Does Russian Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov Have Any Idea What Is Going on in the Eurozone?

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who is challenging Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in March’s presidential election, says he will push for a common currency with the European Union if elected, reports AP.

Hey Vladi, I think you can win this straight. Just explain to the Russian people how insane it would be to hook up with the eurozone, that it would mean higher taxes for Russians so the party can continue in Greece, Spain and Italy.

Chavez: U.S. May Have Caused My Cancer

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is hinting that the U.S. may be behind a “very strange” bout of cancer affecting several leaders aligned with him in South America, reports Bloomberg.

Chavez, speaking a day after Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, said the Central Intelligence Agency was behind chemical experiments in Guatemala in the 1940s and that it’s possible that in years to come a plot will be uncovered that shows the U.S. spread cancer as a political weapon against its critics.

“It’s very difficult to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some of us in Latin America,” Chavez said in a nationally televised speech to the military. “Would it be so strange that they’ve invented technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?”

Chavez, who was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in June and had a baseball-sized tumor removed in Cuba, has called for a regional summit of leaders who have battled cancer including Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva and Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo.

This shouldn't come as a surprise to EPJ readers. This is what I wrote in August:

Chavez has recently been undergoing treatment for what many suspect is cancer. Talk in certain parts of D.C. is that the CIA has slowly exposed him to very toxic, cancer causing materials.

I doubled-down on this theory in October, when I wrote:

Connecting the Dots: Gaddafi is Dead, Obama Sends Troops to Central Africa

The United States government is playing a major global power game...This is in addition to everything else that is going on in the Middle East. And my very strong suspicions about the cancer that Hugo Chavez is suffering with. A huge global chess game is being played. PCR [Paul Craig Robert]'s closing question is most apt:

Will the US collapse in economic chaos before it rules the world?

If I am looking at what is going on on the global map and I am Vladimir Putin, I'm worried, real worried.

(Thanks2Nick&AndreGrillon)

Putin Disses Protesters; Says They are Seeking 'Brownian Motion'

Vladimir Putin has turned to deep physics to diss Russian protesters. The Christian Science Monitor explains:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, during comments before his supporters on Tuesday, said protesters against his 12-year reign were seeking "Brownian motion." What was he talking about?

Mr. Putin was referring to a physics phenomenon first described by Scottish scientist Robert Brown in his 1827 paper "A brief account of microscopical observations made on the particles contained in the pollen of plants."

While observing pollen grains suspended in water, Mr. Brown found that the grains jiggled and bounced within the fluid in what he called "rapid oscillatory motion." He could not see any cause of their motion – they didn't appear to impact any other particles, and he ruled out currents within the water – but he was able [sic] use other substances to consistently replicate the phenomenon, which he dubbed "Brownian motion."

It wasn't until 1905 that the phenomenon was explained, by none other than Albert Einstein. The grains weren't jerking randomly in the water, he wrote, but rather were colliding with much smaller water molecules. As the molecules hit the grains, the grains would change direction, but since the water molecules were invisible, it would appear that the grains were jittering without cause. Einstein's discovery was seen as proof of the atomic theory of matter: that all matter is made of tiny particles, or atoms.

New Jersey Nets Owner to Run Against Putin

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov -- the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team and one of the world's richest men -- said Monday that he will run for president of Russia next year, reports CNN.

Calling his decision to run for president "probably the most important decision of my life," he acknowledged the risks of challenging Russia's rulers.

"There is saying in Russia: Never say never, anyone can end up behind bars. But I am not afraid," he said in a press conference in Moscow.

Prokhorov, 45, is worth $18 billion, Forbes estimated in March, making him Russia's third richest man.

Says CNN:

His announcement set off a frenzy of speculation about whether he was running with the Kremlin's tacit backing, to give the impression there was a genuine contest for president, or whether he really seeks to defeat Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who also says he will run.

In October, Prokhorov told NYT that nobody was interested in him until he bought the New Jersey Nets. He underwent media training to make him a more palatable owner to American basketball fans - reportedly watching Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin for tips on what not to do on camera.

"Putin Out," Thousands of Russian Protesters Chant

Tens of thousands of Russians turned out in central Moscow and across the country Saturday to protest what they believe were rigged parliamentary elections, reports CNN.

Vladimir Ryzhkov, co-chairman of the Party of People's Freedom, said 40,000 people had massed and some 10,000 were headed to the main protest venue,according to a correspondent from the state-run news agency, RIA Novosti.

There have even been nude protests in cold Russia. Although the nude protesters are actually professional Ukrainian protesters. I'm sure the CIA operative who brought them to the mix will probably be promoted:

Rand Paul Single-Handedly Halts a Potential Future Military Confrontation with Russia

Last week, Senator Rand Paul single-handedly prevented the passage of an amendment that would have further eroded Americans’ constitutional rights, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2012 (S.1867), amendment No. 1274.

