NonProphet posted recently about Gorbachev’s Op-Ed in the New York Times about Georgia. It’s hard to criticize a nobel peace prize winner (oh, unless you’re a Republican and you’re talking about Jimmy Carter), but look at it this way: South Ossetia was artificially severed from North Ossetia by Stalin. It used to be one nation. In fact, most of the borders in that region are the result of Stalin’s desire to *create* ethnic tensions.

He figured that as long as these peoples continued to fight each other they wouldn’t be hankering for “freedoms” or otherwise bothering him. BUT, if you sew the two Ossetias back together again, the Russians (who are more closely aligned with the Ossetians) can move military equipment right to the southern borders and easily threaten Tblisi, Georgia. Clearly Georgia (and Isreal and the west, which have interests in the pipeline through Georgia) wish to keep some geographical border between Russia and the capital. The only way to do this is to tighten the grip on South Ossetia. If, like Isreal, they can seed enough little villages of ethnic Georgians there that the tension raises to a level that gives them an excuse to invade, even better. The fact that the US may have actually pushed the Georgians to this conclusion seems to have gotten lost in the news, but it was being talked about earlier in the month, and Gorbachev suggests it too. The problem is, Russia was obviously well prepared and standing ready to invade. The amount of armor they rolled in with cannot be called up in a day or two - they were not surprised by the Georgian “raid” into South Ossetia at all. Smells like a setup to me, to make Russia look like the bad guy and create a sense of cold war again (and if it scared Poland into signing that treaty for the missle defense system, so much the better I guess, right?). I work with a lot of Polish, Ukrainians, as well as Russians. They are in constant contact with folks back home and can read all those cryptic Cyrillic websites on lunch. It’s been a very interesting couple weeks at work. The Ukrainians and Polish are scared to death that the old Soviet Union will soon be marching back into their countries, while the Russians consider the Georgians an unruly, scary mob of mafiosos who dance around with knives in their mouths that would sooner cut you down as look at you (if you cross them). While I was brought up to fear the USSR, I have grown to be slightly suspicious of any non-English speaking foreign nation with a leader that speaks perfect English.

Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has once again introduced articles of impeachment against George Bush (he’s done so before but the Dems have decided it wasn’t in their best interest to pursue them). Will they, once again, be ignored? Impeachment is merely a rebuke. It carries no punitive weight other than public embarrassment, but for some reason speaking out against injustice, corruption, and abuse of power hasn’t been very much in vogue during the last few years. Hard to believe this nation believes that sexual trysts in the white house rise to the level of impeachment while the following real crimes do not, but it appears to be so.

I’ve posted a handy list of the articles below. For a full accounting behind each see the document posted here. If true, I would be particularly interested in hearing Bush’s justification for the charges in Article XX: “The continued detention of such children, some as young as 10, by the US military is a violation of both convention and protocol, and as such constitutes a war crime for which the president, as commander in chief, bears full responsibility.” since the Geneva convention clearly states that children younger than 15 are to be treated as victims, not combatants.

Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.

Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.

Article III
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.

Article IV
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States.

Article V
Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.

Article VI
Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.

Article VII
Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.

Article VIII
Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.

Article IX
Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor

Article X
Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes

Article XI
Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq

Article XII
Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation’s Natural Resources

Article XIIII
Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries

Article XIV
Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency

Article XV
Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq

Article XVI
Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors

Article XVII
Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives

Article XVIII
Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy

Article XIX
Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to “Black Sites” Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture

Article XX
Imprisoning Children

Article XXI
Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government

Article XXII
Creating Secret Laws

Article XXIII
Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act

Article XXIV
Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment

Article XXV
Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens

Article XXVI
Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements

Article XXVII
Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply

Article XXVIII
Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice

Article XXIX
Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Article XXX
Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare

Article XXXI
Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency

Article XXXII
Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change

Article XXXIII
Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.

Article XXXIV
Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001

Article XXXV
Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders

This is pretty cool if you have some videos posted. Google/Youtube announced that they have just released a new statistics package called Insight today for users of YouTube that lets video authors see a stats graph of the hits on their videos, as well as a map that displays from where around the world these hits are coming. I recognize the graph display from Google’s finance page. Click on Account | Manage My Videos | Videos, Favorites, & Playlists then click any ‘About this video’ button to see the new stats info.

Google didn’t get any of the 700MHz wireless spectrum that the FCC put up for auction, it all went to big phone companies Verizon (and their partner Vodaphone) and AT&T. But that doesn’t mean that Google ‘lost’, after all they pushed for openness, and that’s what has been forced on the big players. “Verizon must allow outside devices such as mobile handsets from other carriers and must allow users to run outside applications on the network. Verizon originally filed a lawsuit against the FCC’s open-access rules, but dropped out while trade group the CTIA continued with the lawsuit.” (infoworld) Meanwhile, nobody won the right to run the D block, a proposed set of frequencies to be set aside to ensure easier communication between the various emergency services across the nation. So who won? Looks like everybody got what they wanted except the public. No new player in telecom, no nationwide emergency system.

I find myself thinking about how ironic it is that Gloria Vanderbilt’s son Anderson Cooper can ramble on about NY Governor Spitzer’s alleged illicit associations with high class prostitutes for hours on end on CNN tonight. Cooper is apparently a very private person and does not discuss his personal life, but word on the street is that he has been spotted at “gay spots” around town. While I’m certainly not comparing prostitution (which is illegal in the US) and being gay (which at least currently, is not) I still think that if anyone should feel uncomfortable about probing (if you’ll pardon the expression) into this private sexual matter it would be Cooper. No matter how you feel about prostitution, clearly these were two consenting adults - nobody was forced into anything. The whole thing is so obviously a set-up, but he so richly deserved to be set up. Personally I didn’t want to hear about the Governor’s indiscretions as long as he used his own money (and not mine). Spitzer was starting to shake things up and clean house. Thankfully, now the most dysfunctional state government in the country can get back to the business of wasting my money as they have done so well for so long.

According to Cinema Blend, Terry Jones was never very happy with Erik the Viking (1989) and has decided to release a re-cut, shorter version of the film later this year! This post is mainly to remind myself to order it when it comes out in December, since I see no way of pre-ordering it on Amazon.

Before the 2000 election in a presidential debate against Al Gore, GW was on a different crusade attempting to convince Americans that if Al Gore became president we’d get bogged down militarily around the globe trying to bring democracy to undeserving nations.

I think we’ve got to be very careful when we commit our troops. The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in national building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders.

– George W. Bush (Presidential debate, Oct. 4, 2000)
More great Bush quotes