RWC Unfiltered 10-17-11

Last week Obama defended the decision not to sell new F-16 C/Ds to Taiwan, telling a congressional committee that overall arms sales to the island have increased in the past three years. Kurt Campbell denied the failure to sell new jets demonstrating a lessening of resolve in support of democratic Taiwan But, this appears to continue an Obama lead pull back from long term US allies including Taiwan and Israel. Obama abandoned Poland and the Czechs “The decisions taken to provide defensive sales to Taiwan during the Obama administration in 2010 and 2011 are greater than any other two comparable years in the history of the Taiwan Relations Act,” Campbell said, noting that if Asian allies were surveyed “they would say that the United States over the last several years comprehensively has fundamentally stepped up our game in the Asian Pacific region.” Peter Lavoy, deputy assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee the island needs to focus its planning and procurement efforts on nontraditional, innovative and asymmetric approaches. “There is no single solution. Given this context, we believe the F-16 A/B upgrade made significant contributions to Taiwan’s air power,” Lavoy said. “The F-16 A and B decision makes the most sense for Taiwan at this time. It’s a decision that was based on consultations with Taiwan,” he said. Military specialists said the administration used a sleight of hand in claiming that upgrading the F-16 A/Bs will give them nearly the same capability as 66 new F-16 C/Ds, because the C/Ds are much more capable and have newer more powerful engines, allowing the jets to fly further with more arms. This is the greatest uni-lateral reshuffling of alliances since those that sparked World War II. Buzz Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name was Moon. Buzz was the second man on the Moon. China’s state-run press reported last week that U.S. plans to deploy a new unmanned combat aircraft as the latest weapon in U.S. plans for “global hegemony.” Lu Deshen, a Chinese writer, stated in the official ChiCom military newspaper PLA Daily on Sept. 29 that U.S. development of the X-47B, a tail-less, strike fighter-sized aircraft, is part of U.S. plans for global hegemony. It can be launched from an aircraft carrier to precisely deliver an array of weapons without risking a crew. The article is unusual in that such accusations are rarely made public as part of China’s strategy of avoiding criticism of the United States as it builds up its own power in secret. Reports of the X-47B and other advances in unmanned military aircraft are “a clear signal that the UAVs of the US military are gradually developing into an extraordinarily powerful force, becoming a new weapon in the global hegemony of the United States in the future,” Lu stated. The X-47, which will be able to be launched from carriers, will be matched by the Air Force’s X-45 unmanned combat aircraft that will have similar capabilities. “This system-of-systems of unmanned systems and equipment, and the information it will obtain, can achieve interoperability throughout the military, and furthermore, through the approach of applying it on a large scale and promoting it among its allies, the versatility of future unmanned systems will be greatly enhanced,” the report said. The Northrup/Grumman weapon system is in robust predeployment mode operating out of Edwards Air Force base in the Mojave Desert outside of Los Angeles, California. Private photographs are the X-47B flying out of Edwards can be easily found on the internet. The Northrop Grumman X-47B is a demonstration Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle. The X-47 began as part of DARPA’s(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) J-UCAS program, and is now part of the United States Navy’s UCAS-D (Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration) program to create a carrier-based unmanned aircraft. Unlike the Boeing X-45, initial X-47A Pegasus development was company-funded. The original vehicle carries the designation X-47A Pegasus, while the follow-on naval version is designated X-47B. Another DARPA project is the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) program is a multiyear research and development effort to increase the technical knowledge base and advance critical technologies to make long-duration hypersonic flight a reality. Falcon HTV-2 is an unmanned, rocket-launched, maneuverable aircraft that glides through the Earths atmosphere at incredibly fast speeds”Mach 20 (approximately 13,000 miles per hour). At HTV-2 speeds, flight time between New York City and Los Angeles would be less than 12 minutes. The notion is to combine an “unmanned airplane”: with a ballistic missile to project power worldwide in new, adaptable ways. The gadget has been tested at least twice over the Pacific and both tests ended prematurely but reportedly important information was gained. China believes the projects and others are specifically directed against its surge in weapons development and surge into