This week he has stopped another  amendment. This one would have significantly increased tensions with Russia and committed the United States to fight a war in Russia's backyard, if Russia attacked Georgia.

Senator Rand, as Brian Koening at The New American put it, "single-handedly thwarted an amendment proposed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) drafted to advance Georgia’s application for NATO membership...Paul firmly opposed Rubio’s amendment, suggesting that expanding NATO in this sensitive region could entangle the United States in Georgia’s affairs with a nuclear-armed Russia, potentially risking a U.S.-Russian war."

Here's Pat Buchanan on what Rand did:

Last week, Sen. Marco Rubio, rising star of the Republican right, on everyone's short list for VP, called for a unanimous vote, without debate, on a resolution directing President Obama to accept Georgia's plan for membership in NATO at the upcoming NATO summit in Chicago.

Rubio was pushing to have the U.S. Senate pressure Obama into fast-tracking Georgia into NATO, making Tbilisi an ally the United States would be obligated by treaty to go to war to defend...

And for whose benefit is Rubio pushing to have his own countrymen committed to fight for a Georgia that, three years ago, started an unprovoked war with Russia? Who cooked up this scheme to involve Americans in future wars in the Caucasus that are none of our business?

The answer is unknown. What is known is the name of the senator who blocked it – Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul, who alone stepped in and objected, defeating Rubio's effort to get a unanimous vote.

The resolution was pulled.

Here's Buchanan on the backstory:

In August 2008, as the world's leaders gathered in Beijing for the Olympic games, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, hot-headed and erratic, made his gamble for greatness.

It began with a stunning artillery barrage on Tskhinvali, capital of tiny South Ossetia, a province that had broken free of Tbilisi when Tbilisi broke free of Russia. As Ossetians and Russian peacekeepers fell under the Georgian guns, terrified Ossetians fled into Russia.

Saakashvili's blitzkrieg appeared to have triumphed.

Until, that is, Russian armor, on Vladimir Putin's orders, came thundering down the Roki Tunnel into Ossetia, sending Saakashvili's army reeling. The Georgians were driven out of Ossetia and expelled from a second province that had broken free of Tbilisi: Abkhazia.

The Russians then proceeded to bomb Tbilisi, capture Gori, birthplace of Josef Stalin, and bomb Georgian airfields rumored to be the forward bases for the Israelis in any pre-emptive strike on Iran.

The humiliation of Saakashvili was total and brought an enraged and frustrated John McCain running to the microphones.

"Today, we're all Georgians," bawled McCain.

Well, not exactly.

President Bush called Putin's response "disproportionate" and "brutal," but did nothing. Small nations that sucker-punch big powers do not get to dictate when the fisticuffs stop.

What made this war of interest to Americans, however, was that Bush had long sought to bring Georgia into NATO. Only the resistance of Old Europe had prevented it.

And had Georgia been a member of NATO when Saakashvili began his war, U.S. Marines and Special Forces might have been on the way to the Caucasus to confront Russian troops in a part of the world where there is no vital U.S. interest and never has been any U.S. strategic interest whatsoever.

A U.S war with Russia – over Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia – would have been an act of national criminal insanity.

Days later, there came another startling discovery.

McCain foreign-policy adviser Randy Scheunemann had been paid $290,000 by the Saakashvili regime, from January 2007 to March 2008, to get Georgia into NATO, and thus acquire a priceless U.S. war guarantee to fight on Georgia's side in any clash with Russia....

Now it is impossible to believe a senator [Rubio], not a year in office, dreamed this [amendment] up himself. Some foreign agent of Scheunemann's ilk had to have had a role in drafting it.

Bottom line: If it wasn't for Rand Paul to step forward and block the amendment, the United States, at the urging of likely dark forces, would have been obligated to fight Russia in its backyard.

Thank you, Rand Paul.

Putin says U.S. Stoked Russian Protests

Is the US an evil empire, fermenting trouble wherever it can? Vladi thinks so.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of stirring up protests against his 12-year rule and said foreign countries were spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence Russian elections, reports Reuters.

Putin said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had encouraged Kremlin opponents by criticizing the vote.

"She set the tone for some opposition activists, gave them a signal, they heard this signal and started active work," Putin told supporters as he laid out plans for his campaign to return to the presidency in a March election.

Citing the examples of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution and the removal of governments in Kyrgyzstan -- also a fellow former Soviet republic -- that were accompanied by bloodshed, he said Western nations were spending heavily to foment political change in Russia.

"Pouring foreign money into electoral processes is particularly unacceptable," said Putin. "Hundreds of millions are being invested in this work. We need to work out forms of protection of our sovereignty, defense against interference from outside."

"What is there to say? We are a big nuclear power and remain so. This raises certain concerns with our partners. They try t o shake us up so that we don't forget who is boss on our planet," Putin said.