The State of Affairs in Russia

[Syt]

You remember Russia's children's ombudsman who said there would never be sex ed in Russian schools, because Russian literature provides everything that kids need to know? He has a new suggestion to protect the kids:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/news/article/russian-official-proposes-protecting-children-with-giant-fences/526484.html

Russian Official Proposes Protecting Children With Giant Fences

Russia's ombudsman for children's rights Pavel Astakhov has proposed enclosing kindergartens, schools and daycare centers with high solid fences in order to protect children from the gazes of potential abusers.

"There can never be too many security measures," Astakhov told state-run Rossiya television on Wednesday. "We believe they must be fortified — nontransparent fences should be placed around children's institutions."

The idea to surround children by opaque fences, impenetrable to the eye, was prompted by a series of complaints about strangers watching children in schoolyards or playgrounds, Astakhov was quoted by Interfax as saying.

The proposal also comes on the heels of an alleged kidnapping case in the Ural Mountains city of Chelyabinsk this week.

Police detained a man on Tuesday on suspicion of having abducted an 9-year-old boy from an orphanage the previous weekend, and have rescued the boy, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

[The Brain]

You remember Russia's children's ombudsman who said there would never be sex ed in Russian schools, because Russian literature provides everything that kids need to know? He has a new suggestion to protect the kids:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/news/article/russian-official-proposes-protecting-children-with-giant-fences/526484.html

Russian Official Proposes Protecting Children With Giant Fences

Russia's ombudsman for children's rights Pavel Astakhov has proposed enclosing kindergartens, schools and daycare centers with high solid fences in order to protect children from the gazes of potential abusers.

"There can never be too many security measures," Astakhov told state-run Rossiya television on Wednesday. "We believe they must be fortified — nontransparent fences should be placed around children's institutions."

The idea to surround children by opaque fences, impenetrable to the eye, was prompted by a series of complaints about strangers watching children in schoolyards or playgrounds, Astakhov was quoted by Interfax as saying.

The proposal also comes on the heels of an alleged kidnapping case in the Ural Mountains city of Chelyabinsk this week.

Police detained a man on Tuesday on suspicion of having abducted an 9-year-old boy from an orphanage the previous weekend, and have rescued the boy, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

That guy is a hoot.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

if they build that fence around Russia I'm sure we can all get behind the idea

[The Brain]

if they build that fence around Russia I'm sure we can all get behind the idea

Then we'd have to find a way to escape.

[Syt]

If accurate ... wow.

http://tass.ru/en/russia/812150

Half of Russians favor online censorship - poll

58% support complete Internet shutdown in the country in case of a national threat of a possibility of mass protests

MOSCOW, August 3. /TASS/. Almost half of Russians believe that online information should be censored, 58% support complete Internet shutdown in the country in case of a national threat of a possibility of mass protests, and 73% believe that negative information about civil servants should not be posted online, says a report prepared by the Russian Center for Public Opinion Studies (VTsIOM) and the Center for Global Communication Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

The survey shows that 42% of Russian citizens use the Internet on a regular basis. Another 20% said that went online from time to time, up to several times a week, and 38% of Russians said they hadn't used the Internet for six months and more.

Slightly over half of Russians say the Internet has a positive impact on their lives, and one-third of the respondents believe the Internet's influence is negative.

The report notes that "a considerable number of Russians (42%) believe that Western countries use the Internet against Russia and its interests." Sociologists have found out that four out of five citizens (81%) spoke of their negative attitude towards the websites, which are used for organizing anti-government rallies and demonstrations, 73% believed it was inappropriate to post online negative information about civil servants.

According to the survey, only 11% of Russians think the Internet should be completely free from government censorship. On the other hand, 49% of those polled said censorship had to be present online.

Nearly 60% of the respondents said the government should censor or block porn websites with homosexual content, 46% called for controlling the groups in social networks, which contained information about anti-government protests.

"While 5 or 7 years ago the Internet was a 'territory of freedom' for a limited number of young people, today it is used by more than two-thirds of Russians," VTsIOM's Director-General Valery Fyodorov has told TASS. "It turned into a leading information environment, a rival in significance to TV that has surpassed radio and press," he said, adding that the Internet "had also become an important communication channel, including for senior citizens."

Thanks to this, "not only the possibilities, but also the hazards of the uncontrolled circulation of information online have become more appreciable and essential for an increasingly larger number of people across the globe," Fyodorov said.

[Monoriu]

I miss the days in EUOT when there were Russians among the posters 

[Martinus]

Why are you guys surprised? If anything surprises me, it's the implied insistence of some people here that, somehow, Russians should embrace Western values. Russia is an Asian country.

[Eddie Teach]

Peter the Great getting ready to stab Martinus.

[Syt]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russians-show-frustration-as-decree-to-destroy-banned-food-comes-into-force/527081.html

Russians Show Frustration as Decree to Destroy Banned Food Comes Into Force

Russian government plans for mass destruction of banned Western food imports have provoked outrage in a country where poverty rates are soaring and memories remain of famine during Soviet times.

Even some Kremlin allies are expressing shock at the idea of "food crematoria" while one Orthodox priest has denounced the campaign, which officially began on Thursday, as insane and sinful.

However, the authorities are determined to press on with destroying illegal imports they consider "a security threat."

Russian television showed a small mountain of illegally imported European cheese being bulldozed on Thursday while, even before the official start, zealous workers threw boxes of European bacon into an incinerator.

