Its Good to Be The King

Check out Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's new personal photographer

Here's a link to the story on Forbes

What? The? Eff?

Powerline writes:

Last week the British Embassy announced that British, French and American troops would march with Russian soldiers on Red Square to mark the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. The Brits said in a statement that the parade may mark the first time British troops have marched in Red Square; I believe the same observation applies to the American troops that will join the parade.

Marching with a regime that serves Polonium milkshakes to its detractors? In Red Square? I wonder if we'll be allowed to carry our own flag - wouldn't want to offend anyone.

This is turning out to be far worse than even I imagined.

This Week's Sign That The Apocalypse is Upon Us

Cut directly from a WSJ news alert and presented without further editorialization:

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In another twist to the ongoing saga to replace the Air Force’s aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers, United Aircraft of Russia is planning to bid on the $40 billion contract.

United Aircraft, an aerospace consortium owned by the Russian government, will seek to offer a tanker version of its Ilyushin Il-96 wide-body jetliner, dubbed the Il-98. The planes would be largely built in Russia, and assembled in the U.S.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Defense said Friday European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. NV had asked for more time to decide whether to re-enter bidding for the aerial tanker contest as a prime contractor.

Russian Subs Off East Coast

For the first time in about 15 years, two Russian submarines are conducting a patrol in international waters off the east coast of the United States.

If you are about to fill your pants at the thought of depressed trajectory nuclear strikes, take a deep breath and calm down. These are Akula-class attack submarines, not the ICBM-armed boomers that could lay waste to everything from Boston to Florida.

As to why they are doing it, nobody seems to know, and the Kremlin isn't saying. Perhaps after the latest failure of the Bulava (Mace) missile, the Russians want to look tough.

Considering the dismal condition of the rest of the Russian Navy, these may be the only two working subs left. Maybe they just wanted to see how they worked.

Hillary Schmillary

This is change I can believe in.

Instead of a president who makes embarrassing gaffes, we now have a secretary of state who seems to be shooting for the record in the Dumbass Olympics:

In the last couple days she has:

-Claimed she "doesn't understand" multiparty democracy. (Its mean of me to point this one out because she was making the point that its hard enough to agree with 2 parties in the mix, but I think she could have phrased it better. And I like being mean.)

-Stated that US democracy is older than European democracy, forgetting about things like the Magna Carta, The Roman Republic and the Greek city states.

-Called Javier Solana -- a man who has been on TV nearly every day for the last 10 years -- Javier 'Solano'

-Referred to European Commission External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner as "Benito."

-Presented the Russian Foreign Minister with a symbolic 'reset' button symbolizing a new start for US-Russian Relations. Her staff managed to get "Reset" right in english, but the Russian word was "Peregruzka" which means overload or overcharge.

This doesn't seem like 'smart power' to me.

Fly The Unsteady Skies

Since the days of the Soviet Union, Aeroflot has been known for lousy service, awful food, and questionable reliability.

When I lived in Russia a few years ago, crashes were fairly regular, especially for the Tu-154, a passenger jet distinguished by the frequency with which its wings fell off. And even if you made it onto the ground in one piece, the flight was likely to be memorable -- but not in a good way.

It was (and maybe still is) a tradition on the domestic routes that when the plane taxis to a stop, the pilot and flight crew get to leave the plane first while the passengers stay in their seats.

Also, there doesn't seem to be many rules about what you can't put in the overhead compartment. On a domestic flight to Krasnodar from Moscow, I sat a few rows behind a really tough-looking guy who brought a a pump-action shotgun onto the plane. On the way back, a solid-looking old woman dragged a cage of feeble looking chickens aboard and crammed it into the overhead compartment.

Nobody gave either of these two a second glance.

That's why this story in the Weekly Standard didn't surprise me at all. Seems that late last year, the passengers of an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to JFK staged a revolt when their pilot was so drunk, his welcome aboard message was barely incomprehensible in Russian or English.

Initially, the passengers who complained were told to "stop making trouble." People who called the Aeroflot customer service line from their cell phones were told "it is impossible for the pilot to be drunk."

Finally after an hour or so of intense argument -- if you've lived in Russia, you know how this probably sounded -- an Aeroflot representative got onto the plane and delivered this gem, which should go in to a book on great moments in customer service.

"It's not such a big deal if the pilot is drunk." the Aeroflot rep reportedly told the passengers. "Really, all [the pilot] has to do is press a button and the plane flies itself. . . . The worst that could happen is he'll trip over something in the cockpit."

Seriously, go read the whole thing. Its hilarious.

Russian Airforce Defeats Russian Airforce

The Russian airforce, in a decisive engagement, has defeated 1/3 of its own fighter planes.

According to recent reports in the newspaper Kommersant, the air force grounded 1/3 of its fighters after a recent MiG-29 crash in Siberia.

Apparently crash investigators discovered corrosion in the aircrafts fuselage that turned out to be widespread.

I just want all the readers of this blog to know that 27 years ago, my mother was asked about the effectiveness of the Soviet military, and she responded that if the elevators in the missile silos were anything like the ones in our Moscow apartment building, a tiny percentage of the crews would make it down to the firing stations. Also the tanks would break down, or be traded for bannanas, and nobody would be able to find gasoline for any of the trucks.

Its nice to know that not much has changed in 27 years.

A hilarious addendum. Apparently the Algerians recently sent back a number of MiG-29 fighter planes they bought from Russia, complaining of substandard manufacturing. Damn. When the Algerians start complaining, you have problems.

Russiu Umom Ni Ponyat'

Title means: You don't understand Russia with your mind.

Remember that as you read the following joke.

President Putin is dreaming that he meets Stalin and asks for advice on how to rule Russia. Stalin says to him, "You need to do 2 things. Number 1 is to arrest and shoot all the democrats. Number 2, you have to paint the Kremlin walls blue.

Putin thinks for a while and says "Blue? Why blue?"

And Stalin says, "I knew you wouldn't ask me about Number 1."

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

Speaking of gun safety, I almost titled this post "I Was Cleaningski My Silenced Pistol and It Went Offski..."

Into the heads of two more folks (a journo and lawyer) openly critical of Tsar Putin the Poisoner. Courtesy of the (yuck) Washington Post, we have:

ANOTHER RUSSIAN fighting for human rights and the rule of law has been murdered in Vladimir Putin's Moscow. Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer who defended Chechens brutalized by Russian troops and journalists who wrote about the abuses, was shot in the head yesterday by a masked man carrying a silencer-equipped pistol. An opposition journalist who tried to intervene, Anastasia Baburova, was also fatally shot in the head. This occurred in broad daylight, on a busy street in central Moscow less than half a mile from the Kremlin. It was another demonstration that assassinations are a dominating feature of political life under Mr. Putin's regime.

There are morons screaming for Bush and Cheney's heads because they kept some terrorists up late listening to Brittany Spears music. Where are the marches in the streets protesting Russia's real imperialism and brutality? They invade neighboring countries, they threaten others via resource manipulation, and they routinely murder critics inside and outside of their own borders. I guess not even the Russians care that much.

Years ago I bet my friends that within 5 years of that time the Russians would use a small nuke on the Chechens, assuming they could find a stubborn cave complex redoubt or the like. I see now that I lost that bet not because I gave the Russians too little credit for subtlety, but rather too much. Why bother with something as clean, simple, and quick as a nuke in a cave on your own nation's soil when a bowlful of dioxins, a drop of Polonium 210, a spoonful of mercury, or a couple of vanilla 9mm rounds in broad daylight can do the real important jobs the world over?

The Russians themselves might not care that much but I think the rest of the world would rather that Putin just sit on a log and eat flies.