unrelated topics

for things that look good for America, there's the news; for everything else, there's reuters. because of course, it couldn't all be good news, now could it?

in a totally unrelated note, i bring you the wonders of communism:
"The question of giult or innocence was to be predetermined by a preliminary inquiry, as a rule conducted by the police. In the same year [1934], a decree on 'counterrevolution and high treason' provided for collective family responsibility in cases of flight by military personnel abroad. Severe penalties were established for failing to inform the authorities about an act of treason, whether actually committed ore merely contemplated. A decree of April 7, 1935, extended capital punishment down to twelve-year-olds."

(source: Dziewanowski, M.K. Russia in the Twentieth Century, sixth edition. Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2003. p. 186-187.)