Torch watch: Where is Olympic flame today?
A leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, runs with an Olympic torch in Grozny, the regional capital of the southern Russian Caucasus province of Chechnya, during the Olympic torch relay.
In other Chechen news, Larry David buys a detonator from Tibor the Chechen.
In future Chechen news:
Ex-Chechen Strongwoman Denounces Putin in Cannes
New York Times, May 14, 2015
Wearing a stunning floor-length Givenchy gown, former Chechen strongwoman Ramzana Kadyrova was the center of photographers' attention once again as she walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. Fired by Vladimir Putin after Chechen rebels dressed as biathletes shot up the grandstand at the Sochi Winter Olympics, Kadyrova was reduced to obscurity until she electrified the global media last fall by announcing that she had "always felt like a girl on the inside."
Since then, she has become the bearded, lantern-jawed face of the global struggle for transgender rights, as she passed up no photo opportunity to denounce the Russian president for his vicious transphobia. Her campaign climaxed last night with the debut at Cannes of the new movie she originally executive produced when still ruling Chechnya in 2013. The frontrunner for the Palme D'Or, this rapturously-received protest film entitled Fire Me? Putin, You Bastard, I Fire You! stars Steven Seagal, Gerard Depardieu, Jean-Claude van Damme, Hilary Swank, Mike Tyson, Elizabeth Hurley, and Diego Maradona as a crew of veteran mercenaries who fight transphobia wherever it raises its hateful head. A GCI version of the Russian president appears to have been added in post-production and much of the film consists of Putin being blown up in numerous fireballs, eaten by a tiger, and repeatedly run over by a monster truck.
During the 15 minute standing ovation after the lights came up, Kadyrova took the stage with her stars and was initially ecstatically gratified. But as the applause went on and on, almost as if none of the assembled celebrities dared be the first to sit down, she seemed to grow bored and mischievous. Eventually, she pulled out a solid gold pistol and, winking broadly, goosed Ms. Hurley and Ms. Swank with it. Then Kadyrova hiked up her dress to ostentatiously scratch her testicles, and finally she urinated, quite accurately, on Michael J. Fox sitting in the third row.
Observers were unanimous in their condemnation of Putin, who is currently digging in at Volgograd for what promises to be his last stand against NATO's tanks. "Along the banks of the quietly flowing Volga, Operation Engendering Freedom shall leave no stone atop another stone," promised Vice President Josephina Biden, whose campaign to become the first female Democratic presidential nominee has soared since the invasion of Russia began. Ms. Biden trumped Hilary Clinton's effort to become the first woman President by declaring herself not just a woman but a pre-op transgender lesbian and marrying Miley Cyrus. Polls predict Ms. Biden will meet the Republican frontrunner, former California governor Arlene Schwarzenegger, in the White House's first all-woman race.