the southern Pacific. U. S. military spokesman will do little more than grunt. Iran is reportedly discussing testing a nuclear warhead at North Korea’s already established test site in its north east quadrant, It has been used at least twice. Intense surveilence and maybe interception would seem likely to stop Iran. The Federation of American Scientists says Iran could advance toward nuclear weapons capability without the knowledge of the United States and the rest of the international community. FAS, regarded as a leading independent scientific think tank, asserted that U.S. and other satellites were unable to distinguish between Iranian civilian and military uranium enrichment activities. “Moreover, satellite images and overflights might reveal buildings that house enrichment facilities, but without human intelligence, confirmation cannot be definitive,” the report said. “In sum, off-site detection of centrifuge enrichment is extremely challenging.” FAS pointed to Iran’s refusal to grant access to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which inspected 16 nuclear facilities since 2003. Titled “Enhanced Safeguards for Iran’s Nuclear Program,” the report also said Teheran has not been swayed by numerous international sanctions on the Islamic regime. “Concomitantly, the IAEA’s knowledge regarding Iran’s enrichment activities is continuously shrinking,” the report, authored by Ali Faez and Charles Ferguson, said. As a result, FAS said, the international community must penetrate suspected Iranian nuclear facilities. Still, the report, which cast doubts over Western assesments, said centrifuge enrichment of uranium in secret Iranian facilities could barely be detected by remote means. “Physical constraints impede the capability to detect clandestine enrichment plants,” the report said. “Enrichment plants that use the centrifuge technique emit few, if any, strong signs, such as uranium leakage, heat emissions, and electronic signals, to indicate uranium refining. UF6 [uranium hexafluoride] emission from modern centrifuge enrichment plants is negligible.” The report said Teheran could reduce Western detection of leakage from Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle. FAS said Iran could block most detection of uranium conversion of UF6 and U02F2 through the use of high-efficiency particulate filters. FAS said the West could detect clandestine centrifuge activity through the leakage of electronic signals. But this would require access to power lines attached to these facilities. “Electronic signals might be more detectable,” the report said. “To detect these signals, however, the inspectors would need access to these lines, and appropriate electronic filters could reduce or eliminate them.” Still, FAS asserted that Iran was not ready to assemble a nuclear weapon, saying this could be expected when Teheran announces its withdrawal from IAEA. Instead, the organization urged the West to negotiate an agreement in which Iran would join the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, designed to grant IAEA unlimited and near-immediate access to suspected clandestine nuclear facilities. “An Iranian nuclear weapon is neither imminent, nor inevitable,” the report said. “Thus, there is still time to achieve a peaceful resolution of the crisis through diplomacy.” Florida State police have issued 2,600 citations to motorists since 2005 for flashing their highbeams to warn oncoming motorists they are approaching a “speed trap.” Now a Florida man, who had the $101 ticket  thrown out is suing on 1^st Amendment grounds that his freedom of speech rights was being obstructed. In a Friday afternoon surprise Obama announced he has deployed about 100 special operations troops to Africa to help target the leadership of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a notorious rebel group in Uganda.  The timing is sure to provoke charges of dangerous political grandstanding. The Lord’s Resistance Army (also Lord’s Resistance Movement or Lakwena Part Two) is a sectarian religious terrorist group as well operating in criminal behaviour of sex enslavement , which operates in northern Uganda, Southern Sudan.and former Congo. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the “spokesperson” of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the Holy Spirit, which the group believe can represent itself in many manifestations. The so-claled “army” is estimated to have as many as 1,000 fighters comprised almost entirely of teen aged and pre teen aged boys. There likely is 1,500 women and children affiliated. The group is based on apocalyptic Protestant Christianity but also is influence^[ by mysticism^[ and traditional religion. Sudan has provided military assistance to the LRA, in response to Uganda lending military support of the rebel South Sudan People's Liberation Army. In 2006, the United Nations mounted a covert operation to capture or kill Joseph Kony. A squad of U.S.