Blood

Bonus music. There was some piano on it, but I decided it didn't add anything to the guitar and Irish whistle and took it off. I experimented with drums (synth drums, not real ones, not interested in being evicted!) also and came to similar conclusion.

This was done with Presonus Studio One on my Macbook Pro, with a Presonus Firebox interface, Squier Duo-Sonic guitar thru a Roland Microcube set to 'Brit Combo' with reverb turned to max, and a Waltons "C" Irish whistle. The vocals and whistle are thru an Audix OM2 microphone hooked to the Firebox thru a Behringer Xenyx1202FX mixer because otherwise I can't get sufficient volume out of a dynamic mike hooked direct to the Firebox.

There's a couple of minor glitches in the guitar and a couple of minor glitches in the whistle but you have to be paying close attention to notice them so I'm reasonably pleased. I could have done a bit of editing work in the Presonus editor and maybe a few toots and notes to do fill-ins at the glitchy spots and cleared that up but frankly don't care enough, it's not as if I make my living doing music after all.

Why Presonus Studio One: Of all the DAW software I've tried, it's the one with the most reasonable workflow. I've owned Logic for years, but I fired up Logic the other day after having not used it for a year or so and could not make head nor tails of it despite once knowing how to use it. If Apple had any sense they'd fire the entire Logic software development team, purchase Presonus, and re-brand Studio One as an Apple product... it's the most Apple-ish of the DAW software that I've used, as vs. Logic which makes sense only if you're a German techno geek (which describes the German team that wrote it).

-- Badtux the Musician Penguin

War is hell

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. [...] You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people [...] can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride." -- General William Tecumseh Sherman to the citizens of Atlanta.

-- Badtux the War Penguin

H/T

The dirty little secret

So, why did the United States go into Iraq and Afghanistan with such inadequate forces? Why was there no mass mobilization of the American people, no mass production of enormous quantities of war materials, no vast expansion of the U.S. military that could have employed some of the millions of unemployed Americans who otherwise have nothing to do with their lives right now?

People blame the Busheviks for being incompetent. And in a way they were -- they got us into situations where the available resources simply weren't adequate to the task at hand. But why were the resources inadequate? The answer is simple, the answer is so simple that it isn't going to be a surprise once you see it. The answer is also the answer to why Great Depression II that we're sliding into thanks to the victory of the Austerians world wide is not going to be ended by a World War like the original Great Depression. And that answer is... OIL.

Yes. Oil. The deal is that it takes vast amounts of oil to move large armies across vast oceans and manufacture war materials to equip them, and the world no longer has sufficient oil for that purpose. The United States had to basically cut off civilian travel during WW2 in order to have enough oil to do this, but that was when the United States had its own domestic oil. But all that domestic oil has been pumped out of the ground and burned off via tailpipes. There is only 5% or so of the original oil reserves of the United States left untapped, and if we tapped every single bit of it, we would have enough oil for maybe 5 years total at current consumption levels -- consumption levels that a war would require doubling in order to produce sufficient war materials and move them to where the armies were fighting.

The reality is that the world no longer has enough war to wage world wars. There isn't enough oil left in the world to do the doubling of oil consumption that would be required to train, equip, and transport vast numbers of soldiers and expend vast tonnages of munitions upon targets. The only world war that makes any sense in the modern era is nuclear war... and that is the kind of war that ends unemployment problems, certainly, but only because dead people don't care that they're unemployed.

So it goes, in the endtimes, as we penguins sit on the sideline munching our popcorn watching the monkeys squabble over the last remaining dribbles of black gold from the ground... well, those of us not already killed by global warming, of course, but that's a different issue.

-- Badtux the Oily Penguin

Sleepless

Conor Furlong - "Are You Gonna Sleep Tonight?" off of his album Playing with Fire, available from iTunes.

As I post this video, fireworks explode outside. That is an appropriate thing to happen on Memorial Day eve. I came across this video yesterday and moved the video that *was* in this spot elsewhere. Click on the video and you will see why.

