Yeah thats the guy, Kruschev always saw himself as an agricultural expert, so this guys thinking really fit in with who Kruschev saw himself as being

Some of the stuff was so stupid. In one year an increase in crops was announced as being 10% this was purely decided from a form farmers had to fill out, and not any actual tonnage data

Head office had to be placated. That's the sort of situation that condemns the idea of a command economy and a closed form of government. If only we can all learn from that kind of rank stupidity.

A friend of mine years ago, visited the Soviet Union just before the collapse. He was in logistics, but said the biggest problem the Soviets had was infrastructure. They could grow enough food, but could not get it to market fast enough before it spoiled.

He saw whole trains of crops being dumped because the unload process was so backlogged the food rotted on the trains before anyone could use it

A dreadful failure of a system indeed. I suppose no-one reported on it because it was bad news so it was hidden or ignored and therefore nothing could be done to correct it. Straight out incompetence but it also reminded me of the old Soviet mentality. A friend of mine some years ago went to the Soviet Union as a representative of trades unions in NSW and he was given a visit to the Militia (police) HQ in Moscow. It was an evening and he knew that evenings are the busiest time for any police force so he asked the officer on duty in HQ how many militia officers were on duty at that time ins Moscow.

The reponse?

"Enough to maintain law and order in Moscow"

Says it all.

An interesting post but a bit out there for most people. I like your thinking through it and comparing them even when I disagree. Palin is scary for the reasons you mention. I am amazed at the number of people in this nation who believe endtime is soon and support Israel not because it attempts to be a democracy but because of the religious connotations. If one (Palin) believes some outcome such as the war in Iraq has God's acceptance we are definitely in a scary place. What a change from Goldwater when nuclear holocaust seemed real and scary to now when hubris says they can do anything.

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"We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible." Barack Obama

Actually opportunistic right-wingers from the beginning used the collapse of the Soviet system as a propaganda weapon, what it not widely known is that the reforms of 1963-89 effectively ended planned economics, the USSR was capitalist in fundamentals during the 60's, Khrushchev oversaw the decentralization of planning.

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'A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward'. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

http://i38.tinypic.com/716ahj.gif

Any politician who believes in an afterlife worries me.

It really is. Do you see any gods around? CREATIONSIM DEBUNKED.

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Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner.
– James Fenimore Cooper

I look at it this way:

The teachings of Jesus have NOTHING to do with where you came from. Only where you are going. Ergo, relative to Christianity, creationism vs. evolution is a non-issue.

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Tax & Spend > Borrow & Spend any day.

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

C2H5OH - the cause of and remedy to all problems.

Well, let me see. The quotation I posted was not something I wrote, it was a quotation from an article on the situation, it specifically said that Stalin rejected Darwinism. The television show on the history or science channel specifically said that Stalin rejected Darwinism.

Now, genetics is the only reason taht Darwinism was selected as the superior theory of evolution to Lamarckism.

You see, if genes did not exist as discrete units which could not be diluted by inheritance, then Darwinism cannot work. The gradual accumulation of change is impossible.

If genes do not exist, then Darwinist evolution cannot work because the minor changes he postulates would be diluted, cut in half then a quarter, then an eighth in each subsequent generation and their accumulation over the vast time periods necessary is impossible. Hence Lamarcks theory of acquired traits beats Darwinism in the absence of genetics.

Genetics and only genetics allows the operation of Darwinian evolution, by showing the mechanism through which discrete minor changes can be preserved and passed on from generation to generation. Rejecting genetics is rejecting Darwinism.

Read up on the scientific discourses over these two schools of thought in the 19th century.

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"Yankee-Do: The Way of the American" A book I wrote never published about 8 years ago.