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Anti-Government Webmaster Shot Dead By Russian Police
J.Tatar and a number of other readers alert us to the shooting death of an anti-government webmaster while in police custody in Ingushetiya, a volatile province in southern Russia. Police took Ingushetiya.ru owner Magomed Yevloyev off a plane that had just landed in Ingushetiya. "Yevloyev ... was a prominent opponent of the pro-Kremlin president of Ingushetia, Murat Zyazikov [a close ally of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin]. Prosecutors have opened a preliminary manslaughter investigation after Yevloyev was shot in a police car in Narzan, the capital of volatile Ingushetia, a mostly Muslim region that borders Chechnya, Russian media reported. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office, Vladimir Markin, said 'an incident' took place after Yevloyev was taken into a police car 'resulting in a shooting injury to the head and he later died in hospital,' Interfax reported."
He was shot, and shot by police [for an unspecified reason].
But this still doesn't automatically mean he was "eliminated" for his views on the Russian government.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
The new Russia seems very similar to the old Russia.
Oh man, I shot marvin in the face...
Slashdot is calling!
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
And wouldn't you know it, all his friends and family accidentally car bombed themselves.
Minneapolis.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Realize that Magomed was shot in the temple, that's a guaranteed way to kill someone. It was no accident, it was premeditated.
You can't handle the truth.
Surely something else interesting happened today.
The officer just tended to emphasize things by pointing his pistol and the roads around there are very bumpy. Complete and unfortunant chance. Could happen to anybody.
Haven't you ever seen Pulp Fiction?
If Obama was president.
Why is it relevant that Ingushetiya is mostly Muslim? What does that irrelevant factoid have to do with this news?
The only thing that I fear it is relevant for, is for the inevitable Kremlin propaganda offensive to paint themselves as defenders against the Muslim barbarians. A tactic that worked very well to get the Chechnyan separatists out of the Western news and gave Russia a free hand to do whatever they wanted in Chechnya.
Obligatory disclaimer: the Chechnyan separatists were bastards. That does not wipe out the strong suspicion that Russia played on fears of Muslim terrorism in the West for propaganda purposes.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
some how i just know this is global warmings fault. monsanto probably had a hand in it as well.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The police shoot YOU!
Oh wait...
The EU intends to do exactly that; sacrifice every eastern European nation so they don't access to oil and gas.
backtotheussr
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
If you heard a report back in 2000 that Saddam Hussein had had yet another person killed, you'd think it was just par for the course. If rumor was that Bush allowed another fat-cat single-source contracting deal with his friends, you'd think it was probably true. Why? Because it falls in with that person's modus operandi.
Putin's Russia has been a very dangerous place for anyone who has opposed him, or even tried to investigate what was happening under him. Many are dead, exiled or in jail. So while I won't automatically put this in the "It's true" category, it does belong firmly in "Most likely true."
Oh wait, never mind.
There was Putin and his public dislike of all things US. The radioactive poisoning. Some FBI link to a SPAMMER inside of Russia but Putins government would not let US prosecutors go after them. The election where Putin creates a seat so he's still on top. More anti-US rhetoric. And more recently the Georgia incident where Putin is the one in the press on the first and second day. After that it is the acting President but it was pretty obvious Putin is da man.
Now a hole in the head of a webmaster while INSIDE a Police car. It all sounds like the old USSR and KGB era tactics to me. Well, it was good for some while it lasted. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Well, we should count ourselves lucky that we have free speech. Obviously, the poor bastard who was running that Anti-Kremlin website, is now going to be a martyr to the cause of free speech, being a casualty of it.
I feel for those russians who know there is a better way of life, but are stuck in this transitory stage where many of them are forced to co-exist with the "old school" russian way of thinking.
Anyways, it is always sad to read news such as this.
For additional information about this heinous crime, read the report just issued by the "Daily Telegraph" (DT). According to the DT, "Mr Yevloyev is the most prominent anti-Kremlin journalist to be killed since Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in the lift of her apartment block in October 2006. ... Russia is considered to be one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists."
