harry Potter book right now:

CHAPTER ONE

Harry Potter awoke with a start. Outside Hogwarts Castle, it was dark and ominous. In his mind, Harry mentally reviewed his situation for the benefit of people who have not read the first four books in this series. He was a plucky young wizard with magical powers living in England, a small foreign country that speaks English, but with a lot of slang. He was in grave peril from the forces of evil.

"Blimey, Ron!" he said to Ron Weasley, with an English accent. Ron and Harry were mates, which in England has a different meaning.

Sounds like someone needs to educate themselves.
I have read the downing street memo. Have your read any of these?
here
here
and here

Very true. The number of people "over here" shaking our heads at "the big bully" (that is, the US) is growing rather fast. A lot of it is thanks to 9/11 (which was obviously NOT a terrorist attack), stolen elections and lying to just about everyone just to wage some wars in the Middle East.

We're quite fed up, actually. I'm hoping more and more in the US are as well.

The 2008 elections have already been stolen btw: http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/ 03/120.html

That's not really saying much, is it? Considering that there were probably zero international food chains under the Soviet regime.

IIRC, the first McDonalds was founded just prior to the fall of communism. Now there are McDonalds on every street corner, Pizza Huts (!), Taco Bell, KFC, and others. Even Starbucks is now in the game!