Thursday, August 14, 2008
Russia rejects west's call to recognise Georgian sovereignty
The US and the Europe today demanded that any settlement of the conflict in Georgia had to be based on recognition of the small Black Sea country's territorial integrity. But after overrunning Georgia in five days with troops, tanks, and bombers, Russia rejected the terms.
The EU unveiled a blueprint for ending the bloodshed in Georgia following several days of French-led shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Tbilisi that resulted in a six-point plan underpinning a fragile ceasefire.
But Russia refused to accept those terms, declined to acknowledge Georgian sovereignty over all of its recognised territory, and refused to have any reference to it in the six-point peace plan mediated by the French and agreed by both Moscow and Tbilisi... [snip]
At Russian insistence, Georgian forces have to return to bases while Russian "peacekeepers" in the contested northern province of South Ossetia are allowed to stage security patrols "and additional security measures" until an "international mechanism" is agreed.
"That gives the Russians undefined security rights in undefined territory in Georgia. That's an invitation to further problems," the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, told the Guardian.
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Russia Blames the Victim
[from the NYT(?)]
Russia, not Georgia, has been stoking tensions in South Ossetia and another of Georgia’s breakaway areas, Abkhazia. After NATO held a summit in Bucharest, Romania, in April — at which Georgia and Ukraine received positive signs of potential membership — then-President Vladimir Putin of Russia signed a decree effectively treating Abkhazia and South Ossetia as parts of the Russian Federation.
It came after years of growing Russian efforts to assert control over these regions, for example, by distributing Russian passports to citizens and arranging the appointment of Russians to the territories’ governments. Mr. Putin oversaw a build-up of Russian “peacekeeping” forces in Abkhazia, which was clearly intended to provoke Georgia into a military response.
Yet Georgia showed restraint — in large part because Mr. Saakashvili understood that military adventurism would harm his NATO prospects. Moscow, in turn, transferred its efforts to South Ossetia, where pro-Russian rebels carried out attacks on Georgian forces and villages, finally provoking the response that Moscow had sought as a pretext to intervene.
Now Moscow has sent out the Black Sea fleet to Georgia’s coast and broadened the war into Abkhazia and Georgia proper, showing that Moscow’s war is not just about South Ossetia. In any case, Moscow’s own treatment of separatism — killing tens of thousands of Chechens over the past decade — says volumes about its claims that it is just trying to protect a minority population...
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Russia: US must choose Moscow or "project Georgia"
[HT:TP]
MEIENDORF CASTLE, Russia - Russia's foreign minister said on Wednesday the United States had to choose between partnership with Moscow and the Georgian leadership which he described as a "virtual project".
"We understand that this current Georgian leadership is a special project of the United States, but one day the United States will have to choose between defending its prestige over a virtual project or real partnership which requires joint action"...Georgia repeatedly accused Russia of breaking a ceasefire in their six-day-old conflict on Wednesday by pushing troops into the Georgian town of Gori, a claim denied by Moscow.
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Russia's actions could hurt US space presence
The Russian Soyuz vehicle will be the only option available for NASA to send crew and cargo to the space station until the shuttle's replacement becomes available for manned missions in 2015. Nelson fears deteriorating U.S.-Russia politics may result in "Russia denying us rides or charging exorbitant amounts for them".
NASA's agreement to purchase rides on the Soyuz came about from a waiver Congress granted the agency from the Iran-Syria Non-Proliferation Act. The law prohibits the United States from buying space-related goods and services from Russia while that nation exports nuclear technology to Iran.
Nelson blamed the Bush administration for making the nation so reliant on Russia by failing to devote more money to the space program.
[5 year gap between the retirement of the shuttle and its replacement comes on-line. What do we do about our many satellites? Space is the modern day high ground - what were our 'leaders' thinking? And if Obama's elected...]