The "Wall Street Journal" provides more information about this and other suspicious deaths of well-known journalists. According to the WSJ, "Mr. Yevloyev was the latest in a series of Russian journalists to have died in suspicious circumstances. The death of Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot in October 2006 at her Moscow apartment, highlighted the dangers faced by Russia's independent press. Ms. Politkovskaya was a lead reporter at Novaya Gazeta, a Moscow-based newspaper that specializes in muckraking and probes of government corruption. She was the third journalist at the paper to die under mysterious circumstances. Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, was shot on a Moscow street in July 2004."
After I read these news articles, I could think of only 4 words: God damn the Kremlin!
The Bear does things like shut off natural gas to Poland in the middle of the winter.
The Bear does things like shoot you (it's easier than shipping you to North Central Asia to build log bridges).
The Bear does things like running anti-aircraft artillery exercises during which they state that the target areas were the spaces between the aircraft flying the Berlin Airlift.
The Bear (or whatever local bumpkin minion) doesn't always think before acting (or thinks initiative might be rewarded). That's how KAL 007 got shot down: somebody finally decided they didn't want to take the heat for the thing being in the wrong place because SOMEbody was going to take the fall for it...
There was Putin and his public dislike of all things US. The radioactive poisoning. Some FBI link to a SPAMMER inside of Russia but Putins government would not let US prosecutors go after them. The election where Putin creates a seat so he's still on top. More anti-US rhetoric. And more recently the Georgia incident where Putin is the one in the press on the first and second day. After that it is the acting President but it was pretty obvious Putin is da man.
Now a hole in the head of a webmaster while INSIDE a Police car. It all sounds like the old USSR and KGB era tactics to me. Well, it was good for some while it lasted. IMO
LoB
This kind of puts the damper on the whole "won the cold war for us" rhetoric..
now i guess it's "sprayed air-freshener over the diaper pail that was communist russia and claimed to his wife he had emptied it"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Shoot you and another AC takes your place. You're agent Smits brother, aren't you?
Where in the article does it say that the murderers were "under direct orders from the Kremlin"? As far as I can make out, these were local cops who acted under the orders of the provincial governor Zyazikov - the main target of Yevloyev's criticisms.
those who say invading georgia is like the usa invading iraq?
where are those who say russia's invasion of georgia is the usa's fault?
it's all morally relative, right? we have to let russia do anything they damn well please, because the usa did something bad once, right?
i have a crazy idea: why can't we condemn them both?
why can't you condemn the usa, AND condemn russia?
given that, with all of the vitriol some of you found to fling at washington dc in recent years, why can't you fling some of that now at moscow?
or do crimes of war only stick to the west?
are you motivated by principles? or some weird geopolitical vendetta? (and therefore, part of the problem)
if you are motivation by principles, you must condemn russia now as hard as you condemn the usa
fight imperialism, wherever the fount
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"shooting injury to the head"...to me...that's an execution.
u know...like that infamous video clip and photo from the vietnam war?
man....how far humanity has and hasn't come.
In Soviet Russia, police don't kill people, guns do.
That's how it called in russian. Weirdly, those shootings are somehow affecting mostly journalists who oppose KGB regime. Coincidence - I think NOT.
Is Michael J. Fox available?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"...subjunctive mood is screwed up with such regularity..."
Yea, everyone has Subjunctivitis.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You've seen "Pulp Fiction" haven't you?
In other news, the editors of slashdot decide to postpone their trans-siberian railroad holiday
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a reference to Godwin's Law approaches 1
Um, OP was referring to the Beatles... sheesh, kids
Answer: Yes you can both criticise the US and the People's Republic of Putin that doesn't make either one any better.
The big difference however between the PRP and the US is that the impact of the criticism is more direct and obvious. There is no "Daily Show" in Russia, they just have the equivalent of Fox News wall to wall. What this means is that dissent is very hard to see inside the country.
The other difference is the risk of them going postal. The US administration might have done some very bad things on the way into Iraq, but there is at least the perception of some accountability and sanity within parts of the US. In Russia you have Putin and his puppet President and dictatorship style popularity figures in elections.
That gives us the final challenge. There has always been an expectation that one day the current US administration would be held to account by Congress or a court of law, this appears to be a ill-founded expectation but it is what people however thought. In Russia however the rule of law is clearly subservient to the rule of Putin.
