What's your favorite color.

No, no ,no…i wasn`t taliking about the F - word at all, instead I talked about the word frick you mentioned.

@Gargantua:

International weaker sex day.

Actually, my girlfriend was pretty strong in the sex department on that day. It certainly wasn’t weaker than any other.

Plus the evolving Beatle Eras offered different tastes of Beatles music.

In other words, all their music doesn’t always sound the same.  Can’t say that of too many bands.

I must confess I cried myself to sleep many a night when he was too busy with work to grace us with his presence. May it never happen again!

I didn’t think Enemy At the Gates was very good as far as representing the reality of WW2 in Russia.  It was still entertaining.

I liked Stalingrad a lot better.  Worth checking out, if you can find it.

Imperial Leader is calling other people “arrogant” . . . that’s pretty funny.
Are you saying this as an AMERICAN?  Or as another citizen of the world?  (please say American, please say American)

I am saying this as a  US’an a term i learned from a good friend. From now on thats what im calling all European- Americans. You are blinded by the light… such arrogance is a trait of those nations and people still thinking they run things but have lost their clout a long time ago. No im not talking about you!

Now for a word from our sponsers:
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I think most of the backing came due to two facts:
(1) the USSR needed reforms, that was obvious.
Still, they probably wanted a long term leader that could be influenced => a younger one, after the two short reigns of Andropov and what-was-his-name… Probably, the influentials wanted some change, but surely not that much that it would threaten their power-base, one of the reasons for the coup that failed due to Jelzins help for Gorbachev.
(2) The general secretary and all the other positions he fills made him the most powerful man in the USSR. Probably, whoever put Gorbachev into place, underestimated him. Pretty much the same underestimation that Hitler faced when he was appointed Chancellor, but luckily Gorbachev used that to reform positively, and i consider the new freedom of information, the right to ask wether the party is right and that the crucial reform.

So, I don’t think that there was “real” backing, i believe Gorbachev was kind of a compromise candidate, kind of a makeshift. Of course, once he was into power, you ccouldn’t remove instantly, that would have meant that the party made a mistake (which was not “allowed” before Gorbachev). And he was clever enough to stay into power, and use his popularity at the beginning (which soon, after the economy started to collapse openly, was reduced to more or less nothing) to enforece the reforms.