We don't want better relations with Russia

Man, Kaspersky chose a really bad time to do a global launch of their free antivirus s/w!

Yeah, my first thought when I saw that was, “Why in hell would I trust Russian AV software?”

Russians make a number of AV products, including Dr. Web. BitDefender comes from Romania, Avast/AVG from Czech, E-Set from Slovakia, Panda from Spain, Ad Aware = Malta, Qihu and Baidu from China etc. etc…
It’s rather silly that people have to use AV, but no-one knows who’s on the end of the cable when software downloads.

If it’s any consolation General Atlantic, an American firm, bought 20% of Kaspersky a few years back.

Putin stole a Super Bowl ring from NE Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Then the State Dept ( under GWB ) made him say he gave it to him. But he didn’t.

How can you negotiate in good faith with someone that would do that?

Are you talking about Putin or the State Depattment? :confused:

These little artifacts seem full of Trumpian splendour,
*The Green Bay Packers Super Bowl XLV ring contained more than 100 diamonds. The Packer logo, in the center of the ring, made up 13 diamonds, one for each title the team has won, dating back to 1929. In a break from tradition, this is the first super bowl ring to be made of platinum, not gold.
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*The New England Patriots Super Bowl LI ring has 283 diamonds, to commemorate their comeback from being down 28-3 versus the Atlanta Falcons late in the 3rd quarter.
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Wikipedia

Since some men have 6 or seven such rings, they must glitter like the stars at night.

Yes, the only thing he could mean is that they are evil countries, and that assessment must be because they aren’t allies with the U.S.

It can’t be that the list is small, and is apparently only because of what the U.S. has done to them, and not based on any principles. It can’t be specific to the Russia issue, since Russia is an expansionist country that would take over these other countries if it could. It can’t be that these countries all tend to have civil rights abuses above our own, and are supporting a country with a dictatorship that sponsors human rights abuses. It can’t be that these countries have sponsored global terrorism.

And that’s just off the top of my head.

I can only see your constant attempts at tu quoque (from a lawyer, no less) as an attempt at patriotism, since your country largely hates the U.S. You see everything through a lens of “The U.S. is just as evil” the same way Trump voters saw everything through the lens of “Clinton is just as evil.”

Neither are valid. Trump is far worse than Clinton, of course. And Russia is worse than the U.S. since it is a dictatorship that pushes human rights abuses from the top in its own country without recourse, and is actually trying to expand and thus take over other countries. That’s worse.

No need for consolation; I’ve never used Kaspersky, nor would I. How many General Atlantic executives are on Kaspersky’s board? Or would even know if Putin strongarmed them into providing him with data?