Russia revises its history, Stalin now a good guy

It’s just a great time to indulge in Russian/Chinese paranoia, because the stories keep popping up. Check out the Soviet-style nationalistic revisionism going into Russian textbooks:

The newly approved textbook, Russian History 1945-2007, is to be tried out in schools in five Russian regions pending nationwide approval.

Kommersant said “the eras of Joseph Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev get good marks, with justification of authoritarianism and repression”.

The 1990s rule of Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first post-Soviet leader, is portrayed as “crisis”, while Mr Putin’s presidency – seen by critics as reversing many post-Soviet freedoms – is shown to be “effective”, Kommersant said.

In particular, the book puts a positive spin on the controversial imprisonment of Yukos oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky under Mr Putin and the 2004 decision to end direct elections for regional governors, the report said.

Addressing Michael’s critique on Russian/Chinese military spending

Not to pick on Michael, but The Weekly Standard carried a timely article today that addresses one of Michael’s comments on the Russia-China military buildup post. Michael said:

My takeaway message from the assassination of Benazir Bhutto

Al Qaeda claimed responsibility:

A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death on Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English.

Yeah. They terminated a popular Pakistani politician who offered a chance for a major political step forward in the country. It should be clear to everybody by now that Al Qaeda is not for Islam, Muslims, the poor, the oppressed, or Arabs.

Al Qaeda is for itself, and it will wantonly and sloppily kill anyone who stands in its way.

P.S. Nice Deb has a great roundup of the dextrosphere’s reaction, including, of course, a link to our go-to man on everything Pakistani (among a surprising panoply of other topics): Muslihoon (who needs to get off his fanny and start writing seriously on this subject).

LOLthug: I iz in yer mailbox, eatin’ yer cookies

I don’t really know why, but mail theft bugs me more than most petty crimes. Happily, a pair of mailbox thieves was arrested in Colorado last week:

More than 375 pieces of mail, including gift cards, cash, wine and a box of homemade cookies were recovered during the arrest. A week prior, more than 140 mailboxes had been targeted in the same area and a large amount of mail was recovered.

That’s the mastermind of the robberies, Michael Panera, at the right.

Lovely.

Does this prison jumpsuit make me look fat?

A little jaw-dropper from Japan, giving the results of a recent poll by the Japanese Ministry of Justice:

Japanese prisoners dislike their unstylish pyjamas, feel their cells are too small and want better meals, a government survey has found.
…
Over half said their meals were bad and having supper at 17:00 was too early, while almost 75% wished for more bread with their meals rather than rice or noodles.The former inmates also found their vertically striped greyish pyjamas to be unfashionable. Close to half said the colours were bad, and 44% said the design was ugly.

While it is stunning that inmates were seriously polled on these questions, or that authorities are even concerned with the answers, I was even more struck by this:

About 81,300 of Japan’s 127 million people were in prison as of December 31 last year

That’s an unbelievably low number, especially compared to the US:

But maybe, sadly, it is our prison population that is unbelievable.

A quick note on China’s military spending

One of the most interesting aspects of the chart from a couple of posts ago is the timing. When did China begin its arms buildup? I’d say it was in about 1998. So what happened in 1997 to finance this expansion?

Oh, I dunno.

No wonder they want to re-integrate Taiwan so badly.