That is why they will be condemned differently because their systems of government are so different. Russia has never pushed itself as the land of the free and a shining beacon of democracy, the US has. This is why the US is judged to a higher standard, it has asked to be.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Maybe this is like that scene in Pulp Fiction where Vincent accidentally shoots Marvin in the face?
You never know, it could have happened that way, especially since in Russia there is no real difference between the police and organized crime.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Even during the cold war the communist governments werent this open about killing their opponents. A possible explanation for this mode of operation is that someone wanted to send a clear message along the lines of "we do what we want - fear us". Or maybe it's just a tragic occurence Hanlon's razor (they police might actually be that stupid).
To all the people who support the thesis:
We don't know what happened, as nerds we should wait for more information instead of jumping to conclusions.
You're plain wrong, and just silly. The exact design of this assassination is:
You know exactly what happened, and that we can get away with it. Fear that.
You heard about it.
Deleted
Oh, yeah, I forgot about America right? Because a comparison between Russia and America is called for because America is more inherently evil AMIRITE?
You American-hating leftists who spin everything as "America is teh evil" ought to become familiar with the Tu Quoque fallacy. Here it is:
"Tu Quoque is a very common fallacy in which one attempts to defend oneself or another from criticism by turning the critique back against the accuser. This is a classic Red Herring since whether the accuser is guilty of the same, or a similar, wrong is irrelevant to the truth of the original charge. However, as a diversionary tactic, Tu Quoque can be very effective, since the accuser is put on the defensive, and frequently feels compelled to defend against the accusation."
Source: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/tuquoque.html
He was shot in the temple. I'd say it is almost impossible to force someone to shoot you this way.
There are no evidence that shooting happened inside of the police car. According to the police spokesman Magomed tried to wrestle AK rifle out of the policeman hands. They kinda did not like it and shoot him. No wittiness. No evidence. Only speculations and FUD.
so if a boyfriend says to a girlfriend that if she wears a certain dress he will hit her, and then the girlfriend's friend encourages her to wear the dress anyways, and she gets hit, in your eyes, the friend who encouraged the girfriend is the ultimate culprit?
here's an idea: the scumbag who hits his girlfriend for wearing a certain dress is the ultimate vulprit
and in the caucasus, russia's imperial proving ground for more centuries than the usa has existed, you're telling me the usa is the ultimate culprit?
if the usa gave georgia a goddamn aircraft carrier, russia, russia alone is responsible for invading georgia
or do you believe the line the boyfriend probably fed his girlfriend:
"why did you make me hit you"
you really fucking believe what you just wrote?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
... the cops shoot you in the head if you criticize the government.
Sorry, just doesn't have the humor value some days.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
The only false evidence are leftist talking points.
Uh. . , now which government office issues those? Douglas Feith certainly doesn't.
-FL
Oh shit, then what happened is OK.
ossetia is considered georgian territory by many valid measurements. it also contains people who do not want to be a part of georgia. similiar to east timor, or kosovo
so ok, let the ossetians be free
as if these were the only considerations
other considerations:
1. these ossetian considerations equally match chechnya, whose fight for freedom russia has crushed. do you support chechnya as a free and independent state form russia, on the principles of your support for osssetian independence from georgia? by your rationale, russia should give up chechnya. do you agree with that?
2. furthermore, in the case of kosovo, and east timor, separation was achieved by broad spectrum international support, and a peaceful vote. in the case of ossetia, russia did a sneak attack, on a region it has been involved imperialistically for centuries. do you think the comparison is still valid
3. and finally. what exactly is russia's motivations again?:
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1010/42/370554.htm
study your history in the caucasus. anyone who thinks what is going on here is anything more than an old-style imperialistic landgrab that should be universally denounced by anyone interested in progress in this world is an utter fool
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Maybe they let him go in the woods and Putin mistook his head for a tiger.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKLV19939720080831
In ingushetia, there are three major clans, named after 19th century shahes ruling in this region. Evloevs, Malsagovs, Aushevs teips are part of kunta-hadji clan, which controlled ingushetia in USSR, and in 199x, but lost control after putin became a president. also, former governor of ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev supervised a slave-trade.
maybe they where playing russian roulette
guess who lost
...if history teaches us anything, it's that we're willing to let history repeart itself within peoples own life times, even when we think it won't.
