This is really great. I always find it inspiring when the people rally and work in unison against corrupt and unfair practices. Could this be an early sign of Russia’s emerging middle class?

n most countries, only emergency vehicles, such as ambulances and fire engines, enjoy the heady power to exceed speed limits, run red lights, move against traffic, and compel other drivers to yield. But in Russia, an estimated 5,000 officials and, reportedly, many wealthy businessmen, now sport a blue flashing light with siren on their cars – the migalka – that entitles them to make up their own road rules.

The practice has existed at least since Soviet times, but is only now being challenged by a small but determined grass-roots coalition of angry motorists. Some observers see the protest as a sign of an emerging middle class willing to take on Russia’s elite. They want this special privilege cancelled for everyone except, maybe, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The unequal relationship between Russian citizens and their state can be seen most vividly on the roads,” says Vyacheslav Lisakov, head of the Free Choice Motorists’ Movement, which has about 5,000 members nationwide. “There are basically two castes in our society, one of which is totally outside the law. The rest of us have no choice but to defer to them, and swallow our humiliation.”

…Hundreds of motorists, organized through the Internet by Mr. Lisakov’s group, staged protest rallies around Russia. A month later, another court acquitted Shcherbinsky. “That was a victory for civil society,” says Lisakov. “If we hadn’t demonstrated, I’ve no doubt Shcherbinsky would still be rotting in prison.”

I hope China’s middle class is watching. As their numbers grow, so too grows their power, even if they don’t realize it and even if they say they don’t care (“We’re too busy making money, why should we care if the government is corrupt?”) Grotesquely privileged classes are not a given. They exist because we let them, and they exist at our expense. Come the revolution….

This is a remarkable read. A Republican who broke the law explains (confesses?) in a matter-of-fact way that breaking the law and strong-arming are simply the GOP’s M.O. He also admits, in language that is chilling in its down-to-earthness, that everything the GOP does is for big business, that it’s only about money. It’s a shocker. I’m posting it all on the site for future reference.
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Fallen star blames self, GOP tactics

Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | June 10, 2006

For nearly a decade, Allen Raymond stood at the top ranks of Republican Party power.
He served as chief of staff to a cochairman of the Republican National Committee, supervised Republican contests in mid-Atlantic states for the RNC, and was a top official in publisher Steve Forbes’s presidential campaign. He went on to earn $350,000 a year running a Republican policy group as well as a GOP phone-bank business.

But most recently, Raymond has been in prison. And for that, he blames himself, but also says he was part of a Republican political culture that emphasizes hardball tactics and polarizing voters.

(more…)

What a headline. TMC has an outstanding reputation, and I am amazed to see such a provocative headline over a story that fails to back it up. Where’s Brin’s quote that supports the headline and lede?

Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently revealed that the company was likely to abandon its China-based search engine Google.cn.

On January 25 of this year, Google established Google.cn that operates on servers based in China, but now the users of Google.cn are not even up to 1% of people who use Google.com. So the Chinese version of Google turns out to be merely a chicken-rib product to some extent, an Internet analyst asking not to be named told Chinese media.

When being inquired by domestic media over the market performance of Google.cn, its related marketing personnel declined to make comments on. Google, which is also named Gu-Ge in Chinese for promotion, is the largest search engine in the world, but it has been lagging behind its Chinese indigenous rival Baidu in China market, with the latter presently taking over a half of the Chinese market.

This story is dated yesterday and was written in Beijing. It appears to directly contradict reports last week that Google certainly intends to stay in China.

The whole mess started with Brin’s oddly apologetic remarks about google.cn compromising the company’s principles, and is a textbook example of how one phrase coming from the mouth of CEO can set into motion a nuclear reaction.

Update: This quite excellent post says it all: Brin’s mutterings serve as a sort of “Rorschach test,” that anyone can interpret as he or she chooses. No wonder there’s so much confusion and contradiction in the way this story is being reported.

Straw men. One of Bush-Rove-Hughes’ most despicable tactics.

Some of All Fears
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 12, 2006

Back in 1971, Russell Baker, the legendary Times columnist, devoted one of his Op-Ed columns to an interview with Those Who — as in “Those Who snivel and sneer whenever something good is said about America.” Back then, Those Who played a major role in politicians’ speeches.

Times are different now, of course. There are those who say that Iraq is another Vietnam. But Iraq is a desert, not a jungle, so there. And we rarely hear about Those Who these days. But the Republic faces an even more insidious threat: the Some.

(more…)

Unbeliveable. Thanks to the reader for a mind-blowing translation.

