Yushchenko

Yushchenko"I know what kind of country I live in, and who’s in charge of the government," says Yushchenko. "But I didn’t think they’d be cynical enough to poison me." Huh? How well did he know the country he lives in and who's in charge?

Dioxin is not immediately fatal, even at high doses although it increases the chances of a person dying prematurely. Believe me, if the old KGB wanted to get Mr. Y. they would've got him with something besides a dose of Agent Orange in his crawdaddies and beer. I don't buy the argument that they didn't want to kill Yush, just disfigure him. Making him literally the ugly Ukranian would be unique maybe in the field of political campaign strategy.

Yushchenko symptoms stumped the doctors in Ukraine but finally Austrian physicians sent Amsterdam labs blood samples who then diagnosed dioxin poisoning. Initial news reports stated a tiny dose of dioxin, current stories claim the second highest known recorded level. Talk about spin.

As a child in the rural south I saw more than a few men wearing Yushchenko's face. My daddy explained they were "wood alcohol" drunkards. Seems methyl alcohol could be added to moonshine, but the "distiller" had to be very careful of the amount or one would end indeed "blind drunk" if not dead. These drunks too had had symptoms of nausea, abdominal pain, weakness, chloracne, pancreatitis, liver damage. Someone once said we wear the face we deserve by age 50. I'm not saying Mr. Yushchenko is a drunk, but damn, he certainly sports the face of someone with too many years of drinking bad bootleg liquor.