-- Badtux the Sombre Music Penguin

How times change...

On November 18, 1931, Japanese troops staged a fake railroad explosion in southern Manchuria and used this "attack" on Japanese interests to justify invading Manchuria.

Once upon a time, there had to actually be a violent act against you to justify going to war. Or at least a staged one, like the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine or a fake attack upon Germany by "Polish soldiers". That all changed on March 20, 2003, when President George Bush the Lesser established the precedent that you can invade without bothering staging a fake attack upon your nation -- all that's necessary is to say that country X might, at some point in the distance future, be a threat to your nation and presto, instant excuse to invade!

I'm an elderly enough penguin to know that the "good old days" weren't so golden. Institutionalized racism, for example, was rampant and legal in every state of the United States. Still, at least there were some moral conventions that had to be followed back then to justify extraordinary acts like invading other nations, and it seems we've gone forwards on civil rights, but gone backwards in far too many other things...

-- Badtux the History Penguin

Sunday Evening Music

Jason Isbell, Dress Blues. Sombre. Why are we still in Iraq?

-- Badtux the Grim Penguin

Why nobody is invading North Korea

Okay, so as Brian at Why Now mentioned, the Chinese are pretty pissed at North Korea for exploding a nuke and firing off some more missiles. As in, pissed enough that they voted for some U.N. security council resolutions and basically told Li'l Kim, "Stop that shit - or else!" The "or else", though.... ah yes, therein lies the problem. Sure, China could cut off its economic support for Li'l Kim's regime. But then a) you got a lot of starving peasants (what, you don't think Li'l Kim would go hungry? Perish the thought!), and b) it doesn't hurt Li'L Kim a whole lot because most of the country *already* has devolved economically to pre-industrial times with animal power and all that.

Which brings up the real reason nobody has invaded North Korea since Li'l Kim started being a bad boy. That million man army? Bah. They spend most springs planting crops, and most autumns harvesting crops, and do fuck-all little training and none of their advanced weapons actually work anymore due to age and lack of fuel. They're basically a hoard armed with AK-47's, RPG's, and mortars, and any modern army (or even China's only halfway-modern army) could crush them like a bug. The problem is, once you do that, then what? You invade the place, you own it. And what you own is a medieval hell-hole where the entire population has been brainwashed and indoctrinated into some weird-ass cult shit, and the economy relies on having a million soldiers planting rice in the spring and harvesting rice in the fall and that's the million soldiers you just crushed, remember? Meaning, economic collapse. Meaning, you own this shit unless you want pictures of starving North Korean babies showing up on the Western news. Both South Korea and China have plenty of capability to invade and conquer North Korea any time they like (South Korea's modern army is some real hard-asses, they basically model themselves on the old Imperial Japanese Army but with modern warfighting equipment like some damn fine Hyundai tanks and supporting F-15's), but the question of "then what?" still remains, and nobody has the slightest inclination to hurry up the answer to that question until they have no choice at all.

- Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin

Merry Christmas happy music blogging

For all the gifts that the American people have given to the peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Iraq:

Merry Christmas.

-- Badtux the Sombre Penguin

Talking with the Taliban

Folks talk about whether we ought to negotiate a settlement with the Taliban. Well, we're past that. Not because of idiotic neo-con screeds about how we can "win" in Afghanistan by cleaning up the Afghan "government". But, rather, because we're in the same position to negotiate with the Taliban today that Adolph Hitler was in to negotiate with the Soviet Union on April 29, 1945: I.e., a position of abject defeat. We've lost. We can't supply enough fuel and ammunition by air via the rough airstrips of Afghanistan to keep our troops fueled and moving, no more than the French could at Dien Bien Phu, and the Taliban have cut off the land logistics routes. This isn't Khe Sahn where we're bumping supplies a hundred miles over the jungle at low altitudes. Kirachi, the port in Pakistan where all our stuff gets unloaded off ships, is 700 miles and 5900 feet altitude from Kabul.

