5.04.00
The Russian Bear: All Bark, No Bite

4.26.00
Elian's "Healing"

4.24.00
Why They Stand For Rocker

4.11.00
A Stinker of a Pulitzer

3.16.00
Spinning the Dark Side of Success

3.10.00
A Country for McCain:
Thailand

he Left, like the old gray mare, ain’t what she used to be. Time was, May Day was when the Left flexed its muscles. Now it is when the Left engages in self-caricature. Here is the Washington Times headline on the Left in London: “Rioters Run Wild During May Day: McDonald’s Hit; Churchill Defaced.” It is against this backdrop of revolution-as-street-theater that various Russian politicians have been warning that if the United States insists on amending or abrogating the ABM treaty in order to proceed with deployment of an anti-ballistic-missile system, there will be a “new kind of Cold War.” Say what? With whom?

The Russian economy, which spans 11 time zones, is just a bit larger than Iceland’s economy. Nicholas Eberstadt, writing last year in Policy Review (“Russia: Too Sick to Matter?”), said: “Russia’s health profile no longer remotely resembles that of a developed country.” And: “Russian men in their 40s and 50s are dying at a pace that may never have been witnessed during peacetime in a society distinguished by urbanization and mass education.” Not only is fertility dropping, in four recent years (1992-95) “excess mortality” — beyond what would have been reasonably projected — was 1.8 million persons, more than the number of Russian soldiers killed (1.7 million) in four years of warfare on the worst front in World War I.

In 1996 more than 35,000 Russians died of alcohol poisoning. America’s annual toll? About 300. A Russian survey based on self-reporting — hence probably understating things — reveals that more than 80 percent of Russian men drink, and in that 80 percent the average consumption is the alcohol equivalent of five bottles of vodka a week.

This country, threatening a new Cold War, should be allowed to veto America’s right to defend itself?

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