Historically, a very interesting use of poison. It seems obvious that the Russians didn't want this to be a huge mystery -- and probably wanted him to have a pa

Historically, a very interesting use of poison. It seems obvious that the Russians didn't want this to be a huge mystery -- and probably wanted him to have a painful death (which he did). If I remember correctly, there was a chair in the embassy that had this stuff on it. Nobody could sit on the chair for fear of death. I might be mistaken, though. Also historically, I am reminded of Putin meeting one of the superbowl champs. During the meeting, he takes the guy's superbowl ring! "I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, 'I can kill someone with this ring,'" Kraft said, the New York Post reported last week. "I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out." The point is this: the new Russia lacks a lot of the subtlety of the old one. Aside from anything else, I think that might be a good thing, but I'm not sure. They're definitely more interesting.