Any negotiation with the Taliban today will be similar to any attempt by Hitler on April 29 1945 to negotiate with the Soviets: a disdainful laugh, followed by the demand to unconditionally surrender. That's the reality of the situation. Unless we can get that land logistics route re-opened, there simply is no "there" there, and nothing to negotiate.

-- Badtux the Reality-based Penguin

December 7, 1941

Japanese aircraft attacked military targets in Hawaii in a surprise attack, sinking a number of battleships and disabling the airfields used for air defense purposes, not that there were sufficient front-line fighter aircraft around Oahu to put up much of a fight. Within four years, over forty aircraft carriers had been built, 16 million Americans put into arms, over 200,000 aircraft and 120,000 tanks built, the atomic bomb developed and used, and every major city of Japan was rubble, some of it glowing radioactively, and Japan and Germany (which had declared war shortly after Japan's attack) were both ruins and occupied by U.S. sodiers (Japan) and U.S., British, and Soviet soldiers (Germany).

On September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked by Osama bin Laden. Seven years and two failed wars later, Osama is still alive, and the U.S. military is in tatters, with barely enough combat-ready equipment for 150,000 soldiers. This is the legacy that George W. Bush leaves us. I think a lot of people could have forgiven him for invading Iraq and Afghanistan if he'd actually won -- if the countries had been occupied by millions of American soldiers, and rebuilt from scratch as modern democracies. But that would have required sacrifice on the part of Americans, and Georgie thought that Americans were too spoiled and soft to be willing to pay the price for victory, misunderestimating his own weakness for a weakness in America. And perhaps that's for the good, because if he had indeed gone into the empire-building business big-time, the end of the American Republic would have been just around the corner. Instead he tried empire-building on the cheap, it didn't work, and as a result the Republic still has a few years left.

Still, it makes you wonder about the difference between America in 1941, and America in 2001. They might occupy the same geographic territory, but clearly these are different countries with little but geography in common. I'm not sure yet whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for the world. I guess we're cursed to live in interesting times, eh?

-- Badtux the History Penguin

U.S. weighs action against Russia

U.S. officials say they are going to weigh additional actions against Russia in retaliation for their actions in Georgia. Now, effective action against a nuclear-armed state over a small nation of no particular strategic or economic importance to the United States is difficult, but our brave Bush Administration officials in Washington D.C. are up to the challenge. Here is video footage of the proposed actions:

Oh no, not the comfy chair!

-- Badtux the Youtubery Penguin
Okay, so I really *am* having too much fun with the YouTube today eh?

The Russian side

Some folks have accused me of "being on the side of Russia" when it comes to the Russian reaction to Georgia's attempted ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia. Uhm, no. The only side I'm on is the side of truth. And truth is, Mikheil Saakashvili made a big mistake sending the Georgian Army into South Ossetia. Even if he didn't intend the Georgian Army to engage in a little ethnic cleansing, history notes that whenever Georgian military forces have entered South Ossetia in the past, ethnic cleansing is exactly what happened, whether we're talking 1920 or 1991. Only an idiot would think that Russia wouldn't respond in that case, especially since they had handed out Russian passports to the Ossetians and thus could claim that they were coming to the aid of their citizens (Granada, anybody?).

Does this make the Russians "good guys"? No. They've gone well beyond the boundaries of the autonomous provinces that they claim to be protecting and appear to be rambling around Georgia at random for ill-defined "security reasons". They apparently also are letting various nasty paramilitaries from Chechnya, Ossetia, and elsewhere roam around the Georgian countryside pillaging and looting, and while they haven't committed atrocities themselves, they definitely aren't going about their business with a light touch. But what it does mean is that Saakashvili has nobody to blame but himself for what happened when he prodded the bear in the side with a pointy stick. Even a half-lame bear with bad eyesight is likely to maul you severely at that point.