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[FLASHBACK: NNBrief 5/15/2008:
Obama's Plan for NASA
After 2010, the Shuttles are gone. The Constellation project will provide the vehicles for the next big step in space exploration. That is unless Barack Obama becomes our 44th president. The last paragraph in his 15-page "Plan For Lifetime Success Through Education" reads:
.The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five [more] years...READ BRIEF
NYT Goes on Attack Against Anti-Obama Book
For years, the New York Times has praised misleading books from liberal authors attacking President Bush and the war in Iraq: Tomes by Michael Moore, Seymour Hersh, Kitty Kelley, Richard Clarke, Jane Mayer, and Ron Suskind -- too many to mention.
Yet when a wildly successful book [debuted at #1] appears that attacks the Times's favored candidate, Democrat nominee Barack Obama, the paper unloads a front-page attack against... a book.
The Times certainly never deployed such aggressive opinionating to the anti-Bush screeds that have come over the transom - indeed, the paper blessed them with favorable reviews. If the Times does lower itself to actually review the Corsi book, expect the review to be brazenly hostile.
This isn't a new pattern: In the month before the 2004 election, the Times gave "Unfit for Command," the famous book outlining the case against Kerry by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a 100% negative review, while at the same time praised "The Family," a trashy Kitty Kelley biography of the Bush political dynasty.
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Israel warns Russia: We'll neutralize S-300 sold to Iran
If Russia goes through with the sale of its most advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Iran, Israel will use an electronic warfare device now under development to neutralize it and as a result present Russia as vulnerable to air infiltrations, a top defense official has told The Jerusalem Post. The Russian system, called the S-300, is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in the world today .....
[and they're selling it to Iran - they who also sit on the UN 'security council']
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A festival of grovelling to terrorists
Have you heard about the first novel by a young American woman that has become the “new Satanic Verses”, sparking terrorist attacks on the publishers and riots by Islamic militants that make the protests against Salman Rushdie's book look like an English tea party?
No, you probably won't have, since there is no book for anybody to riot about. The US publishers Random House pulled The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones, due out today, on the ground that it “might be offensive to some in the Muslim community” and “could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment".
There had been no acts of violence or terrorism, nor even threats or protests.
All that happened was that one non-Muslim associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas, who was sent a proof copy, apparently cautioned that the book would be seen as “a declaration of war... explosive stuff... a national security issue” and more offensive than The Satanic Verses. There swiftly followed a riot of retreating publishers... [snip]
It looks like another example of a quiet wave of self-censorship and cultural cowardice sweeping Western art circles...
[Home of the Brave: they only scream about free speech when it's against those who are civilized and safe...]
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Massive Cheating by China at the Olympics
There is absolutely no doubt - none, zero, zilch - that the Chinese ''women's'' gymnastics team featured several little girls no older than 14 years of age - two years younger than the international federation allows for competition. Online registrations of these girls list one age, their passports list another. This is blatant cheating ...
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Krugman's Wager
Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman weighs in with an argument to DO SOMETHING!!!! about global warming:
It's true that scientists don't know exactly how much world temperatures will rise if we persist with business as usual. While there's a chance that we'll act against global warming only to find that the danger was overstated, there's also a chance that we'll fail to act only to find that the results of inaction were catastrophic. Which risk would you rather run?It wasn't so long ago that global warmists were acting as if their alarming forecasts had already come true, even likening skeptics to Holocaust deniers. Now they are reduced to saying we really don't know if global warmism is true or not, but since the consequences are so dire if it is, we'd better just assume that it is and act accordingly.
If this sounds familiar, perhaps you've heard of Pascal's Wager. Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century French theologian who argued that faith was a good bet, in that the payoff is "an infinity of an infinitely happy life." If the probability of God's existing is anything greater than zero the rational thing to do is bet on God. [snip]
One difference between Pascal's Wager and Krugman's is that whereas Pascal was making a case for individuals to embrace faith, Krugman is arguing for collective action--which is to say, he wishes to use the power of government to impose his beliefs on others....
[at great cost - and I'm not talking the trillions of dollars but millions of lives likely to be lost as a direct result of retarding the progress of 3rd world nations. all to make politicians more powerful and corporations more money]
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Limo Shortage For Denver Dems
Limousine liberals may be forced to take the bus at the Democratic National Convention this month because Denver simply does not have enough limos and black cars to go around. "We just don't have the cars - Denver just isn't really big on chauffeurs," said Barbara Curtis, of Two Step Limousine. "I am totally booked, and have been for six weeks."
