Free Republic

Look up Viktor Chernomyrdin, June 1999.

Maybe they are just biochemical machines?

Or maybe I am lazy? Or pessimistic that you will be persuaded?

I searched and found no evidence of such an agreement.

Please, don't you remember how the 1999 NATO campaign against Serbia ended? And that Russians were mediating?

I would! But I guess it would be against the rules. Still I exercised some "editorial judgment" by picking the passages I liked :)

Yet it can be that even Charles Manson might be right about something and Mother Theresa could be wrong. (Not that I consider Katrina vanden Heuvel to be like either of them)

It is what I said, if something is beyond your ability to judge on its merits, you have to use trust.

It does not have to be disparaging, I had to focus on personal trustworthiness of my dentist and car mechanic, since I am not able to form judgment in their areas of expertise. It was a painful trial and error process before I found the good ones.

But this is political forum where we are supposed to be able to debate on our own. Otherwise we might lose chance to remain quiet :)

I guess it would be easier for you if the author of this article remained anonymous.

Good point. In the area I live local authorities refused to give into privatization fad - they kept public ownership of electric supply. Now the prices in out are LOWER than in neighboring places :)

Present Russian government used universal and timeless imperial method, instead of trying to follow wishful thinking and trying to implement some abstract principles, they found who is potentially the strongest local leader and gave him the full support in exchange for loyalty.

This is the method British used when their empire was ascendant, once they reverted to jingoism, brute wasteful force and ill advised idealism, their empire vanished into thin air.

Reread your own sentence - it is absurd.

Of course if one is not capable to evaluate what is being said or written one is doomed to to rely on personal trust.

Machiavelli stated:

"Three minds exist; one capable of thinking for itself; another able to understand others' thinking's; and a third that can do neither. The first mind is of the highest excellence, the second excellent, and the third worthless."

You are confused. In this article the author is not a witness who is be trusted or distrusted. She presents analysis and arguments which can be rejected or accepted on their own merits.

It would not add/subtract to the value of this text whether it was written by Charles Manson or by Mother Theresa.

Shock "therapy" bump

No, you do not think so.

You are perfectly capable to find it.

Even if so, are you saying that this was a treaty between "Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus"?

PC science bump

Tolerancja inaczej. (PC tolerance]

"Soviet"?