Logic & Sanity

Putin the ignoramus

But what he saw inside Putin last week was far less comforting. When Bush confronted his Russian counterpart about the freedom of the press in Russia, Putin shot back with an attack of his own: "We didn't criticize you when you fired those reporters at CBS."

That's pretty funny.

Blast from the past 3

Village voice had a detailed, 2002, article on Kobozev's murder (also see my posts 1 and 2 on this):

It took nearly four years for Brooklyn homicide detectives and the FBI to discover for sure that Kobozev hadn't gone on a romp. His corpse turned up with a broken neck in March 1999 in a shallow grave in the backyard of a home owned by Alexander Spitchenko of Livingston, New Jersey. As it turned out, Kobozev lost his last fight during a confrontation with hoods in an auto-body shop on East 15th Street in Brooklyn. Spitchenko, after making a deal with authorities, laid out the story in court.

Spitchenko, who arrived in Brighton Beach in 1991, was not only a master extortionist; he later became the Brigade's No. 2 man in New York. By Spitchenko's own account given at Nosov and Ermichine's trial in early December, the Brigade (headed by famed godfather Vyacheslav Ivankov until 1995) ran "hundreds" of protection scams on Brighton Beach businesses. "We strong-armed people and collected money, extorted, stole, did counterfeit credit cards," Spitchenko explained to a hushed courtroom. When the Brigade's victims refused to cooperate, Spitchenko offered a solution: "We beat them up."

The Brigade's operations added up to a smorgasbord of petty theft, prostitution, and, most importantly, protection rackets. In one extortion case described by Spitchenko, he and Ermichine raided a Brooklyn clothing retailer and made off with $3000 worth of high-quality suits. The heist was only one part of an elaborate ruse the Brigade deployed to force the petrified store owner to accept their protection scheme. Soon after the robbery, Ermichine returned to the store with Spitchenko in tow. "I had a baseball bat on me," Spitchenko told jurors. "The owner of the store was hiding from us." He said he shouted at the owner, "If we catch you, we'll break your legs."

During the trial, Spitchenko gave detailed testimony on Brigade operations and Kobozev's run-in with Nosov, Gozman, and Ermichine on that chilly November afternoon in 1995. The boxer had gone to the auto-body shop to have his car worked on. Instead, he was the one who got worked on.

The Spitchenko guy ratted out his friends for a plea deal (which included a reduced charge and put his family into the Federal Witness Protection Program).

Read the whole thing.

Blast from the past 2

Another article on Nathan Gasman in today's NY Daily News

And once again the media needs to over dramatize - "They were hoods. They came here from Russia with one goal in mind - to do extortions and terrorize their own people," Gallagher said.

Gallagher is the trainer of Sergei Kobozev (the boxer Nathan Gozman killed, see my yesterday's post). I am not sure why the Daily News would want to use that particular quote, aside the fact that Nathan came from Ukraine not Russia, the other gross mistake is that Nathan came to U.S. as a child, and I doubt he had one goal in mind back then.

Anyway, looks like Nathan has been busy -

In his life on the lam, Gozman hid in Europe and Israel before returning to his homeland in the Ukraine. There he married a local woman, bought cars and was setting up a business under a false name.

Today's NY Post is not any better. Nathan is referred to as a POLISH 'MOBSTER' (in the headline) and a Polish fugitive

Also, the Post states that Prosecutors were tight-lipped yesterday on how the feds found Gozman in Poland, where he was apprehended and flown to New York Thursday.

Not so tight lipped, according to the Daily News - Gozman was arrested in the Ukraine in May on charges of using forged documents. He was sent to Warsaw for transfer to New York, where he faces racketeering, weapons and murder charges, officials said.

Mystery solved!

Nathan Gozman has plead not guilty.

Kid from my block...

...got stabbed and killed a few days ago:

A Kingsborough Community College student was fatally stabbed by his best friend in Brooklyn early yesterday during a fight over a girl, cops and friends said.

William Rothman, 18, died at Kings County Hospital after being stabbed twice in the back following a late-night apartment party in the Sheepshead Houses, police said.

Last night, cops charged Daniel Brodsky, 17, of Brooklyn, with murder and weapons possession.

Partygoers said Rothman got into a heated argument with his pal about 12:35 a.m. over Rothman's ex-girlfriend, who attended the drunken birthday bash.

Sad. I am at loss for words.

Mark Steyn on C-SPAN now!

Mark Steyn of the UK Telegraph is live on C-Span's Washington Journal. If you are a fan of his articles, then you know what to expect.

Streaming video here.

Blast from the past...

NY Post:

Almost a decade after the gruesome kidnapping and slaying of a promising Brooklyn boxer, a suspect was sent back to New York from Poland last night to face murder charges.

Agents from the FBI's Russian-organized-crime task force accompanied alleged gangster Nathan Gozman on a flight to JFK from his native Poland, where the feds had won his extradition after he was arrested there, a law-enforcement source said.