Moscow banned many Western food imports last year in retaliation for sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union and other of their allies during the confrontation over Ukraine.

But now many Russians say the government has lost sight of the everyday struggles faced by ordinary citizens.

More than 267,000 people have backed an online petition on Change.org, an international website that hosts campaigns, calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to revoke the decision and hand the food to people in need.

"Sanctions have led to a major growth in food prices on Russian shelves. Russian pensioners, veterans, large families, the disabled and other needy social groups were forced to greatly restrict their diets, right up to starvation," it says. "If you can just eat these products, why destroy it?"

With annual food price inflation running at over 20 percent, public indignation has been deepened by Russian media reports that the agriculture ministry was tendering to buy "mobile food crematoria" to speed up the destruction. Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev declined to comment on Wednesday.

Putin's decree ordering the food to be destroyed entered into force on Thursday. It does not specify methods but says the process should be carried out "by any available means" and videotaped, apparently to prevent corrupt officials from simply helping themselves and holding a feast.

How much food has evaded the embargo is unclear, but considerable quantities appear to have slipped through the net by various routes, including via Belarus.

The ban, currently in place until Aug. 5, 2016, covers a wide range of imports including pork, beef, poultry, fish and seafood, milk and dairy products, fruits, vegetables and nuts. It applies to food from the United States, EU, Canada, Australia and Norway.

Notwithstanding the petition, no one starves in modern Russia, unlike in the Soviet era when countless millions perished between the 1920s and 1940s from hunger and related disease in both peace time and World War Two.

After the fall of Communism, Russians developed a strong appetite in the 1990s for Western food imports, from cheap U.S. chicken quarters to fine French cheeses for the newly wealthy.

Now the soaring food prices are hurting the poor at a time when the economy is in crisis due to the effects of the sanctions and a steep fall in the price of oil, Russia's main export. The ruble has lost more than 40 percent of its value against the dollar and overall inflation is above 15 percent.

The Rosstat statistics agency says the number of Russians living below the poverty line — defined as those earning less than 10,400 rubles ($160) a month — has jumped. In the first quarter this year, the total hit 23 million, or 16 percent of the population, up from more than 16 million people, or 11 percent of Russians last year.

Opposition figure and former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov responded with bitter irony. "20 million Russian citizens are below poverty line. Their president ordered food products destruction from Aug. 6. Some real triumph of humanism," Kasyanov said on Twitter.

But even some government allies are critical. "I don't understand how food can be destroyed in a country that lived through the horrible hunger during the war and tough years that followed," said a prominent pro-Kremlin TV anchor, Vladimir Solovyov.

'Insane and Stupid'

Authorities in several regions have already got to work on what they said were illegal imports.

"Any product without documents poses a security threat and should be destroyed," said Andrei Panchenko, the head of agricultural watchdog in the Belgorod region, as workers threw the boxes of bacon into a stove.

Officials say the embargo will encourage Russian producers to fill the gap. Now the authorities are also proposing to limit imports of X-ray machines and defibrillators for hospitals, which are already complaining of poor equipment. Even condoms could make it to the list of restricted imports.

One priest from the Russian Orthodox Church, which enjoys close ties with the Kremlin, expressed his anger.

"My grandmother always told me that throwing away food is a sin," the cleric, Alexey Uminsky, was quoted by the web site Orthodoxy and the World as saying. "This idea is insane, stupid and vile."

"Such an idea can only appear with a man who has been in no need for anything in recent decades and is ready to do something like that for populism and quasi-patriotism," he added.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov offered little hope of a change of heart, saying: "The presidential decree is taking effect and must be carried out."

Peskov said Putin was aware of the petition but cast doubt on the numbers, saying the website did not vet votes carefully enough. But the Kremlin has hit a raw nerve with many Russians.

"To destroy food with this standard of living is a crime against one's own nation!" wrote a backer of the petition who gave her name on the website as Natalya Afanasieva. "Come to your senses, Mr. President, finally take at least some pity on your people!"

[alfred russel]

The report notes that "a considerable number of Russians (42%) believe that Western countries use the Internet against Russia and its interests."

That seems likely to me. We must have some cyber intelligence unit doing some sort of something with Russia.

[Syt]

Our admin person in Italy is a very nice girl from Russia and we get along pretty well. She seems pretty level headed and she does a great job. She's going to her family East of Moscow for a vacation. I told her jokingly to be careful about bringing delicious Italian food stuff because of the import stop.

At which point she went on a rant about evil Obama, the lying Western media and the Ukrainian Nazi government.  

I told her that I'd prefer not to talk politics because usually no good comes off it and instead asked for her plans when in Russia.

[Zanza]

Is Russians bulldozing food somehow supposed to hurt the West? I can at best roll my eyes at them.

[derspiess]

Why are you guys surprised? If anything surprises me, it's the implied insistence of some people here that, somehow, Russians should embrace Western values. Russia is an Asian country.

Patton had it figured out. 

[Ed Anger]

Why are you guys surprised? If anything surprises me, it's the implied insistence of some people here that, somehow, Russians should embrace Western values. Russia is an Asian country.

Patton had it figured out.

Hitler did it style.

[alfred russel]

Why are you guys surprised? If anything surprises me, it's the implied insistence of some people here that, somehow, Russians should embrace Western values. Russia is an Asian country.

Patton had it figured out.

Hitler did it style.

that
His routine started strong, but floundered in the middle section, and as the for the end...the kindest thing that can be said is at least he went out with a bang.