Now for the last thing: Does this mean that Russia has achieved superpower status again? The answer is no. Russia right now is a thugocracy, ruled by whoever is the most vicious and venal. It more resembles a Mafia-ruled state than any modern first-world nation. It has a declining population, an economy that looks more like that of Saudi Arabia than of any modern state, a military that while better trained now than in the past still is no where near first-world quality, and antique Soviet-era military equipment (the good stuff is all for export, they have only purchased a few brigades worth of modern equipment and most of that sits around Moscow as a last-ditch reserve in case the West invades again like in 1941). That said, they have definitely shown that while not a world-class power, they are decidedly a regional major power, and need to be treated as such. I suspect that other regional states are observing, and reacting accordingly -- i.e., with much caution and respecting the adage, don't poke the bear!.

-- Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin

Putin devises his plan for Georgia

In honor of all the looting going on in Georgia by the Vostok Brigade (Chechen brigands armed and supported by Russia), Ossetian irregulars, and pretty much every other nasty militia in the area, here is a video of Putin devising his plan for Georgia...

I don't think Putin has sent in the bull dykes yet though, but give him time!

Of course, given that the Vostok Brigade is currently persona non grata in Chechnya due to their ongoing feud with the current "president" of Chechnya (another nasty militia chief by the name of Kadyrov who is being paid by Russia to not make war against Russia much as the Vostok Brigade is being paid by Russia to not make war against Russia), this musta seemed like the opportunity from heaven for Russia for getting the Vostok Brigade out of their hair.

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Exercises in futility

Idiots:

Later in the afternoon, around 5:30, four Russian tanks rattled past the Russian checkpoint at Igoeti and drove in the direction of Tbilisi. Soldiers were piled on top, cradling Kalashnikov rifles.

As they drove past, one old man, Koba Gurnashvili, stepped into the street and yelled at the them: "Where do you think you're going!" One of the soldiers yelled back: "To Tbilisi!"

But they did not, instead turning up a side road leading to a village near the border with South Ossetia. At an intersection blocked by Georgian police cars, the Russian commander climbed off his tank and began arguing with the Georgian police officers.

The Russian officer said that he had orders to move up the road; the Georgian said that he had orders to remain on the road and asked to call his superiors for guidance. The Russian said: "You have three minutes to move your cars."

The two argued for a few minutes longer. Then the police stepped away from the cars, stony-faced, taking the keys with them. The commander ordered his tank to drive forward, and it smashed aside the cars and kept going.

A Georgian policeman looked at the dusty tanks passing, took off his hat and spat at the ground.

A word to the wise. When someone in a tank orders you to move your car, and all you're armed with is a 9mm pea-shooter, it's always a wise idea to move your car. These Georgians seem to be about as bright as your average chunk of granite...

-- Badtux the Mildly Amused Penguin

That oh-so-mighty Georgian military

They might run screaming like little children anytime a Russian points a water pistol in their direction, but they sure are hard on unarmed journalists.

To be fair, if I saw a Faux News "journalist" around and I was armed with an AK-47, I might be tempted to see how fast he could run too :-).

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Put down the propaganda pipe, folks...

and step away.

Propaganda:

Lucky the Russians had conveniently built up 20,000 soldiers just north of the border on training exercises one week prior to the crisis.

Reality:

The Russians normally keep that many troops in the region because of Chechnya, which, remember, is less than 100 miles away from South Ossetia. In fact I'm wondering what the Chechens are doing right now, since the troops that normally would be chasing Chechen rebels are currently inside Georgia.

Propaganda:

And, of course, the Russian peacekeepers already in South Ossetia, who armed the South Ossetian rebels, must not actually be Russians on Georgian soil.

