Old Grey Mare Just Ain't What She Used to Be

Several conservative bloggers in Wisconsin seem to be enjoying a hearty laugh over an editorial recently published in Pravda that argues the United States is becoming too radical or Marxist or whatever.

One problem: the Pravda of which they speak is not "the Russian House Organ" it once was. It's actually now a tabloid -- and not a New York Post tabloid, but a Weekly World News tabloid (though, of course, many would argue there is no difference).

Not only can you find inherently laughable commentaries in the latest incarnation of Pravda, but you can also read such stories with headlines like:

• Aliens forced Americans out from the Moon

• Another human civilization may live within Earth's hollows

• Russian scientists contact nether world

• Soviet Union witnessed invasion of US-made UFOs in 1980s

• Vampires are proved to exist

• Russian fishermen catch squeaking alien and eat it

With all of that excitement, I can't imagine for the life of me why any sane reader of the news would by-pass all of these amazing stories and go straight for the boring opinion piece on US domestic policy ... especially when there are vampires and aliens and the undead to talk about!

A quick stop over to Wikipedia would have straightened all of this business out:

After the paper was closed down in 1991 by decree of President Yeltsin, many of the staff founded a new paper with the same name, which is now a tabloid-style Russian news source. There is an unrelated Internet-based newspaper, Pravda Online (www.Pravda.ru) run by former Pravda newspaper employees. A number of other newspapers have also been called Pravda, most notably Komsomolskaya Pravda, formerly the official newspaper of the now defunct Komsomol and currently the best-selling tabloid in Russia.

But why bother checking one's sources when you can just rely on your understanding of a foreign country's press as it stood almost 20 years ago?

Good going, Cheddarsphere!

We'll be sure to ignore everything anyone has to say about Russia in the future.

MORE: The suckers just keep on coming ...

Kyle Prast:

...there is one news source that has the guts to report what has been going on since Jan. 20, 2009 straight up: Russia's PRAVDA!

Yes, and they've also done a helluva job on the Werewolf beat too!

Peter DiGaudio:

A lecture to Americans … from Pravda, no less.

And here's an ongoing series on the evil symbology of the one dollar bill!

Let's not forget the meteorite with Christ's face on it or the Yeti who was caught by Russian scientists using Google Maps!

The current news arm of the Russian government is RIA Novosti. RIA is the transliteration for the Cyrrilic acronym that essentially translates to Russian Information Agency. RIA Novosti runs Russia Today, or RT, which is the current Russian government's official state news organization.

MORE STILL: Ugh ...