From the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7591162.stm) - "Russia, the Kremlin leader declared, would no longer accept a situation whereby a single country, like the US, sought global domination."
Seems to me that Russia is itching for another Cold War.
I have not in my lifetime seen any amount of guts displayed by the Europeans (or at least the Western ones) over any issue whatsoever.
Confucious say, he who conflates wisdom with weakness is a chump. Just because Europe doesn't go around invading the country of any camel jockey that thumbs his nose in their general direction, doesn't mean that Europeans are in any way weak. Europe hasn't blown most of its budget on military adventurism (hows that working out for you by the way?), but there is no weakness in the old world, where exist gargantuan industrial resources and some of the most advanced weaponry on earth.
Which leads me to ask the biological origin question that I know everyone is wondering about: do the Europeans have the same evolutionary line as the rest of the world? Observational evidence so far would make it appear that they're invertebrates...
Conversely, observational evidence would lead one to conclude that the US has a lot of people with small penises in charge.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Obama is a disciple of Saul Alinsky. All of the "community organizing" that he did in Chicago was for Alinsky groups. One of them, ACORN, is neck-deep in voter fraud allegations. While in Chicago, he helped to pass legislation to make slumlord Tony Rezko, and several other slumlords, very rich people. Obama is part of the Chicago political machine, and never once advocated for the non-machine candidate. Mayor Daley owns his ass lock, stock, and barrel. Obama also voted TWICE against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in the Illinois senate. Actually, the first time he voted "present" like the fucking spineless coward that he is. A similar bill passed the U.S. Senate unanimously. Also, Michele Obama suddenly got a $200k raise from the hospital at which she worked after her husband became a senator, and then Obama proceeded to funnel hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to said hospital. He is very familiar with the "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" method of politics. So much for the candidate of change, huh? Obama seeks to acquire power through any means necessary, including outright lying, and the media is perfectly content to help him because they hate G. W. Bush so much that they'd rather see a Democrat in the White House even if he does advocate the wholesale "change" from capitalism to socialism. Please do yourself a favor and read about the parts of Obama's past that his campaign and their drive-by media cheerleaders desperately wish would remain secret.
Common people, an article about Russia is up for more then 5 minutes and no Russian jokes yet??
Volkswagen is a German company, not Russian..?
this is not a single or rare occurrence. in the last 5 years all kinds of opponents all around russian federation have been killed 'accidentally' in numerous 'incidents'.
anyone who would think that this was a real accident is thoroughly naive or stupid.
Read radical news here
When they started locking up oil company execs and other PHB's on false pretenses, we said it was only a passing fad.
When they started shooting journalists and other humanities majors, we were silent...
could they officially call an execution, "a shooting injury to the head".
They're using their grammar skills there.
Russia seems to pride itself on mafia style shows of force. Russian/Soviet actions have always seemed this way. Their leaders have always had that look too -- of course, that could just be the vodka.
Those pesky shooting injuries to the head...
It worked for China.
Where was the "moral" and "intellectual" outrage as China that DOES THE SAME OF IMPRISONING, KILLING, and HARVESTING of political dissedents organs, get the best Olympics ever!
It was disgusting to see all the new coverage from the Tienamen square, where the smiling face of Mao, was in the center view. There is very little difference between Mao, Stalin, and Hussein in the amount killing they have each done to their population, but the rest of the world bends over to the will of the China because of the money.
Slashdot is dumping out comments it sees as 'unfit' im really not kidding. My comment is not here any longer, simply because it implied that America was as fascist a government as Russia? Way to go slashdot.
Yeah, just a coincidence that the bullet hit him in the head. Certainly.
We know it wasn't Putin's fault because Bush looked into his eyes and got a sense of his soul.
Play Command HQ online
In a conventional war, the USA would most likely make fairly short work of Russia. The problem is that Russia and the USA both possess rather large nuclear arsenals.
