19 October 2014. Politics Through a Cartoonist’s Eyes…

The Bear doesn’t fancy being woken up from his hibernation…

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The US forces are making Afghanistan safe for Islamic law of the most retrograde variety (they do NOT represent mainstream Islam)… the American-backed junta there is as strident as ISIS is! What a luvverly thing “democracy” is, wot? Afghanistan was freer in 1965 and under the DRA, too… fancy that…

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Reagan and G W Bush used dictatorial ukases (“executive orders”) more often than B H Obama has… Obama’s the “threat to democracy!” I’ll check into Bedlam with Mr Scrooge…

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NATO is as much of actual use as buggy whips in an age of automobiles. Yet, the USA wastes billions upon it for no good purpose… the GOP demands that we do so… Obama goes along, for if he doesn’t, the GOP in the Senate would filibuster him to death.

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It’s coming near Election Day… vote! Then, at least, you’ve got bitchin’ rights until the next time. Step up or shut up…

BMD

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10 October 2013. You Can’t Make Up Shit Like This… Ex-Teacher Sent for Psychiatric Treatment for Treaty With Satan

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On Wednesday, a Russian court sentenced a former teacher to compulsory psychiatric treatment, as she drafted a contract with the devil in her own blood, asking him to destroy a beloved pupil’s relationship. Earlier, experts concluded that the ex-teacher, Lyudmila Osipova, was unaware of what she was doing and required psychiatric treatment. The court ruled that she should “undergo forceful medical treatment in a specialised psychiatric ward”. Osipova, a 41-year-old from Volgograd, developed an infatuation with a man in his 20s while working at a computer literacy class several years ago. On Thursday, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that she tried to reconnect with the judo enthusiast after quitting her job in 2009 by joining a social networking website and posing as a model half her real age. When the man met Osipova in person, immediately, he turned down her overtures, saying that he already had a girlfriend that he intended to marry. The woman tried to break up the relationship by signing a contract with the devil that stipulated exchanging Osipova’s soul for a younger body, 100 million roubles (3.1 million USD. 3.22 million CAD. 3.3 million AUD. 2.3 million Euros. 1.95 million UK Pounds), a Jaguar and a Volkswagen, a helicopter, and some bodyguards. After that scheme failed, Osipova turned to the underworld for help and hired a contractor to help end her prey’s relationship. In a recorded conversation with a police officer posing as a contractor, she told him, “Put her on drugs for a couple of weeks in order to develop an addiction, gang-rape her too, and film it for him to see”. Osipova’s plan was for her target to be beaten so severely as to induce amnesia and then for her to nurse him back to health.

10 October 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131010/184039695/Ex-Teacher-Sent-for-Psychiatric-Treatment-Over-Treaty-With-Satan.html

Editor’s Note:

It takes all kinds to make a world, schemers like Lyonyo and Gan, soulless guns-for-hire like John Boehner and James Carville, single-issue monomaniacs like Ted Cruz and Al Gore, and barmy nutters like this one. Such sorts make us forget that the majority of people are rather decent and sane… but we don’t “get into the paper”, do we? Sigh…

By the way, KP is the equivalent of the New York Post or The Sun. It’s “all the shit that’s fit to print”. It’s a rollicking read, and most of it’s true… there are all kinds of red-top tabs, and KP is one of the better of the lot. Besides, don’t you want to know who’s doing what to whom, you dirty-minded sinner, you?

BMD

Why J-Lo Is More Ethical Than Our Greatest Statesmen

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I’m not sure when I first became aware of the oeuvre of the “singer” Jennifer Lopez… she of the two-note vocal range… but it may well have been when I was living in Kazakhstan in late 1999. As the new millennium approached, her track Waiting for Tonight was in heavy rotation on the German music channel I got with my satellite TV package. It was utterly rotten, but better than the works of Die Fantastischen Vier (click here), so I sometimes let it play out. Anyway, that early association of J-Lo + Central Asian autocracy might explain why I was neither shocked nor all that bothered when word got out that Jenny from the Block performed for Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the dictator of Turkmenistan. I mean… commercial pop star accepts cash for performance… whoa, stop the presses!

Yes, yes, I know, Berdymukhamedov’s a nasty man. That’s true. However, you know what? I recall that when I was in Kazakhstan, Vanessa-Mae (click here)… now largely forgotten, but at that time considered a superhot pop/classical act… played in the capital Astana during the New Year celebrations and nobody cared. Indeed, lots of pop stars have performed for shady types in oppressive post-Soviet régimes for two decades now. Nevertheless, since J-Lo isn’t yet totally washed up, all of a sudden, it’s news. Of course, J-Lo’s entourage claimed that she wouldn’t have performed for Berdymukhamedov had she known who he is… apparently none of them heard of this thing called “Google”. Then, a human rights organisation revealed that she’s raked in as much as 10 million bucks (325 million Roubles. 7.7 million Euros. 6.6 million UK Pounds) over the years performing in Azerbaijan, Belarus, and elsewhere, and has even serenaded the ever-charming Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya, so the professed innocence seems dubious.

