Ингушские Ученые Покоряют Мир

This about HBD, tagged , , , , , , was written by for on September 19, 2017 .No Comments

В ходе написания статьи для Спутника об уровнях IQ по регионам Росссии, заметил вот эту удивительную статистику из переписи 2010 года. Процент населения с послевузовским образованием: Ингушетия: 1.59% Москва: 1.12% … Чечня: 0.32% То есть регион с самым высоким уровнем безработицы, самым низким уровнем проникновения Интернета, и самым низким уровнем патентов на душу населения; регион, который […]

Митинг в Москве: Лечение хуже Болезни

This about Politics, tagged , , , , , was written by for , on March 27, 2017 .1 Comment

Вчера я был на митинге Навального в Москве. Мне, конечно, не нравится, что Медведев (и вообще вся российская элита в целом) наживается на деньгах русских налогоплательщиков. Но проблема в том, что как лечение, навальниада хуже болезни. Во-первых, Навальный элементарно “ненаш,” так как не согласен с #крымнаш. С требованием провести второй референдум, он фактически признает, что для него, […]

Kettle, Meet Pot

This about Politics, tagged , , , , was written by for on February 3, 2014 .5 Comments

“Corruption across EU ‘breathtaking’ – EU Commission” says a headline in the BBC. The Commissioner responsible for the report said that she believed the cost of corruption was “probably much higher” than the €120 billion (US$162 billion) the report estimates. And indeed that is probably correct because corruption within EU organs themselves was not included. […]

Sochi-Adler Krasnaya Polyana Panorama

This about Society, tagged , , , , was written by for on February 2, 2014 .6 Comments

There has been an unceasing campaign to denigrate the construction in the Sochi-Adler area. Incompetence, corruption, double toilets and so on and on. In all of this, few people have been shown what has been built for the total cost of 55 billion or so US Dollars. We have a preview; but first a discussion […]

Shredding Sochi… in a Good Way

This about Society, tagged , , , was written by for , on January 31, 2014 .6 Comments

After a long break, a new contribution to the Experts Panel: Shredding Sochi… in a Good Way Western journalists have been in the business of dismissing Russian achievements and magnifying Russian failures ever since Putin drove them into a collective derangement syndrome – he even haunts their dreams, as recently revealed by the Guardian’s Shaun Walker – […]

Serdyukov is Charged

This about Society, tagged , , , was written by for on November 29, 2013 .4 Comments

Here is the discussion at this on The Russia Debate. My friend and DR commentator Alexander Mercouris correctly predicted this outcome – that Serdyukov would be charged, but that it is a complex case that will take a long time and likely avoid more the more serious allegations in favor of those that can be […]

Translation: Going on the Campaign Trail with Navalny

This about Politics, tagged , , , , was written by for on August 25, 2013 .No Comments

According to gazeta.ru’s Olga Kuzmenkova tagging him, Navalny has a popular style and likes asking resonant questions, such as why Russia, despite its petrodollars, only builds as many railways in a year as China does in a week. “Where are my factories? Where is my Cosmos?” “Gazeta.Ru” observed Alexei Navalny as he went about meeting Zelenograd […]

An Examination of Navalny’s Trial and Conviction

This about Society, tagged , , , was written by for on July 31, 2013 .No Comments

The Western narrative on the Navalny case is that it was a selective and political prosecution on trumped up charges. I think that to a significant (but NOT full) extent that this interpretation is basically correct. So given the paucity of convincing counter-narratives, I was extremely pleased to see that Alexander Mercouris, a British lawyer who […]

Translation: Why Didn’t Transparency International Reveal Russia’s Bribery Data?

This , about Society, tagged , , , , was written by for on July 28, 2013 .No Comments

Why was there no bribery incidence data for Russia in Transparency International’s international survey of 2013? Andrey Kamenetsky at Odnako connects the dots to argue that it was simply because the results were too inconvenient to serve as propaganda. A Crisis of Zombification: How Transparency International failed on The Russia Corruption Rating Dear Readers! In July there […]

Bribery in Russia has Either Recently Soared… or Plummeted

This about Society, tagged , , was written by for on July 24, 2013 .7 Comments

Or neither. Well, isn’t this a useless post? I am referring to the Global Corruption Barometer released by Transparency International a couple of weeks ago, which I covered at my other blog. For the most part, there were no surprises; the only really strange figures came from Taiwan, where 36% of people claimed to have paid […]

Corruption, The American Way

This about Society, tagged , , , was written by for on July 13, 2013 .6 Comments

So apparently an Ambassadorship costs $1.8 million per post in the US. In virtually any other country, even where the situation with corruption is quite dismal, such arrangements would be seen as unquestionably corrupt. And yet the US scores an entirely respectable 73/100 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), leagues above say Italy which gets […]

GCB2013 Released

This about Society, tagged , was written by for on July 10, 2013 .5 Comments

Here it is. Or just skip the graphics and download the data in Excel here. I can’t say I care much about most of it. Of course most people everything think corruption is “increasing,” because they are a grumpy lot. What does matter is the number of people who report paying a bribe in the […]