Month: September 2008

As the Caucuses Turns

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Unsurprisingly, we have reports that Cheney to made promises to support Georgia while there.

Once again, Mr. Deferment is letting his mouth cut checks that someone else’s kids will have to cash.

No doubt he promised more welfare for American defense contractors to help rebuild their military, which the Georgians are reportedly very eager to do.

Additionally, it appears that once again, Cheney is determined to make another problem worse, as he is lobbying for the US terminating the civil nuclear cooperation pact with Russia, which is likely to mean more ill-secured nuclear material in that nation.

This isn’t to say that Russian diplomatic efforts are going well. They just got the kiss of death diplomatically, when Hugo Chavez of Venezuela backed the Russian recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Also, in the, “I thought that this has already happened,” category, we have Georgia severing diplomatic ties with Russia.

I think that the final word on this conflict comes from William Pfaff:

Ukraine and the Baltic states have been given the lesson that great powers do not go to war against other heavily armed great powers just to settle ancient sectarian quarrels or linguistic rivalries in client countries, even if those are prospective NATO members.

Meanwhile, Saakashvili is beginning to see domestic push-back from his failed adventure, with the opposition now saying that some of the blame lays in the, “US educated Georgian leader,” for the spanking received from the Russians.

Meanwhile, the EU has been unable to come to a consensus on any diplomatic actions to take, which is an indication that the EU does need a change in governance structure, just not the one that they are trying to ram down the throat of the Irish.

Russia remains completely unapologetic about the whole affair, which is not surprising, as over the top as some of the statements made by Moscow on the conflict are, it’s clear that this is a real statement of how Russia feels about both Georgia and NATO expansion.

While I am not as big a fan of delving into the minutiae of military conflicts analysis as, for example, the War Nerd, Aviation Week does have an interesting report on Russian self-analysis on what happened in Georgia. (paid subscription required)

Not surprisingly, the RuAF comes in for most of the criticism. There was apparently little preparation on their point, and no attempts to use long range PGWs to take out Georgian air defense systems.

Another Failure for Bush and His Evil Minions&trade

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Well, after expending all that time and effort on trying to ram through a US-India nuclear deal, it appears that even with the deal, India will be going with non-US companies for its nuclear needs, they will go to French and Russian companies.

It turns out that the Indian model, of purchasing whole systems from one vendor, does not lend itself to the way that the US nuclear power industry is structured.

So Bush isn’t even making money for GE and Bechtel out of this.

More Things that Make You Go Hmm about Sarah Palin

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Or maybe it makes you go Hmm about John Sidney McCain.

A friend that I’ve never met offline who shall remain nameless* said the following:

But here’s something else. They [big name Republithug friends of my source] believe she was told she was going to be the VEEP pick on the flight to Ohio. She thought she was just speaking at the convention. We both believe McCain may have made this choice after Obama’s Thursday night speech … it sure did the trick of getting the news off of that speech … didn’t it?

If this is true, McCain is even more fracked in the head than I had previously believed.

*Yes, it is a thrill to have my own anonymous source.

The Sarah Palin Clown Show

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Well, first we have updates on troopergate, we have documentation from the fired state police head Walter Monegan that Palins husband and senior staffers pressured him to fire Michael Wooten, who had been involved in a messy divorce with Palin’s sister.

He also claims to have emails from Sarah Palin on the matter, additionally, the Anchorage Daily News quotes him as saying that Palin talked to him personally on the matter twice.

Also, we have the Juneau Empire* is no reporting that a political appointee of the Alaska State Troopers reversed an internal investigation by professional staff in order to take disciplinary measures against him.

What’s more, this is not the first example of blatant cronyism and retribution by Palin. In 1996, while mayor of Wasilla, she fired the chief of police and directory of libraries because they suppored her opponent, which leed to an abortive recall campaign.

It also appears that the McCain campaign had not vetted Palin at all before her selection. It appears that her local paper, The Valley Frontiersman, does not have its archives online, and a Democratic Party Opposition researcher was informed by staff that their inquiry was the first such request.

It appears that Obama gave a good speech, and the sick old man, John Sidney McCain, panicked.

Even better, her mother-in-law says that she might not vote for her.

I have to agree 90% with Barack Obama when he says that a family should be off limits, so the story of Bristol Palin, her 17 year old daughter being pregnant out of wedlock should be generally off the table.

However, I will argue that the situation does point to a problem with Sarah Palin’s policies: She is strongly opposed to comprehensive sex education, and her daughter’s situation indicates that her position is wrongheaded and stupid.

In any case, this appears to be a Thomas Eagleton moment.

*I spent 4 Years in Juneau growing up, and I always thought of the paper as the Vampire…It was, at least in the 1960s, kind of right wing.