Of course, she’s hardly alone in her penchant for entertaining dodgy geezers… Beyonce and Mariah Carey once sang for members of Gaddafi’s family; Sting hung out with Islam Karimov’s daughter for ca$h; and lots of celebrities chilled at Kadyrov’s expense, from Hilary Swank to Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu. It’s the same story every time (unless you’re Depardieu, who doesn’t care)… “Oh, I didn’t know…” even as they’re trousering a wad of dollars, which some later gave away out of sincere regret/for face-saving PR (delete as appropriate). You can believe their claims of ignorance if you like, but, you know, Gaddafi was kind of famous, and, as I said, there’s this thing called Google…

The selectiveness of the outrage bothers me. You see, all of these celebrities are clear about what they do… they perform for money. J-Lo is a businesswoman and she does business in dodgy places, like ExxonMobil or Coke or Apple. However, she’s a trivial person; she doesn’t matter. If we’re going to savage her, then, there are some bigger targets we ought to focus on first. Like Tony Blair, for instance… his consulting agency Tony Blair Associates is currently advising the government of Kazakhstan in exchange for buckets of cash. That’s much dodgier than an aging single mother of two dancing for some khan in the desert; indeed, dancing for the khan is more honourable… it’s an ancient art and comes free of Tony Blair’s self-righteous, self-exculpatory blather.

What about Bill Clinton, everybody’s favourite vegan ex-president? He makes millions each year blathering away to foreigners; a speech from Clinton can cost you half a million bucks (16.25 million Roubles. 400,000 Euros. 325,000 UK Pounds), and he won’t even put on a skin-tight sparkly dress for you. Sometimes, he talks to Canadians and Swedes, but if the payday is good enough, he’ll jet off to Saudi Arabia, a country so oppressive it makes Turkmenistan look like a San Francisco nudist colony circa 1968. The rulers of assorted oppressive oil-rich regimes gain a lot of cachet by hosting Clinton. What prestige did Berdymukhamedov gain by having the fading singer of Love Don’t Cost a Thing mime on stage for him? Zero.

Then, there’s Al Gore, who hates global warming so much that he sold his rubbish TV station to the Emir of Qatar for 500 million USD (16.25 billion Roubles. 380 million Euros. 330 million UK Pounds), and I needn’t add that the champion greenhouse-gas-generating emir isn’t known for his progressive views either. Sure, Gore got a bit of stick for that, but not enough. That’s not fair. Has J-Lo spent her career banging on about human rights in Central Asia only to turn against everything she’d ever said as soon as the payout was awesome enough? No. On the other hand, Al Gore smeared himself with filthy lucre as quick as he could.

Let’s be reasonable here. J-Lo is paid to entertain. Sometimes, she entertains unpleasant people. However, she’s got a toy boy… she has to keep him in bling, you understand, and, at least, she works hard for an hour or so on stage to get her money. Compare that with some of the most respected, allegedly enlightened statesmen of our age who’ll spout platitudes at just about any old thug if the bucks are big enough. I know who I think is more honest.

17 July 2013

Daniel Kalder

RIA-Novosti

http://www.en.rian.ru/columnists/20130717/182283906/Transmissions-from-a-Lone-Star-Why-J-Lo-Is-More-Ethical-Than-Our.html

A View from Moscow by Valentin Zorin… Stop, Thief!

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Washington is concerned about the situation of Russian democracy. The reason for their hysterical propaganda was the decision of the Congress of the United Russia Party to nominate Vladimir Putin to stand for election as president, and his proposal that if he wins election, he’ll appoint the current president, Dmitri Medvedev, as his prime minister. The chattering class that gathers in Washington political lobbies and influential voices in the American media are very concerned about the fate of Russian democracy. What are the reasons for their obviously-staged propaganda? Why are they fanning outrage and concern over what they call an attack on Russian democracy? Firstly, I’d say that we’re witnessing another round of their never-ending “Cold War” propaganda. If the threat of the Cold War to the world in objective political and military terms ended two decades ago, then, it’s sad to note that the advocates and planners of the Cold War in other countries haven’t laid down their arms and they’re not going to stop their immoral behaviour. The re-emergence of an anti-Russian campaign shows this clearly enough. The prospect of a new presidential term for Vladimir Putin particularly riles some influential “inside the Beltway” circles. They haven’t forgotten Putin’s famous “Munich speech”, which put a definitive end to a decade of illusions from certain leading Moscow politicians that attempted to dance to Washington’s tune. Unfortunately, not everyone in the Washington ruling élite was mature enough to understand that relations with Russia must be on equal terms, and that they could only deal with it on such a basis.

Finally, let me make one more point. A famous Russian fairy tale told how a sneak thief in a crowded bazaar stole a neighbour’s hat, then, ran off crying, “Stop, thief!” The course of the current US presidential campaign brought this old folk tale to mind. It’s unlikely that American voters thought highly of the merits of the “democracy” of the Republican Party leadership when, on 2 August, the GOP held the US economy hostage to their pre-election intrigue, putting it at risk of default, threatening the ruin of millions of Americans. According to official estimates, the cost of the current presidential election campaign will come up to about a billion dollars (30.56 billion Roubles. 715 million Euros. 624 million UK Pounds). Those who preach “true democracy” today are reluctant to recall the outrageous case where the losing candidate actually won the presidential election. George W Bush, the predecessor of the current president in office, received half a million votes less than his opponent Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. He only won the White House after a scandalous intervention into the election by the US Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of Bush by one vote. I wouldn’t call that appropriate behaviour for those who wish to give advice to others about the proper conduct of a presidential election! A number of indecent scandals have already marred the current US election campaign. In such circumstances, Washington’s manipulators attempt to divert attention from their actions, so, they cry, “Stop, thief!”

5 October 2011

Valentin Zorin

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2011/10/05/58202167.html