First off, tax revenues have actually increased, believe it or not, as, the issue with the economy is not a slowdown per say, but a shift towards the commodities sector. So, as a whole, the USA is actually doing reasonably well given its misadventures, its just that people that run investment banks and the IT that sucks off their teets are taking a beating, but, commodities are doing really well and manufacturing is surging due to growing exports. It's a red state economy - where services get reduced in value and smokestack industries command a premium.
Secondly, there's no comparing the Russian economy to the American economy. Yeah, Russia is doing ok because of its oil exports, but those exports are actually declining and meanwhile the USA is building up its manufacturing, is investing in all sorts of alternative energies, leads in computing and is competitive in a lot of other industries, and, while we're at, happens to have a military alliance with its only serious high tech economic competitors - namely, the EU. So, even if you doubt the American ability to innovate, there's 500 million Europeans over in NATO that might feel motivated to arm themselves somewhat if the Russians invaded Poland or Germany.
Now, the USA's military is actually pretty organized. When you think about it, the USA is doing a pretty remarkable job in Iraq and Afghanistan considering it is occupying the entire region with a force only 7 times the size of NYPD.
The thing is, as much as everyone talks about how the Army is overstretched, the Navy and Air Force aren't doing anything, and they become a lot more important in a war with Russia. While they've been fighting the war, the Navy is also researching upgrades to Rail guns, is designing a new class of aircraft carrier, is building a new class of nuclear submarine, has deployed and tested an anti-satellite and anti-ballistic missile capability to its surface fleet, has just finished a significant aircraft upgrade procurement, and is embarking on a second one. If anyone thinks the F-18 SuperHornet is just a patch to the Hornet.. woops.
Similarly, the USAF now has deployed its first fighter wing of F-22s, is building UAVs like crazy, is working on the F-35, is improving its air to air missile capability...
And, even though in the middle of a war, and perhaps spurred on by it, the US Army is actually researching and deploying next generation battle rifles, technologies to find snipers, look for IEDs, rolling out more mine resistant vehicles, improving the capabilities of its armoured troop transport, upgrading its capabilities to deal with wounded soldiers...
The bottom line is, if the Russians did want to try something conventional against a NATO country, at this point, NATO would completely fuck the Russians up.
This is my sig.
> Maybe they were duck hunting at the time?
Since when is Cheney Russian?
This Godwin principle is a way for people who don't like the truth to rationalize that they are on the winning side of an argument. Many times, the Nazi comparison is apt. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Idiots who yell "GODWIN" are intellectually 'forgetting' history because they don't like or agree with a particular point, even if it might be true. Kind of like the ridiculous American legal system throwing out literal smoking guns in a murder investigation on technicalities. Intellectually blinding oneself to reality, throwing away truth, and in at least one of the cases, encouraging legality over justice. In both cases it often results in people getting away with murder when people dogmatically and purposefully ignore truths. (For those morons who want to change the subject, there are better ways to make up for police ignoring civil rights: like punishing the police for illegal searches when they find a murder weapon without a warrant for example... and not punishing society... no criminal should go free to possibly murder again if it can be proved in any way they are guilty... the people who break laws should be punished no matter what... including police who do illegal searches... and no-one should not be given a free ride no matter what.)
Granted, some make the comparison to Nazis too quickly, but Godwin enthusiasts throw those points away, way too quickly too. I think the latter often lack critical thinking skills more than the former as they rely on blind dogma and the resulting intellectual laziness to proclaim to all that they won the argument. Something along the lines of, "even though a Nazi comparison might be true I don't have to think, I can just shout 'Godwin', and I win the argument... I'm soooo smart [then pats self on the back in a self congratulatory manner]."
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
'cause we all know blogs are reliable source of information. US Ambassador in Moscow must have been lying when he said that they've tried to dissuade Saakashvili till the last moment on August 7th when the attack was launched. Then Russia spent a precious day trying to get help through diplomatic channels. And only THEN they kicked the Georgians out and took away their toys.
I suggest that he titles it "Restoring constitutional order by dropping cluster bombs on civilians":
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5je4oTliESokD-zge0diVbbczCPIgD92TT2VG0
Michael Totten is not your average blogger.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
How could he write this drivel without even TALKING to the other side? It doesn't take a genius to see, that the guy is vehemently anti-Russian. Consequently, the only source he quotes is also vehemently anti-Russian.
