| Subject: Chat with Mark Adomanis |
| From: Mark Adomanis <mark.adomanis@gmail.com> |
7:14 PM me: howdy, would you be interested in taking a look at our list of nascent sub-projects and participating or perhaps leading one, or suggesting an additional one if you think it to be helpful?
Mark: sure, fire it over
me: will do
one more question
7:15 PM are you in contact with any other Russia analysts or journalists you deem to be competent and honest?
Mark: yeah, there's another guy who writes a blog who is top-notch
better than me, probably
me: would you be willing to recruit him or have him get in touch with me?
Mark: yeah, i'll drop him a line and see what he thinks
me: I want to put you in charge of our Russian operations
7:16 PM also, I've made contact with Glenn Greenwald, who's interested
and did I tell you about Barry Eisler?
7:17 PM Mark: yeah, you mentioned. sounds pretty sick
7:18 PM me: what would you say is the worst Russian publication?
Mark: Heritages stuff, probably
me: native to Russia, I mean
Mark: oh the worst?
oh man, that's hard
me: Heritage is already on our shit list anyway
7:19 PM Mark: probably one of the communist rags
me: well, just a very bad one
Mark: you get some pretty scary people writing that shit
me: I would imagine
how about one that is both highly influential and highly damaging to Russia's future by virtue of being terrible?
7:20 PM Mark: well the official government paper is Rossiskaya Gazeta
but I would personally vote for Nezavisimaya Gazeta
me: how bad is it?
Mark: the "liberal" opposition paper
me: what sort of things do they do wrong, same shit as here?
Mark: which has probably done more to boost putin's popularity than any other one thing
me: just knee-jerk anti Putin?
Mark: they publish incredibly vacant, false, tone deaf- and insulting shit
7:21 PM me: like the Daily Mail, gotcha
Mark: for example, they published articles saying that putin's pro-natal subisides wer ebad
because they would only encourage poor and stupid people to "breed"
me: I think they do that already
that is the case in Texas
7:22 PM Mark: one of their columnists reacted to the recent spy fiasco by asking where she could sign up to spy for the CIA
stuff like that
me: Russia needs a pro-natal policy unless they want to start importing
Mark: stuff that encourages the median russian to take a look at the "democratic" opposition and say "these people are fucking insane"
me: she can sign up at The New York Times
gotcha
how do you feel about Kasparov?
Mark: total charlatan
me: Obviously, you're at odds to some extent
7:23 PM Mark: i mean
me: dishonest or wrong?
Mark: both
i'm trying to think of who a comparable figure in the US is
to illustrate how ridiculous a figure he cuts
i guess imagine if bobby fischer were mexican
me: are there any anti-Puin commentators you respect?
7:24 PM Mark: there are a bunch of western ones and i'm sure there are loads in russian that are perfectly honest, accurate, and upstandign people
but most of the well konwn lot
are just paid whores
me: have there been any journalists killed lately?
7:25 PM Mark: i think things have calmed down a bit the past few months
well, at least with the journalist-killing thing
terrorism's gotten worse what with the moscow and stavropol bombings
and some unlucky cop gets capped in dagestan like once a week
7:26 PM oh hey so one quick thing, this dude i want to get in touch with
he blogs under a pseudonym
me: that's fine, we've got a couple others whose names I don't even know
Mark: (works at one of the big dc think tanks and would definitely get fired if they knew his true views)
me: we're very tight on security in certain regards
7:27 PM I have a hushmail account
I'll give you that address in a sec
he should set one up, too
barrettbrown@hushmail.com
7:28 PM also, wouldn't hurt for you to have one
7:29 PM Mark: ok, i'll look into it
7:30 PM me: thanks, man