-trained Guatemalan Special Ops soldiers set out into Congo's Garamba National Park, a longtime LRA refuge. All of the U. N. force disappeared. Obama claims that the deployment is a matter of U. S. national interest which is utter nonsense raising questions about why now in-as-much-as the fighting has been going on there for more than 25-years. He claims the U. S. troopers as "advisors" which sounds eerily like statements issued by President Eisenhower in 1955 when he send the first advisers to Viet Nam and the French were wiped out by the Việt Minh at Điện Biên Phủ in mid-1954. Dien Bien Phu was in a valley surrounded on all sides occupied by Viet Minh that had literally carried disassembled artillery and assembled it in a ring around the French. It was picked for the battle by the French because it made had an abandoned airstrip built by the Japanese in World War I, and proved a trap for the French. Kansas City's Catholic bishop was charged Friday with not telling police about child pornography found on a priest's computer, making him the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official indicted on a charge of failing to protect children. Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese Bishop Robert Finn, the first U.S. bishop criminally charged with sheltering an abusive clergyman, pleaded not guilty to one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse. Our leaders have embraced the "New World Order." Unlimited immigration, free trade, open borders, strident multiculturalism, globalism, a cradle-to-grave welfare state, neo-pagan morality, massive deficit spending and democratic imperialism - together they have triggered the moral, economic and spiritual disintegration of America, says Pat Buchannan. In "Suicide of a Superpower" (Thomas Dunne Books, 2011), the nationally syndicated columnist and TV commentator delivers a damning indictment of the past two decades. His thesis: America is in decline. Unless it is reversed, the United States - like great republics before it - will be swept into the dustbin of history. He insists that Obama has accelerated - and deepened - the failed Bush policies. Mr. Obama is seeking to erect a European-style nanny state. Bailouts have propped up big business and big banks, as Middle America was forced to pay for it. Mr. Obama's trillion-dollar deficits have brought us to the brink of bankruptcy. His economic stimulus failed to create jobs, while it expanded the reach of government - providing more beneficiaries and voters loyal to the Democrats. Obamacare is another massive entitlement program Americans cannot afford. Mr. Buchanan states that the exploding debt threatens our economic future. It will force America into default or to devalue our currency, leading to Weimar Germany-style inflation. Cherished programs - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, defense spending - must be slashed, capped and reformed or America is doomed. Yet there is a lack of will among our political class. Both parties, Republican and Democrat, lack the stomach to impose the necessary, difficult cuts. Mr. Buchanan understands that welfare liberalism is like a "narcotic," slowly making entire classes addicted to government handouts and sapping the nation's moral fiber. Like the ancient Romans, we know we are in decay but are unable to stop it. Our debt crisis ultimately is a crisis of democracy. Mr. Buchanan asks: With so many dependent upon social programs, can America avoid the fate of Greece? Mr. Buchanan has been ostracized for years by some conservatives. In particular, they argue that he represents the worst traits of the 1930s old right - nativism, anti-Semitism, protectionism and isolationism - that make his politics beyond the pale. In fact, the very opposite is true: Mr. Buchanan could be the last true conservative. He is the heir of postwar conservatism's intellectual founder, Russell Kirk. Like Kirk, Mr. Buchanan is a Burkean traditionalist who champions the organic society and America's distinct cultural identity. He staunchly opposes abortion, pornography, homosexual marriage, drugs, euthanasia and the West's hedonism. He understands that a nation is held together by a common culture, language, civilization, heroes, history and myths. Multiculturalism combined with open immigration is a recipe for national suicide. This is not racial chauvinism; it is common sense and proved by history. Austria-Hungary, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia (and most likely, the European Union) all were torn apart by resurgent ethno-nationalism and centrifugal forces. Multinational empires do not last; only cohesive nations endure. Rasmussen finds Cain and Romney knotted at 29% each while Gingrich moved into double digits at 10% for the first time. Obama leads Romney who's closest at 42% to 39%. Cain's rise parallels Rick Perry's descent. Cain was the choice of 27% in the poll, up from just 5% in August, while Perry was third at 16%, down from 38%. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, is showing remarkable consistency, in polling at least. He placed second with 23%, exactly where he stood two months ago. When respondents' first and second choices were combined, Cain is still in first with 45%, just ahead of Romney at 44%. Republicans have long been ambivalent about the candidates, but 63% said they were satisfied with the choices before them. The motivation for the foiled Iranian-instigated plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to Washington at his favorite eatery, Café Milano in Georgetown has been revealed by Iranian sources as a bid by a super-radical faction at the top of the Iranian regime to draw the United States into a limited military clash. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the plot when his son and heir Mojtaba, 42, and the Al Qods Brigades commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani presented him with their "grand plan." This adventurism is a result of Iran's hubris driven in large measure by its view of a weak-kneed , confused Obama. Obama said Thursday, Oct. 13 that a person charged with plotting to assassinate Saudi Arabia's US ambassador "had direct links, was paid by" and "directed by individuals in the Iranian government.  He also said he would not take any options off the table in dealing with Tehran. The American UN ambassador Susan Rice met with her Iranian counterpart about the iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington DC. The contents of their conversation were not revealed. But, Iranian sources disclose how the "grand plan" was intended to unfold. The first stage was kicked off last week with the flare-up of new Shiite-led riots in Bahrain which Iranian agents helped to expand into the neighboring Qatif oil region of eastern Saudi Arabia. This week, Revolutionary Guards and Al Qods experts in mayhem organized pilgrims heading for the Umrah, the little pilgrimage, in Mecca starting on Nov. 4, as agents provocateur for stirring up riots among the massed pilgrims. The first batch of 20,000 Iranian pilgrims is already in the shrine cities of Mecca and Medina. Al Quds In Arabic, Jerusalem is most transliterated as al-Quds and meaning "The Holy". So, this is a Holy War pitting muslim against Muslim then to be turned outward against the West and Israel. Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir's assassination was planned to coincide with riots in the holy cities and disturbances in the oil regions and so cause a breakdown in national security and shake the throne to its foundations. The Americans would then come running to save the kingdom, Mojtaba and Soleimani figured, and head straight into a limited armed clash with Iran. This is what the pair was aiming for to further the following objectives:

• 1. To head off the spread of unrest in Syria into the Iranian Republic. The downtrodden ethnic and religious minorities which make up 60 percent of the population would not venture to rise up against the minority Persian rulers at a time of war for fear of being punished as traitors.
• 2. To push the controversial Iranian nuclear program down to the bottom of the international agenda and stop in its tracks the US-led campaign to halt its development.
• 3. To win international Muslim acclaim for diverting the military focus of the West away from Syria and saving President Bashar Assad's regime.
• 4. By sacrificing a few of Iran's warships and planes in a limited clash, Tehran would win support from Russia and China, which are both strongly opposed to Western military intervention in Syria or any other part of the Middle East.
• 5. They would produce a Tehran-led anti-American Muslim military line-up to stand up against the pro-American Sunni Muslim military bloc sponsored by the West, which Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is assembling

intelligence sources say there is nothing paradoxical about the super-efficient professional Al-Qods Brigades enlisting a Mexican drug cartel for a hit squad to assassinate Ambassador al-Jubeir. For at least 20 years, Iran's Lebanese proxy Hizballah has kept itself in funds by drug trafficking, gunrunning and fencing stolen goods and today controls entire networks in Latin America and Africa. This fact is well known, fully recorded and easily available to anyone interested. The most competent clandestine organizations often use inept losers like the Iranian-born New York American Mansour Arbabsiar for "dirty operations." They tend to be a far cry from the high-IQ superspies of film and fiction. In this case, he may have been the best foot soldier available. Al Qods maintains small sleeper cells among the 900,000 Iranian expatriates living in the United States, more than half of them in California and Texas. But its active agents are by and large of the same substandard caliber as Arbabsiar. There is another possibility: His Al Qods controllers expected the plot to be foiled. They knew Arbabsiar was under FBI surveillance after an unsuccessful attempt to enter the drug market, and watched him walk into a trap when he tried to hire a DEA agent posing as a member of the Mexican drug cartel. Had the assassination taken place, it would have been treated as an act