Kelsey Grammer, heart of darkness (Getty Images)

In Pitchfork's serious-minded look at the Russian band Pussy Riot (whose supporters in their legal battle against the amassed forces of Vladimir Putin will be protesting tonight), riot grrrl icon Kathleen Hanna admits to an idiosyncratic view of 1990s TV. When describing the process by which Russian authorities took legal recourse against Pussy Riot's lyrics, Ms. Hanna noted: "I mean, I feel totally damaged by the TV show Frasier, but I can't call up the police and get Kelsey Grammer arrested."

Look, "tossed salad and scrambled eggs" has never exactly been our favorite lyric, and Niles's relationship with Daphne is extremely unprofessional, but Caroline in the City was a way more upsetting NBC standard. Then again, Kelsey Grammer's recent declaration that his Republicanism denied him a shot for a sixth Emmy for his new show, Boss, was incredibly irritating, if not damaging.

"Pussy Riot" Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (L), Maria Alyokhina (R) and Yekaterina Samutsevich (C) (Getty Images)

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich could be looking at anywhere from 3-7 years of jail time, even though President Putin himself said that he did not agree with the severity of the sentence.

The whole tale is long and sordid, and as much about Russia's own hooliganism over its citizens as it is about censorship, but hey look over here Madonna's shown up!

Madonna, who is putting on a show in Moscow as well as open a Hard Candy fitness club, said about the incident:

"I am against censorship and my whole career I always promoted freedom of expression, freedom of speech, so obviously I think what's happening to them is unfair and I hope that they do not.... I hope they do not have to serve seven years in jail. That would be a tragedy."

Thanks Madonna! Now, if only you could get someone to try and prosecute you for being as inherently provocative as these women were...maybe you could show your butt or a nipple on-stage during another show? Maybe slip a swastika on Putin's head during your concert? Hey, we're just going with your tried and true repertoire, here.

• Price lists for pro-Putin bloggers and commenters which indicate that some are paid as much as 600,000 roubles (£12,500) for leaving hundreds of comments on negative stories about Putin.

• Plans to pay more than 10m roubles to buy a series of articles about Nashi's annual Seliger summer camp in two popular Russian tabloids.

• Calls for paid Nashi activists to "dislike" anti-regime videos posted on YouTube.

• Ideas for smear campaigns against what one activist calls the "fascist" Russian opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, such as a cartoon video likening him to Hitler and a suggestion someone dress up like the blogger to beg for alms in front of the US embassy.

Anonymous has said the hack, in the works since Spring 2011, was meant to be "a sign of protest" against the Russian government's "actions in the public Internet sphere."

Russians interviwed by the U.K. paper about the hack seem to shrug it off to some degree. Opposition leader Navalny said that Nashi doesn't have "real people" who will freely support the group's cause, "So they pay."

Nashi leader Nikita Borovikov seemed unconcerned: "For several years, I've got used to the fact that our email is periodically hacked [...] I'm a law abiding person, and have nothing to fear of hiding, so I pay no attention."

Paid partisan blogging and trolling are not exclusive to politically-motivated Russian groups. A simple Google search for the term "paid trolls" yields over 71,000 results.

[The Guardian]

 "Assange said that Russians will soon find out a lot about their country and he wasn't bluffing," Novaya Gazeta said. "Our collaboration will expose corruption at the top tiers of political power. No one is protected from the truth."

The newspaper has been given full access to the Wikileaks database and will begin publishing documents next month.

Novaya Gazeta is a weekly newspaper run by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and billionaire Alexander Lebedev, known as an independent and critical alternative to the state-run papers. It was home to Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who wrote about civil rights abuse in Chechnya and corruption in Putin's Kremlin and was assassinated on Putin's birthday in 2006.

Documents about Politovskaya's murder, as well as information linking Russian officials to organized crime, are reportedly in the imminent release.

@kstoeffel | kstoeffel@observer.com

Hot stuff! Putin's probably sicced his old KGB buddies on the those with loose lips, seeking to quash the rumors. But the release of a certain magazine may make it hard to lower Alina's profile -- the beauty is set to stare out from newsstands across the world as the cover girl for January's Russian Vogue.

