Re: Death of Zoya Krakhmalnikova, Russian Christian writer jailed by

Everything you write below about me and what I said
is a misrepresentation. It's pointless to continue
talking to you.

Here are some of your misrepresentations (the list is
not complete):

1) I said I am a former journalist. This is correct.
You claim I said I am now working as a jounalist.
I did not say that. I was employed by AFP
(and its finance unit AFX) during the 1990s.

2) You claim I referred to an article I wrote for AFP
in the 1990s. I did not; I referred to an article I
wrote for the magazine Nordi***, a business
magazine. Another instance of your failure to read.

3) You claim that I said that I covered Russia
for some news organization. I never said that.

4) I did not claim that I provided evidence for
Anders Aslund's claim that 50 percent of the price
of public contracts in Russia are kickbacks. I said
"IF you want the evidence " for such and such a
claim, then contact Anders Aslund.

You see how this goes? You misread everything
I write. I don't have the time to correct all your
mistakes in basic reading.

Of course the 50 per cent claim is impressionistic!
I wrote it as part of an impressionstic description
of why Russia is not a Western country. And on
Usenet! The im****tant point is that there is a large
amount of corruption in Russia. If you bothered
to read any of the links I provided, you would
have noticed this little tidbit:

"According to Transparency International, the only
country with higher income per capita and more
corruption than Russia is Equatorial Guinea. That is
hardly a standard worthy of a great nation."

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1016/42/362262.htm

Still no evidence? Well, why don't you contact
Transparency International and ask them how
they arrived at that conclusion.





On May 19, 1:35=A0am, ++ <fri...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Marko Amnell wrote:
> >On May 18, 2:23 pm, ++ <fri...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> >[...]
>
> >>I've met and spoken to Mr. Aslund on a few occasions when he was
> >>involved with the Carnegie Foundation. =A0His statement above that you
a=
re
> >>relying on for the level of corruption is parenthetical and rhetorical
> >>at best and hardly to be relied upon as evidence. He is one of many
> >>people studying the Russian economy around here. =A0I think I attended
a=

> >>discussion of his on the Ukranian "Orange" revolution in 2006.
>
> >>You are misinterpreting his statement into a generalization.
>
> >Nah. Aslund states very clearly that corruption is a major
> >problem in Russia. Whether it is 50 per cent or 20 per cent,
> >those are still extremely high percentages. And quite frankly,
> >your total unwillingness to accept this basic fact about the
> >Russia economy makes me unwilling to waste any more of
> >my time trying to educate you about the economic problems
> >of your own country.
>
> Hmm, let's go back to what I said. =A0I suggested that the conclusions
you=

> were drawing were dispro****tionate to reality. =A0I really doubt that
you
> are a journalist, that you know anything much about Russia, or, in fact,
> that you are very knowledgeable about economics. =A0Thus, I'm not very
> worried about having to give up your illusion of educating me.
>
> You attempted to credential yourself as a France Presse journalist. =A0
> What hubris. =A0You don't have to pretend to be in a position to educate
> me to answer the simple questions I asked before concerning your stated
> qualifications to educate us all. =A0I'll repeat them. =A0Please provide
> your areas of expertise and where and when and what you covered for
> France Presse as a self stated international journalist. =A0And do
please
> post your own article you wrote yourself in the 90s that you published
> in the same. =A0The only thing Google seems to know about you is that
you
> wrote a review of a book on number theory.
>
>
>
>
>
> > But just by Googling I found numerous
> >other articles dealing with Russia's corruption problems.
> >Here's one quote, and this will be my last post on this subject:
>
> >"...opinion polls show that Russians are as upset as any
> >other people about corruption and that they have more of it.
> >Second, the mismanagement of the large state cor****ations
> >and alleged kickbacks of 20 percent to 50 percent on major
> >infrastructure projects have gotten out of control. In other
> >corrupt countries, people are upset at mere 2 percent kickbacks.
> >Russia's corruption is some of the largest in terms of the
> >absolute amount individuals receive and the relative share
> >of the kickbacks."
>
> >(There Is Nothing Normal About Corruption, 23 April 2008
> >By Anders Aslund)
>
> This is a quote by the person you quoted the last time, Aslund, who you
> represented as representing the greater end of that range as the norm.
=A0=

> Why don't you simply apologize for misrepresenting the fellow
originally? =
=A0
>
> >http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1016/42/362262.htm
>
> >Did you catch what he said? That people in other countries
> >are upset at corruption that reaches a mere 2 percent
> >in kickbacks. In Russia the kickbacks are TEN TO TWENTY
> >times larger than that. Deny it all you like. It's not my
> >problem. But I am starting to wonder whether you are a
> >personal beneficiary of these kickbacks.
>
> I didn't affirm or deny any particular figures. =A0You are the netbaby
who=

> generalized and misrepresented figures. =A010% is not 20% and 20% is not
> 50%% and instances are not norms. Evidence is not someone's article,
> unless it is empirical data included in that article and that empirical
> data is itself referenced. =A0Even then, it can be problemmatic and
> challenged. =A0I wonder what Prof. Aslund would think of this subthread
> and your peculiar representation of his work?
>
>
>
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