of war by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel. (By some reports the Saudi and Israeli embassies were to be bombed at the same time in the US and Buenos Aires.) Mojtaba and Soleimani did not intend to go that far or provoke a full-blown war. A foiled plot was to be the cue for a limited armed confrontation which was all their "grand plan" required - and that result appears to be building up. Craigs List ads advertised for protesters to Occupy Wall Street promising $300 to $600 per week. Those ads have now been scrubbed from that website. Some expect avowed Communist, and disgraced Obama appointee Van Jones to lead a more pernicious phase 2. With the endorsement of Senate majority Leader Senator Harry Reid,  former House speaker Pelosi and the encouragement of Obama civil unrest is spreading and the chances of violence in America is increasing. In Rome demonstrations turned into riots as cars were burned and police used tear gas against demonstrators. Protestors gathered in Washington DC extensively to celebrate the formal dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. In Germany protestors clashed with police. Several hundreds more marched in the German cities of Berlin, Cologne and Munich and the Austrian capital of Vienna, while protesters in Zurich, Protesters also accused NATO, which has its headquarters in Brussels, of wasting taxpayer money on the wars in Libya and Afghanistan, In Helsinki, around 300 activists held a peaceful, creative rally with homemade signs and stalls full of art and food. In Spain, the Indignant Movement established the first around-the-clock "occupation" protest camps in cities and towns across the country beginning in May and lasting for weeks. Six marches were converging Saturday on Madrid's Puerta del Sol plaza just before dusk. Portuguese angry at their government's handling of the economic crisis were protesting in downtown Lisbon. Hundreds gathered in Toronto's financial district, converging close to the Toronto Stock Exchange and the headquarters major Canadian banks to decry what they called government-abetted corporate greed. Protests were also being held in Montreal and Vancouver. The protest have spread virally using social media but mostly share an anti-business, pro-socialists theme.In Washington provocateur Al Sharpton was stem winding risking things getting out of hand. Oddly the US  occupy movement appears to be an immature adolescent reponse to the TEA Party political success in 2010. An outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe is now linked to 23 deaths, making it the deadliest known outbreak of food borne illness in the U.S. in more than 25 years. That has virtually ended cantalope sales. The USDA and FDA says only cantelopes from Jensen Farms of Colorado were effected and all those whould be off shelves. Now comes news that Giant Eagle growers is removing shreaded lettuce due to similar fears but the details are misty at this writing. Listeria is a bacterial genus that contains seven species. Named after the English pioneer of sterile surgery Joseph Lister 1827-1912, The bacteria is found in soil so you can not just wash it off. Anti-ObamaCare groups were cheered Friday when Obama pulled the plug on a major component in his signature health overhaul law - a long-term care insurance plan dogged from the beginning by doubts over its financial solvency. Targeted by congressional Republicans for repeal, the program became the first casualty in the political and policy wars over the health care law. It had been expected to launch in 2013 now it is dead. "This is a victory for the American taxpayer and future generations," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., spearheading opposition in the Senate. "The administration is finally admitting (the long-term care plan) is unsustainable and cannot be implemented." Proponents, including many groups that fought to pass the health care law, have vowed a vigorous effort to rescue the program, insisting that Congress gave the administration broad authority to make changes. Long-term care includes not only nursing homes, but such services as home health aides for disabled people. But, the costs even after fiduciary fornication by proponents found it to be far too expensive and simply unsustainable. Half of ObamaCare's supposed deficit reduction comes from the Community Living Assistance Service and Supports (CLASS) Act, a long-term care benefit tacked onto the bill and scored as reducing the deficit by about $70 billion over the next decade. But that's only because the law's authors gamed the Congressional Budget Office's scoring rules. The score counted premiums collected this decade as reducing the deficit despite the fact that they'll be needed to pay out benefits later. Even worse, the premiums won't be enough to pay for all of the benefits: In the long-term, the program isn't self-sustaining, and will actually add to the federal deficit. When it because clear those premiums would not be forthcoming the house of cards collapsed. Known as