[jb6]

It might be high-octane stuff but the majority of it is pure BS. Go to Russia and see the construction everywhere and I do mean everywhere. Even the small satellite villages of the larger cities are either now part of that city or cities on their own.

Even the birth rate has been increasing there yearly for the past 5 years.

[Shalom Israel]

It might be high-octane stuff but the majority of it is pure BS.

All extrapolations are BS. Indeed, Steyn ironically quotes a few that have since been disproven. However, exaggeration doesn't render his observations meaningless: the birth rate is still below replacement level; the muslim problem is still raging; both know-how and capital are still flowing west; etc. Those problems may all be resolved tomorrow, even--but they do exist today.

[eleni121]

You are right. I was there in 1995 and again in 2004. The differences were amazingly clear in housing, services, attitudes etc. I wish the Russian people the best. They have been though hell and back.

Of course, Putin needs to be stronger on terror. But then again we refused to hand over a Chechnyan Muslim terrorist to them.