Is this your idea of "unbiased information"? I could find some intensely anti-US nutcases in Russia for you, and they will tell you that the US is a nation of bloodthirsty retards with short memory span. Just because they say it doesn't make it true.
Read up on Saakashvili in this article on Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/29/AR2008082902336.html
Compared to him, Putin as an etalon of democracy.
BRIC no more - The investmentable group of nations is now the BIC nations after the R nation fails at basic civilization.
again
Even though you got modded as flamebait, you are possibly more right than you know.
Alexander Litvinenko (the guy that was murdered with Polonium) had put away a lot of evidence and video interviews that were to be released if he was killed and it was all recently turned into a documentary, "Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File".
Litvinenko was an FSB agent that was disillusioned when (as he claimed) the FSB started bombing Moscow apartment buildings and blaming the Chechens for it. He started documenting and then trying to expose the FSB, KGB, and Vladimir Putin as using terrorism to try to solidify and broaden their power. In the documentary there are videos made by groups of FSB agents (including Litvinenko) where they discuss the various ways that the Russian security forces had been used to perpetrate acts against Russians that could be blamed on Chechen rebels.
Netflix has the documentary for those with accounts.
If what Livinenko said is true, and the documentary makes a very convincing case, Russia has entered a new era and a very dangerous one.
The documentary also discusses Putin's and the FSB's fondness for killing people that are thorns in the Russian government's side.
The list of people that have been critical of the Russian government that have also met untimely ends is growing fairly quickly. Litvinenko had thought he was safe staying in London, but obviously he wasn't.
It seems Putin's government might see murder as an effective form of censorship.
you don't know the russians. They are exporting mafia arround the world and no more (oh, yes, good quality vodka too :))))). ;)
They are disturbing and nobody loves them in the world.
When the second world war finished the japanese weapons factories were closed and the army dissolved. I hope finally the whole world make the same with the dangerous russians and they don't sell more kalashnikovs to poor countries (without FOREIGN weapons in this countries = less suffering).
This is just an idea for secret services of the western countries.
Spassiva
Calgary Police have the same right.
Calgary Police shootings go unreported in the media.
Calgary Police abuse go unreported in the media.
Calgary is known as a Police state.
in russia
your head attacks
bullet
bullet wins
read up on the news, Pravda is better than the Globe.
At least the Russian government are a more decent class of thugs than the gang in Washington. The gang from Moscow administered a quick death to an adult man. The gang from Washington killed nearly a hundred men, women and children -- by burning them alive -- outside of Waco back in 1993.
The deficit is not the same thing as the debt.
You knew that though, when you responded to his "the amount of debt..." comment with "You do realize the Federal deficit is...", right?
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
"Since these goods have to be bought capital flows out (eg to gulf states for buying oil). "
And goods flow in.
"This capital flows back in the form of investments in US companies."
Or in the form of purchases of US goods.
These glaring omissions to your "formula" make me wonder what your agenda is. An honest analysis of the facts doesn't brign anyone to the conclusion you've reached.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
"You've already got the largest home default rate in the first world"
First [citation needed], second, we've got the largest hoe ownership rate in the fist world, so the largest default rate would kind of go hand in hand. Last, so what? what is that a measure of besides the easy availability of credit for home ownership?
"one of the highest tax rates on low income earners "
The lowest earners pay nothing in taxes. Zero. How, exaclty would you suggest we make them pay less than zero (and no, that is not a small amount of people either, it was about 1/3rd of the population in 2006 http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1410.html)
"shitty government spending on education and health care per capita even when compared to many third world nations"
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_pri_sch_stu-spending-per-primary-school-student
Which of Denmark, Switzerland and Austria are third world countries? Those are the only ones that are above the US in primary school spending per student.
So what about secondary school?
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_sec_sch_stu-spending-per-secondary-school-student
It appears now it's only Switzerland and Austria. I'm sure they'll be surprised to know they're third world...
So what about healthcare spending then? Ar eyou really going to try and make the case that the US, well know for spending more on healthcare than anyone by far, is behind a third world country?
