President Vladimir Putin is visiting the US today, and will stay today and tomorrow at Walker’s Point, the Bu$h family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. They will discuss issues of common interest, including US missiles in Europe and Russia’s growing influence in Iran.

A cynical man might suspect a Russia that was close with Iran would make it difficult to bring about the Likud Party’s decade-old dream of destroying Iran in a nuclear holocaust. Maybe the Bu$h malAdministration figures they can trade away the European defense scheme for Russia’s agreeing to let Iran be bombed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush will host Russia's President Vladimir Putin in July amid tensions over U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Europe and criticism that Moscow is retreating on democracy.

Putin will visit Bush at his parents' home in the resort town of Kennebunkport, Maine, July 1-2, White House spokesman Tony Snow said on Wednesday.

"The president looks forward to the visit as part of the intensive bilateral dialogue with President Putin," Snow said. "Cooperation between the United States and Russia is important in solving regional conflicts, stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and combating terrorism and extremism."

How pathetic is this? Young Mr Bu$h gets this great idea to put anti-missile missiles in Poland, and a whomping big radar in the Czech Republic, claiming he wants to protect Europe from Iranian missiles that don’t exist. Mr Putin calls bullshit, and counters with a suggestion that they put the radar in a site the Russians already operate in Azerbaijan, and then has a brand new ICBM with a MIRV head tested, just to make his point clear. Mr Bu$h doesn’t like people to tell him what to do, but figures his Dad will help him double-team the Russians.

The fact that the elder Mr Bu$h is scheduled to meet President Putin at Pease AFB in New Hampshire is a nice touch. They will then fly by helicopter to Kennebunkport, where young Mr Bu$h will be waiting. I’m not trained in diplomacy, but I think sending my dad to pick up a visitor at the airport is a bit demeaning.

President Putin, who has sent a lifetime climbing up through the KGB and the shadowy halls of Russian politics, is reputed to be a sharp man. I suppose it was decided that at least one Bu$h with a passing knowledge of diplomacy needed to be present at the meeting. They’re scheduled to have a special breakfast tomorrow and I can’t think of a snappy comment about that other than porridge is always a favorite in Maine.

By the way, Mr Bu$h, ask Mr Putin about this:

PORTSMOUTH — A Russian man attempted to pass off a phony $100 bill at the New Hampshire State Liquor store shortly before 8 p.m. Thursday, according to the store manager, who said a cashier discovered the bill was bogus.

No arrest was made, according to police, but the incident was the talk of the store because Russians are known to be staying in the city ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin's scheduled visit with President Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, on Sunday.

Liquor store manager Mike Smith said the man, accompanied by four other Russian men, attempted to purchase two bottles of Scotch whiskey with the bum $100. The cashier used a special pen to mark the bill to test its authenticity.

"It turned a color that it's not supposed to, and when he saw that, he grabbed the bill back and left," said Smith.

The Treasury Department has long maintained that some of the better counterfeit $100 bills come from east of the Vistula. In fact, the $100 bill is the favored currency of trade on the streets of Moscow, Kiev, and St Petersburg.

TBILISI, Georgia -- The U.S. Secret Service and Georgian police are investigating an international counterfeiting operation that stretches from a separatist enclave in this former Soviet republic to Maryland, where fake $100 bills have been seized, according to senior officials and investigators here. The allegations are supported by American diplomats, U.S. court documents and a recent report to Congress.

From a printing press in South Ossetia, a sliver of land with no formally recognized government, more than $20 million in the fake bills has been transported to Israel and the United States, according to investigators. The counterfeit $100 notes have also surfaced in Georgia and Russia, officials said.

The fake notes have been passed at numerous businesses throughout the Baltimore area and have also surfaced in New York, Newark and Buffalo, according to court papers and the joint report to Congress by the Secret Service, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. The report, issued in September, also said the number of counterfeit notes produced in this region and passed in the United States has "increased dramatically" in recent years.

The presence in South Ossetia of an international counterfeiting ring capable of producing thousands of bills, according to investigators, is a stark example of how organized crime has flourished, sometimes through the neglect or alleged involvement of officials, in areas of the former Soviet Union whose territorial status remains unresolved 15 years after the fall of communism.

Don’t think for a second that this little breakaway province is managing this all by itself.

Georgian investigators said the fake bills from South Ossetia are made with special ink and paper and have watermarks, different serial numbers and other features that allow them to be easily passed off as real. "They are of very high quality," Konstantin Kemularia, secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said in an interview.

The counterfeiting operation in the region has become another irritant in U.S. relations with Russia, which acts, in effect, as a protector for South Ossetia; Russian peacekeeping troops patrol the breakaway enclave, and most of its residents have been issued Russian passports.