Gozman and a second suspect already in custody are reputed members of a violent Russian mob — called Bratva, Russian for "goodfellas."

Both are charged with the brutal murder of Sergei Kobozev in November 1995.

Kobozev was allegedly killed in retribution for trying to break up a brawl involving other Russian mobsters, the feds said.

At the time, Kobozev, 31, was an up-and-coming boxer with a $100,000 shot at the World Boxing Council's cruiserweight title.

Kobozev, a former Red Army captain and member of the Soviet national boxing team, had moved to the United States in 1990.

I have a correction plus could add a few details to this article... But given the nature of the individuals involed, I'll keep them to myself. I've interacted pretty extensively with Nathan in junior high and I cold've guessed back then that he would end up like this.

You can see his America's Most wanted profile here.

Sperm theft!

Some scary stuff:

Irons was sued by her former lover, Chicago family physician Richard Phillips, who accused her of a "calculated, profound personal betrayal" of him after a brief affair they had six years ago.

Phillips alleges that he and Irons, who practices internal medicine, never had intercourse during their four-month affair, although they did have oral sex three times.

His suit contends that Irons, without his knowledge, kept some of his semen and used it to impregnate herself.

Here's the kicker:

But the judges agreed with the lower court's decision to dismiss fraud and theft claims against Irons.

They agreed with Irons' lawyers that she didn't steal the sperm.

"She asserts that when plaintiff 'delivered' his sperm, it was a gift -- an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee," the decision said. "There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request."

And he thought he was just getting some head!

UPDATE

Oh, yea, and also this:

He said he didn't find out about the child for nearly two years, when Irons filed a paternity lawsuit. DNA tests confirmed Phillips was the father, the court papers state.

Phillips was ordered to pay about $800 a month in child support, said Irons' attorney, Enrico Mirabelli.

UPDATE

From a few years ago:

"Bonking Boris" Becker's old nickname has come back to haunt the three-time Wimbledon champion, who will take a paternity test to determine if he fathered a Russian model's baby daughter.
If you believe Becker's defence, and this may require consuming some dark liquid containing high levels of caffeine or alcohol, the Russian mafia stole his sperm to blackmail him over the child.
Becker's legal team is reportedly preparing to claim that London-based Russian model Angela Ermakova injected herself with Becker's sperm after having oral sex in a broom cupboard of a London restaurant in July 1999.

Ofcourse, the difference here is that Angela Ermakova claimed to have had an intercourse with Becker, while Irons admits that she has not.

The photo, by the way, is of Angela Ermakova. Doesn't look like a typical Russian...

Gotta love capitalism!

Statesman (via WSJ Best Of Web):

The candy removal plan, according to students at Austin High, was thwarted by classmates who created an underground candy market, turning the hallways of the high school into Willy-Wonka-meets-Casablanca.

Soon after candy was removed from vending machines, enterprising students armed with gym bags full of M&M's, Skittles, Snickers and Twix became roving vendors, serving classmates in need of an in-school sugar fix. Regular-size candy bars like the ones sold in vending machines routinely sold in the halls for $1.50.

"There was no sugar in the vending machines, so (student vendors) could make a lot of money," said Hayden Starkey, an Austin High junior who said he was not one of the candy sellers. "I heard kids were making $200 a week just selling candy."

Tame foxes

Forget hounds - foxes could become man's newest best friend, as scientists have shown they can be tamed.

After 45 years of breeding, tame foxes that wag their tails, greet humans with excited barks and look cute have been born in Siberia.

The original foxes were all black, but the new critters have white patches, big floppy ears, and curly tails.

The new foxes are also more curious, better at understanding humans, and less frightened of new things.

The scientists bred about 45,000 foxes to get to the tame stage.

When breeding the animals, they only chose them on how well they responded to people.

But the physical changes came as well - making scientists think cuteness comes along with being tame.

Aw..

UPDATE

Found another photo (from UK's Telegraph).

The captive breed foxes show a strong social intelligence

Ignorance at NY Daily News

Most New Yorkers have heard of a recent murder-suicide on Madison Ave, in which a man killed his wife and then shot her new fiance three times before turning the gun on himself.

NY Post mentions that the murderer and his ex wife were from Odessa. NY Daily News does not mention their city of origin, but does put on a quite blatant display of ignorance in today's issue. Describing the victim and her murdering ex husband:

The Ivanovs married in Russia and moved to America

Actually, the pair, as NY Post noted, hailed from Odessa, which is in Ukraine, not Russia. What's even more preposterous is referring to the victim as a Siberian stunner. Siberia is in Russia, Odessa is in Ukraine. The two are thousands of miles apart, and their climate is not even similar. Sibera, as everyone knows, is freezing cold, Odessa, on the other hand, has a climate that's a bit warmer then that of New York. In fact, people come to Odessa to enjoy its beaches.

Confusing Odessa with Siberia, is like confusing Florida with Alaska.

The writers need a map.