Putin POster Boy

     That face, those eyes.   Most literate folks around the world have had a look at Mad Vlad's steely looks now since his "election", again, of the president of Russia.   The Economist featured that face on the 7/26-8/1 cover.  A plain, color photo clearly chosen to accentuate "the Look" that the pres puts forth as part of his mystique.
    It really is getting tiresome.  Ok, so you like to put on an Olympic Games.  Big deal-everybody likes a party, especially if someone else is footing the bill.  Who cares if one used it as a cover operation for the take over of a key part of Ukraine.   It's embarrassing to civilized folks that this peanut of a man(like ol' what's his name) can engineer a coup of sorts under the nose of a struggling former satellite of the former USSR.   Covered with bald faced lies, Russian troops, cleverly disguised as Russian troops, swept in and surprised a few sleepy Ukraine troops who weren't sure what happened until it was over and done with.
        Media likes a Putin: gives them something beyond humdrum topics like soccer, the NFL, Ebola, Chinese naval tactics; Palestinian aggression, and of course, Angela Merkel.
     Everybody asks:"What does Putin want?"   Who cares?  ONly a few oil companies and some oligarchs with capital investments in the Arctic/Siberia/ Kamchatka/ Caspian areas.
    Where's Sergei  Magnitski when we need him?