Reality:

That depends on whether South Ossetia is Georgian soil. South Ossetia was an autonomous province within the Soviet Union, nominally within the administrative boundaries of the Soviet state of Georgia but never ruled from Tsibili. Georgia arbitrarily declared the autonomy of South Ossetia null and void in 1993 despite the fact that Georgia had never ruled South Ossetia, ever, not even hundreds of years ago, and only Russian troops prevented Georgia from actually making good on that. South Ossetians are "rebels" in much the same that Mexicans would be "rebels" if we declared that Mexico was our 51st state -- South Ossetia never was culturally part of Georgia, and never was ruled from Tsibili, and is about as "Georgian" as Mexico is "American".

So clearly the situation is more complex than "Georgia attacks rebels". South Ossetia is obviously too small to be an independent nation. It will have to join either Russia or Georgia. The Georgians seem determined to make sure that South Ossetia joins Russia rather than Georgia. So be it. But to say that Georgia was "justified" in invading South Ossetia because it is just a state of Georgia, is like saying that the U.S. would be "justified" in invading Mexico because it is just a state of the United States. That has not been historically true, and arbitrary lines drawn on maps do not make it true.

Conclusions:

1. American media is a bunch of propaganda bullshit. But we already knew that. Pravda on the Hudson and Izvestia on the Potomac are slicker than their Russian counterparts, but put them in a mirror and they all look the same.
2. Putin is a ruthless hard-ass. But we already knew that. Beslan, anybody? The Russian theatre hostage massacre, anybody?
3. Georgian President Saakashvili is a moron. He thought a bit of training from American trainers, combined with having more up-to-date weapons than Russian forces in the area (who are armed with old 1960's and 1970's Soviet-era gear because they're equipped to take on Chechen rebels, not modern armies), would suffice to destroy the Russian forces sent against him. He didn't seal off the tunnel between South Ossetia and Russia because he wanted to engage in a spot of ethnic cleansing and drive the Ossetians through the tunnel in front of the Georgian Army, and only *then* seal the tunnel. The South Ossetians ruined that plan by fighting back far harder than Saakashvili and his Israeli Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili (yes, the defense minister of Georgia is an Israeli citizen, go figure!) expected, thereby giving the Russians time to use the tunnel first. Then Saakashvili thought the U.S. would come help him. With what troops? Riiiiight...
4. South Ossetia will never be part of Georgia. Well, you try a bit of ethnic cleansing and genocide, folks just seem to not like that. Russia is content with a de facto independent South Ossetia that in reality is part of the Russian Federation. The Georgians are just going to have to live with the fact that they aren't going to be allowed to engage in the ethnic cleansing they wanted to engage in.
5. Russia has effectively put the Trashcanistans on notice. Russia swatted Georgia using basically light forces intended to chase down Chechen guerillas. These were not top-of-the-line elite Russian units that rolled into Georgia, folks. They were armed with old 1960's and 1970's Soviet weapons that were a generation older than the ex-Warsaw-Pact weapons that Georgia was armed with. If Russia can swat Georgia so easily without even bringing their elite units into play, the other folks along Russia's Southern frontier are on notice: Don't poke the bear. Because despite being rather shabby nowdays, the bear still has teeth and claws that can maul you but good.

More than that will have to wait. But one final thing about the U.S. media coverage. It reminds me of U.S. media coverage of the Iraq-Iran War. Iraq invaded Iran. But the U.S. media was rooting for Iraq for most of the war. WTF? Georgia invaded South Ossetia. But the U.S. media was rooting for Georgia for the entire war. WTF? Since when does starting a war make you the "good guys"? Oh yeah, that's right -- when the folks who start the war happen to be U.S. puppets. Alrighty, then!

-- Badtux the Geopolitics Penguin

Best summary of the Georgian war I've seen

No, Civil War fans, this isn't about Sherman's March to the Sea. I'm talking about the Former Soviet Georgia, which the Russian bear just slapped silly and threw against the wall as an object lesson to small nations that want to piss off neighboring large (and surly) nations. And The Political Cat has probably the best round-up I've seen on the situation so far. I especially like one of his snarky lines: He (Saakashvili) is trying to draw the U.S. and Europe into a war with Russia — a war which no one will win. Vladimir Putin is an ex-KGB man and nobody's fool. And unfortunately, the U.S. is currently in the hands of the biggest fool to ever walk the planet.