The scapegoats du jour are Mexicans. Immigration reform has become a code word for government-blessed racism. This is Rich at this best.

How Hispanics Became the New Gays
By FRANK RICH
Published: June 11, 2006

HE never promised them the Rose Garden. But that’s where America’s self-appointed defenders of family values had expected President Bush to take his latest stand against same-sex marriage last week. In the end, without explanation, the event was shunted off to a nondescript auditorium in the Executive Office Building, where the president spoke for a scant 10 minutes at the non-prime-time hour of 1:45 p.m. The subtext was clear: he was embarrassed to be there, a constitutional amendment “protecting” marriage was a loser, and he feared being branded a bigot. “As this debate goes forward, every American deserves to be treated with tolerance and respect and dignity,” Mr. Bush said.

That debate died on the floor of the Senate less than 48 hours later, when the amendment went down to an even worse defeat than expected. Washington instantly codified the moral: a desperate president at rock bottom in the polls went through the motions of a cynical and transparent charade to rally his base in an election year. Nothing was gained — even the president of the Family Policy Network branded Mr. Bush’s pandering a ruse — and no harm was done.

(more…)

This amazing photo was taken by my friend Ben in Beijing.

It’s so beautiful, I may just keep it at the top of the blog for a few days.

MoDo’s gonna take a lot of heat from indignant bloggers for this column, and she knows it. This took some courage on her part. Is she jealous, frightened, baffled, contemptuous, or all of the above? (I’m inclined to go with the latter.)

Bloggers Double Down
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: June 10, 2006

If I had to be relegated to the Dustbin of History, I’m glad it was in Vegas.

I, Old Media, came here to attend a New Media convention of progressive political bloggers aiming for a technological revolution that would dispatch mainstream media to the tumbrels. It was the journalistic equivalent of mingling with your own pod replicant in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

“Bloggers, meet mainstream media,” crowed one young man, as he had a friend take a picture of us together at the Riviera Hotel. His friend chimed in: “Where the rubber meets the road.”

(more…)

Nick Berg’s father does us liberals no favors with his childish rants. Already, rightie blogs are pointing to this and saying, “See how liberals respond to the news of Zarqawi’s death?” I can’t stand Bush (which you may have figured out by now), but equating him to Zarqawi isn’t going to further our cause.

Mourning in America
By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: June 10, 2006

Michael Berg, a Green Party candidate for Congress on Long Island, announced on national television that he regretted the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He didn’t blame Zarqawi for beheading an American contractor. The man responsible was President Bush — “the real terrorist.”

(more…)

Obviously fearing mental/spiritual contamination of the masses with dangerous notions of the Eternal Feminine, which might threaten the famously females-need-not-apply inner circle of the CCP, China has suddenly and unexpectely yanked the Da Vinci Code from its theaters (although the DVD was for sale on the streets all over the country the week before It opened). It’s apparently the first time in China that a foreign film has been pulled from theaters after its release.

The Chinese government, in an unprecedented move, has ordered movie theaters to stop showing “The Da Vinci Code,” movie industry officials said Thursday.

Chinese authorities said the withdrawal of the movie from theaters today was to make way for locally produced films, one industry executive said, declining to be named because she wasn’t authorized to speak to the media on the matter.

But another Hollywood blockbuster, “Ice Age: The Meltdown” was to be released in China today, said the executive, who added that “The Da Vinci Code” was the first foreign film to be pulled from theaters in China after being approved for release.

“The Da Vinci Code,” which has been opposed by Christian groups because it suggests Jesus fathered children who continued his lineage, has made $13 million since its release on May 19. It was on its way to becoming one of the highest-earning foreign films in China, the executive said.

A man who answered the phone at the press office of China’s Film Bureau in Beijing said he was “unclear” about whether the film was pulled from cinemas. He declined to give his name.

Wu Hehu, a spokesman for Shanghai’s United Cinema Line Corp., said he received a notice to cease showing the film, but he didn’t know why the order was made.

“This is such a short notice from the film’s distributor,” Wu said. “I don’t know the reason either. We just do what we are told to do.”

Some good comments on the surprise move over in the forum.

A shame that now the Chinese people won’t be able to learn about how Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene or how the father-based structure of the church was all the result of a vast Catholic conspiracy to grab power for the all-boy’s club at the top, subjugate women, make sex an obscene and sinful act, and brainwash us with preconceived (no pun intended) notions of coming into this world in a state of sin. On the other hand, if the movie is as dreadful as I hear (it’s hard to imagine it being much worse than the embarrassingly superficial and silly book), they’re probably not missing much.