Ukraine proves the point made by Brender and Drazen

Adi Brender and Allan Drazen in AER 2009, "Consolidation of New Democracy, Mass Attitudes, and Clientelism":

"We found that in new democracies annual government expenditure reported immediately after the election year was significantly lower than finalized data; in nonelection years, it was unchanged. (In contrast, in established democracies initial and final reports were similar for election an nonelection years.) This comparison is not conclusive, but suggests that new democracies provide a lowe quality of data to their citizens in election years.

...In Brender and Drazen (2007), we found that democracy is almost three times more likely to collapse in election years than in nonelection years in new democracies, while in olde democracies the probability of a collapse of the democratic regime is very small, with similar values in election and nonelection years."

CPI in Ukraine, January-May

Overall, CPI increased by 7.4% in the first five months of the year. Traditionally, summer is less inflationary due to deflation of local fruits and vegetables but we are going to be in double digits anyway -- somewhat closer to 20% (probably 16-17%).

Consumer prices in Ukraine, relative to Devcember of 2008
Category	Consumer price
CPI	107.4
Foodstuff	107.7
Alcohol and tobacco	112.9
Clothing and footware	104.4
Utilities	103.1
Consumer goods	111
Medicine	121
Transport	109.7
Telecom	102.7
Entertainment	107.9
Education	101.4
Catering and hotels	105.9
Other goods and services	112.6

Consumer product prices grew at 11% due to large share of imported goods and hryvna devaluation. The same is true for medicine because large part of drugs is imported. Alcohol and tobacco prices increased due to increases in taxes on tobacco products.

What all cities have in common?

I like the idea to find something all cities have in general:

http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-cities-have-in-common.html

Back to the USSR

Можно ли оскорбить партию? Да, если партия называется "Единая Россия":

В ответ на критику Рахимова заместитель секретаря президиума генсовета "Единой России"Андрей Исаев заявил, что президент Башкирии своими высказываниями "нанес оскорбления" партии и что он будет лично настаивать на исключении Рахимова из партии. Комментируя интервью президента Башкирии, Исаев также отметил, что "в определенном возрасте некоторые мозговые реакции наступают запоздало".