Putin's denials are convincing enough domestically. For example 65% of Russians still believe that flight MH-17 was shot down by Ukrainian armed forces. I don't know what the percentage who believe that regular Russian armed forces are active in Ukraine, but I imagine it is even higher.

It's on Channel 1 http://www.1tv.ru/news/leontie...

Can't get more mainstream Russian media than that, so it's the real deal, not some attempt to smear Russia with a bad photoshop job.

My wife tries to have my son watch all these Soviet-era Russian cartoons. I honestly can't think of anything more namby pamby and insipid as those children's animation, with dreadful production values. There's a reason nobody voluntarily watches that stuff anymore - and it has nothing to do with not being "given a chance".

The Federal Mafia, by Irwin Schiff.

Nothing a teacher could do that would be more sadistic to their students than force them to wade through all 700+ pages of Mein Kampf. As for teaching people how deranged Hitler was, examples of propaganda and photo documentation of concentration camp victims is pretty effective.

"there is an overwhelming support for Putin in Ukraine (most Ukrainians are literally Russians in every way that matters)"

Every single Ukrainian I know would tell you to your face you are full of shit.

Unbelievable how you were modded +5 Informative.

As I understand it the law, your identity will be public information once you have 3000 hits in a day. In the USA, the NSA might know who all the bloggers, but keeps it private. I imagine that from now on, any blogger in Russia criticizing the government or deviating from the narrative presented by the state-owned media might face consequences.

Yes, I am sure most everyone here does know about Iran Air 655. The Wikipedia page on MH 17 links to a list of commercial passenger planes shot down, that include the USS Vincennes incident. However, we are discussing Wikipedia edits made for the Malaysian Air flight made by a national government. Has the US Government been involved in making edits to that page to shift blame from itself and disseminate false information, or are you just engaging in whataboutism?

It's pretty easy to determine if the Russian government is sharing knowledge as a primary source or knowingly disseminating false information. The edits implicate the government and military of Kiev, replacing statements that implicate the rebels as well as Moscow. So if the Russian side was in fact the truth, you would expect rebels and Moscow bending over backwards to assist with the investigation, and if the Russian side was a Big Lie, you would expect rebels and Moscow doing every to impede the investigation. It seems pretty clear the extent of assistance the investigation is getting.

I like your thinking, but there do seem to be some flaws with the idea: Emergency vehicles will be impeded in getting to where they need to be, and the system would probably not be immune to mechanical failures or power outages.

Or for that matter, what "perfectly adapted" even means. Almost every aspect of physiology I can think of has hard limits and has trade-offs to considered. "Perfect vision" is simply not achievable - not enough photons, number of light detecting cells in an eye, diffraction, etc.

Also, Lovecraft's "The Colour Out Of Space" dealt with an incomprehensible life-form landing in rural Massachusetts.

Great book, but might be hard to find. There hasn't even been a copy available on Amazon for at least a year, and on eBay it goes for $120. There was a film version on the Discovery Channel about a year ago, so you might be able to see it on Youtube or somewhere, though I don't think it does much with the narrative and "notes" which were another great feature.

That's presuming that either Snowden intended to help Putin all along, or that he realized that his safety is not guaranteed, no matter what the US says. Either way, the way the US handled his flight was nothing short of incompetent and disgraceful.

No it is not. It is nothing more than a single cherry that you picked to fit your narrative.