#teabillies

A shining new $635 million highway on the outskirts of Sochi stands next to a crumbling apartment block with a red "SOS!" banner on its roof.

The residents of 5a Akatsy street have lived for years with no running water or sewage system. Construction for the 2014 Winter Games has made their lives more miserable: The new highway has cut them off from the city center. Even their communal outhouse had to be torn down because it was found to be too close to the new road and ruled an eyesore.

The slum is one of the many facets of a hidden dark side in the host city of next month's Winter Olympics, which stands side-by-side with the glittering new construction projects that President Vladimir Putin is touting as a symbol of Russia's transformation from a dysfunctional Soviet leviathan to a successful, modern economy. While state-run TV trains its cameras on luxury malls, sleek stadiums and high-speed train links, thousands of ordinary people in the Sochi area put up with squalor and environmental waste: villagers living next to an illegal dump filled with Olympic construction waste, families whose homes are sinking into the earth, city dwellers suffering chronic power cuts despite promises to improve electricity.

Putin promoted the Sochi Games, which begin on Feb. 7, as a unique opportunity to bring investment to the Black Sea resort and improve living standards for its 350,000 residents. Looking back at those promises, many residents, weary from years of living in the midst of Russia's biggest construction project in modern history, say they have yet to see any improvement in their lives and point to an array of negative effects.

"It looks like you're using George Washington to further your anti-tax agenda, so I feel obligated to let you know that you left out a pretty significant part of the quote. Lookie here:

"Toward the payment of debts, there must be revenue, and to have revenue, there must be taxes. And no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant." It takes on a whole other meaning now that you have the full quote, doesn't it? It would seem that Mr. Washington was PRO taxes. He *knew* that a government must have money to pay its debts, and that taxes are pretty much the only way to do this, even though paying them are no fun for the ordinary citizen. Intelligent people know that in order for a society to function well, taxes must be paid towards the greater good, such as police officers, firefighters, roads, bridges etc. Something you conveniently ignore. Have an ignorant day. P.S. YOUR think tank invented Obamacare."