[but the planet, the fever, the inhumanity... {the hypocrisy}]
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Windfall taxing big oil: how to make the gas crisis worse
... So theory tells us that excess profits attract the competition that wipes them out... and do so by lowering the prices of those things which were in short supply. So confiscating those extra profits will mean that first, no one making them has the money left to look for more and, secondly, no one is going to dive into the industry if they think that they won't be allowed to keep the profits they might make.
So, umm, a windfall tax on profits means that, umm, gas prices will stay higher in the future than they would have been without the tax. Which, if I've understood this thing properly, isn't in fact what the general public is baying out for.
I'm left with only one important question: who are the fools here?
Is it that those politicians, with their groups of extremely expensive and presumably highly intelligent advisors, are not intelligent enough to see that their plans are entirely counter-productive? Or is it that they know they are, but think that we the voters are too stupid to understand it ourselves?
[we should know this - because it's the chief (of many) poison pills Pelosi plans to put in any bill she allows to be voted on - Recommended > ]
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FCC Commissioner Warns Fairness Doctrine Might Involve Control of Web
[HT:RT]
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that possibility after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. on August 12. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC 3-2 vote to bar Comcast from engaging in certain Internet practices - expanding the federal agency's oversight of Internet networks.[snip]
"Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,' which won't be called that - it'll be called something else," McDowell said. "So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?"McDowell, a 2006 Bush appointee, also told BMI the Fairness Doctrine isn't currently on the FCC's radar. But a new administration and Congress elected in 2008 might renew Fairness Doctrine efforts, but under another name...
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OBAMA’S LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE
While Barack Obama's own children enjoy the best education money can buy, he wants to deny inner-city children the option of school choice, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD). Obama has been completely silent about the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program:
• The D.C. School Choice Act of 2003 established the federally funded voucher program that provides vouchers of up to $7,500 for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.But it was funded only through the 2008-09 school year. Democrats such as D.C.'s delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, want to kill the successful program, which shows that money is not the root of a good education:
• It lets students attend one of 60 participating nonpublic schools.
• Norton and Obama seem oblivious to the fact that District school spending is at $13,400 per student -- third-highest in the nation.Norton is leading the charge to block a mere $18 million in funding for the 2009-10 school year. This demonstration program serves some 1,900 students. A recent Education Department report found that nearly 90 percent of Opportunity scholarship students had higher reading scores than peers who didn't receive a scholarship. Not surprisingly, there are five applicants for every opening.
• Yet in 2007, D.C. public schools ranked last in math scores and second-to-last in reading scores for all urban public school systems in the United States, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
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EMBRACING PRIVATE SCHOOLS
Schools run by private enterprise? Free iPods and laptop computers to attract students? It may sound out of place in Sweden, that paragon of taxpayer-funded cradle-to-grave welfare. But a sweeping reform of the school system has survived the critics and, 16 years later, is spreading and attracting interest abroad.
Since the change was introduced in 1992 by a center-right government that briefly replaced the long-governing Social Democrats, the numbers have shot up:
• In 1992, 1.7 percent of high schoolers and 1 percent of elementary schoolchildren were privately educated.But while the percentage of children in U.S. private schools has dropped slightly in recent years, the trend in Sweden is growing:
• Now the figures are 17 percent and 9 percent.
• Before the reform, most families depended on state-run schools following a uniform national curriculum.Some Swedes say the private system drains funds from public education, but officials say independent schools have forced public schools to raise their own standards and improve efficiency.
• Now they can turn to the "friskolor," or independent schools, which choose their own teaching methods and staff, and manage their own buildings.
• They remain completely government-financed and are not allowed to charge tuition.
• The difference is that their government funding goes to private companies, which then try to run the schools more cost-effectively and keep whatever taxpayer money they save.
"Today, I think we have at least as good quality if not better than some independent schools because we have really joined the battle and use our money in a much better way," said Eva-Lotta Kastenholm, who is in charge of public schools in Sollentuna, a suburb of Stockholm.
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