Well, you'd be wrong.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_spe_per_per-health-spending-per-person
#1. What else is there to say?
I don't like taxation any more than you do, but nothing you said there was true to the facts.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
A guy looking totally bored sitting somewhere in Kremlin in an office marked "killing department", thinking to himself: "Well we've been killing innocent people opposing our regime for years. We used all possible ways of killing - with an ice pick, with guns, with knives, arranging catastrophes, with poison, we even used a 10 million dollar poison portion to kill a chap that died from it 20 days later (that was a brilliant operation as we wanted everyone to think that the guy was a radioisotope smuggler and he could not handle the substance properly and got himself killed in the process or perhaps we just wanted the whole world to think that we are rich!)
Anyway how about killing someone in the head while they are in a car, this is so Tarantino like style! It is not at all exciting killing someone when they are outside of the car, perhaps people will even think that it was an accident and we'd get away with it."
Seriously though, the world is divided. There are those who like Russia and those who don't. If there is a nuclear war both will be killed.
Russia does not have democratic ways, true. The ruling parties in the Western Europe and the USA are not backed by people but by powerful lobbies. To rule you need some serious POWER behind you. People votes alone can lead to the election of communists or fascists not that they are any worse than the current rulers of the "WEST".
So the only real difference is violence. There seems to be a lot more of it in those parts of the world surrounding Russia and a much less violent approach in the West. Why kill people when you can let them die out in a more vegetable way. Enjoy your house, your car, your family, your gadgets, your job, the rest of your useful life!
They are a third world nation with first world aspirations, but they can't seem to get it right. How long before we get back to the old USSR? I'd guess sooner rather than later. Problem this time is, the US and Europe aren't going to let Russia roll their tanks into every Eastern European nation bulldozing their people into submission. Fool us once...
I been born in Moscow and leaved half of my live in USSR (not Russia, - the USSR), the other half of my life I leaved in New York USA and in my opinion those 2 the USA and the USSR were were so close to each other in the cense of "what they did and why did they do that"... I mean I almost see them as an identical countries. Of course USSR was monarchy ruled by the communist party, while USA was showing off as a "true democracy capitalism". but those are about ALL the differences there were in those 2 countries. USSR was very furious about controlling their people, as a tool to accomplish control they used fear along with killing or sending away those who protested, while they did it ONLY to their own people (the ones under Molotov Pact). During the 70+ years of USSR the only major war is Afghanistan. US has found a different way to control their people, since US is "democratic" they could not use force as a first strike instrument against people, instead US has achieved the same (or even better) results with a united media used as a direct propaganda tool. - US has started a major war/incident with almost every precedent US had (some of the precedents have even achieved to start more than 1 major war during his precrdancy) dislocating and killing as many people as USSR. The only BIG difference was the Stalin who managed to kill more Soviet People than Hitler during his whole WWII !! (And that is according to soviet sources! so the actual numbers can be much higher!) - Most aggressive Stalin repressions were reported during 1937 - 1939 - US seem to LOVE stalin at that time (Time Magazine made him man of the year in 1940! http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19400101,00.html ) - Does that look ironic to you? or do you want to say that US and europe did not know that Stalin killed millions of people in 1939 alone?? At that time the West did not think that it was any bad to kill those people, and silenced about the whole thing!!! This is just one of the examples where after 50 or so years we can clearly see that there was no difference between the US and USSR intentions toward "peace and democracy". - The end result is the same, call it democracy or what ever else the intention is to conquer and rule one way or another. Perhaps Baltic states think they will be better off with US... Perhaps they dont see that US is building a "human shield" employing those Baltic states against a "Possible attack from Russia" Perhaps Baltic states dont see that US and Russia are simply competing against each other because they both want essentially the same thing? Perhaps Baltic states dont realize that IF SUTCH AN ATTACK will ever happen they will be among the first ones to suffer with most casualties anyway since they are on the "border of conflicting parties". Perhaps they think that it is better to inflame the aggression between Russia and US - will that make them any safer? Perhaps those states should learn a thing or two from Finland who managed to stay in the balance between the 2 opposing powers! Just my opinion of course...