CLASS, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program was a longstanding priority of the late Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. When you look up into the night sky, the light you see from a star today could be the light shown from a star over a million years ago? Some stars are so far away that when the light finally reaches you, it has already taken a million years, and the star may already be gone when you finally see it's light. The Obama administration is sharply divided over U.S. policy toward Pakistan with a faction emerging that wants to sharply curtail U.S. drone strokes as a way to coax Pakistan into greater anti-terrorism cooperation. A second faction led by outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, favor keeping up the relentless drone attacks on Al Qaida leaders and members that have been the centerpiece of the administration's war on terrorism. The dispute surfaced following a report in the Washington Post last week quoting a senior Pentagon official who criticized Mullen for earlier Senate testimony publicly stating that the Pakistan ISI intelligence service was working closely with the Al Qaida affiliated Haqqani network to conduct attacks, including the recent bombings in Afghanistan. The Pentagon said Mullen overstated the connections and inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan, where relations with the U.S. soured after the raid by US specops troops insid Pakistan in May that kiledl Osama bin Laden, who had been hiding in a military town in Pakistan. The softliners, mainly in the intelligence community, State Department and Pentagon intelligence unit, are calling for a major cutback in drone strikes. Their views were outlined in a recent Council on Foreign Relations report on Pakistan. The report, "A Pakistan-Based Terrorist Attack on the U.S. Homeland" was produced by Stephen Tankel who recommended several policies to forestall a terror attack originating from Pakistan, including closer cooperation with Islamabad. On drone strikes, Tankel urged recalibrating direct action strikes. "The United States should continue to use drone strikes to eliminate high-value targets and essential mid-level commanders, but it should consider significantly de-escalating their overall use," he said. "Doing so could help to reduce bilateral tensions, overall anti-American sentiment, and the risk of mobilizing recruits who join militant outfits out of anger or a thirst for revenge." Defense officials said U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter in March opposed a U.S. drone strike against Pakistani militants over fears it would further damage ties with Islamabad. Munter is said to be part of the softline faction opposing aggressive action against militants. The Moon is moving away from Earth  at a rate of about one inch per year but it will never escape. In about 50 billion years that will stop when it reaches orbital resonance. But, that won't happen either because the Sun will run out of hydrogen in 4-5 billion years and become a red giant consuming the Earth and Moon as it expands. Saturday TheMoscowTimes called for increasing the price for a bottle of vodka to $100 from its current price of 98 rubles ($3,16) as a way to reduce drinking that has become rampant and deadly.  A public health professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, blames alcohol for 43 per cent of deaths among working age (25-54) men in a typical Russian city. Muslim Chechnya has introduced a virtual ban limiting the hours of sale to the un-reveler friendly time of 8:00am-10:00am, with a complete ban during Ramadan. Russia prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol from 1914 to 1925 in Russia and the Soviet Union The earliest records of prohibition of alcohol date back to the Xia Dynasty (ca. 2070 BC-ca. 1600 BC) in China. Yu the Great, the first ruler of the Xia Dynasty, prohibited alcohol throughout the kingdom ^[1]. It was legalized again after his death, during the reign of his son Qi. In the early twentieth century, much of the impetus for the prohibition movement in the Nordic countries and North America came from Protestant wariness of alcohol^[ The first half of the 20th century saw periods of prohibition of alcoholic beverages in several countries:

• 1907 to 1948 in Prince Edward Island but for much shorter periods in other provinces in Canada
• 1915 to 1922 in Iceland (though beer was still prohibited until 1989)^[
• 1916 to 1927 in Norway (fortified wine and beer also prohibited from 1917 to 1923)
• 1919 in Hungary (in the Hungarian Soviet Republic, March 21 to August 1; called szesztilalom)
• 1919 to 1932 in Finland (called kieltolaki, “ban law”)
• 1920 to 1933 in the United States

In almost every case prohibition sparked a cottage industry of bootlegging and all sorts of other issues, Russian critics of hiking the price to $100 dollars a bottle it is just a money raising scheme and has little to do with solving Russia’s booze problem. It will almost certainly provoke bootlegging because booze is cheap to make.