The Telegraph reports that Putin sternly denied any improper relationship between him and Alina, who also works within Putin's party, after a newspaper ran a story saying he had left his wife and two daughters and taken up with the gymnast.

The issue will almost certainly place newly appointed Russian Vogue editor Viktoria Davydova in hot water, and will come out in January.

If the rumors, which first surfaced in 2008, are true, let's just hope that Putin doesn't croon his love interest to sleep. Yes, Vlad, we know you like Fats Domino tunes, but we can't say we're a fan of the singing voice.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

And with that a backup band tore into a cheesy, keyboard-led rendition of the Fats Domino classic "Blueberry Hill," with singing duties handled by Vlad himself.

To call the video evidence of this scene bizarre is selling it short -- it's a document that tickles you in odd, subtle ways. Putin, with his hand in his pocket, struggles with the English lyrics. Quick cuts show Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell and Sharon Stone gleefully clapping along in the audience. At the end, the crowd gives him a big standing ovation.

Experience the magic. Watch the video below.

The ceremony was attended by former Russian President Vladimir Putin, the one-time KGB agent who has spent a good amount of time with the agents. He has "sung patriotic songs with them," the Post claims. 

While Chapman was last seen earlier this month at a space launch in Kazakhstan, The Telegraph reports, the sexy spy has been somewhat reluctant to make flashy public appearances: A week earlier, a Moscow hotspot boasted that the "head heroine of the spy scandal of the year, the Russian Mata Hari Anna Chapman" would stop by on a certain night, but in the end she was a no-show. 

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

The UK Guardian reported in 2007 that Mr. Kasparov spends thousands of dollars on bodyguards each month to protect him and his family. But, I wouldn't worry about him having to sell the family silver as it seems that the chess grandmaster has money to spend. As well as his recent $3.4 million purchase on the Upper West Side, Mr. Kasparov keeps residences in Paris, Moscow, Leningrad and that political hotbed: New Jersey. The deed for the penthouse condo was filed under the names of both Mr. Kasparov and his third wife, Daria, with whom he has a young daughter.

Mr. Kasparov, who was arrested during a protest in Moscow in 2007, told Playboy in an interview, “If something goes wrong with me or my family, I don't think there's a chance for them [the Kremlin] to say they aren't guilty. For many Russians, I'm a symbol of national pride. I was the Soviet champion even for the left wing, even for the nationalists. I'm not Garry Kasparov, half-Armenian, half-Jewish born, but the Soviet champion, the man who was on top of the world of chess, the pride of the nation.”

Mr. Kasparov may soon assume a new role as the international pride of the Upper West Side.

cmalle@observer.com

Davis seems to have made a lot of money in Montenegro, running an independence campaign that was supported by a starry-eyed McCain (he called it the "the greatest European democracy project since the end of the cold war" ) and a gimlet-eyed Putin (whose cronies and deputies have turned the little patch of former Yugoslavia into "Moscow on the Mediterranean"). Back when Davis was found to have promoted Russian interests in Ukraine, McCain got a pass because he had taken the opposite position.

The Montenegro story features both McCain and his disreputable associates as instruments of Kremlin policy. But there is much more to this story...

In particular, the article takes a look at the existence of a so-called "stop list," which the Times describes as "a roster of political opponents and other critics of the government who have been barred from TV news and political talk shows by the Kremlin."

"In interviews, journalists said that they did not believe the Kremlin kept an official master stop list, but that the networks kept their own, and that they all operated under an informal stop list - an understanding of the Kremlin's likes and dislikes," reports the Times.

According to the Times, the stop list isn't just limited to politicians, and seems to more or less include any notable public figure who has criticized Mr. Putin's government, ranging from a rock group that took place in a political demonstration to a group of actors who poked fun of Mr. Putin during a public awards ceremony.

"Indeed, political humor in general has been exiled from TV," reports the Times.