Alrighty, then!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

So much for that vaunted "U.S. training"

Georgian troops abandon their posts, run screaming in terror for home.

Shades of the ARVN running screaming like little girls from the NVA...

What is it with U.S. "training" anyhow? It seems all the U.S. is able to do is train armies to run screaming like little girls whenever someone shoots in their direction. There was an action recently in Afghanistan against the Taliban where nine U.S. soldiers were killed and fifteen wounded that exemplifies that. There were approximately 200 Afghan soldiers and 40 American soldiers involved in this action. Not one -- ZERO -- of the Afghan soldiers were injured at the end of the day. You just know that the moment the first shot came their direction, they ran like the dickens the other way and didn't come back until the U.S. soldiers had saved the day.

U.S. training of foreign militaries seems to go like this, from what I can see:

1. This is your rifle, this is your gun. One's for shooting, one's for fun.
2. If someone shoots in your direction, throw down your rifle and take your gun the other way.

I mean, c'mon. Can anybody point at a single U.S. trained military that's worth a bucket of warm spit? Iraq... Afghanistan... South Vietnam... Georgia. Bah.

-- Badtux the War Penguin

Kosovo breaks out in the Former Soviet Union

Okay, let's recap this:

In 1999, a province of a Russian ally, Serbia, decided to declare independence. In response, Serbia sent their troops into that province to reassert control. When bombing of Serbian troops by U.S. bombers did not result in Serbian troops leaving a Serbian province, the United States started attacking civilian targets within Serbia itself -- bridges, water treatment plants, and the occasional Chinese embassy. This forced Serbia to withdraw their troops from their province of Kosovo, and U.S. troops poured in as "peacekeepers" to take their place. During all of this, Russia was fussing big-time about Western meddling in the former Yugoslavia, saying that Kosovo was a Serbian internal matter and the West should just butt out. The United States ignored Russian objections. Kosovo recently declared independence and its independence is now recognized by the United States and most Western nations, but not by Serbia or Russia.

Okay, let's fast forward to 2008. In 2008, a province of a U.S. ally, the Republic of Georgia, had declared its independence some time back. Georgia sent its troops into the breakaway province of South Ossetia to reassert control over the breakaway province. Russia responded by sending its own troops into South Ossetia just as the U.S. sent its troops into Kosovo, and by bombing Georgia just as the U.S. bombed Serbia. And, just as Serbia had to do in Kosovo, Georgia apparently has now been forced to withdraw its troops from the breakaway province of South Ossetia. And just as the U.S. ignored Russian objections to the U.S. breaking away part of a Russian ally to turn it into an independent nation, Russia is ignoring U.S. objections to Russia breaking away part of a U.S. ally to make it into an independent nation.

It's payback time for Russia. They've played the Kosovo playbook, except in reverse. And it's unclear that there's anything to be done about it. The U.S. cannot seize the moral high ground here -- the Russians did not do anything in South Ossetia that the U.S. did not do in Kosovo. And just as Kosovo wasn't worth starting WWIII for Russia, South Ossetia is not worth starting WWIII for the United States. If this were a chess game, both sides just pushed their king's pawn forward by two spaces in reciprocal moves. Now we get to wait and see the next move in this geopolitical chess game... and oh, too bad about all those dead bodies, huh?

-- Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin

Did Bush tell Georgia it was okay to attack South Ossetia?

In a word: no. Yes, it's likely that lower echelons of the CIA and State Department were aware that Georgia intended to attack South Ossetia. But no, Bush didn't in any way give them "permission" to do so, and it is unlikely that his aides had any understanding of why the lower echelons were sending them this information about some place they'd never heard of. Saying that Bush somehow gave Georgia "permission" to invade South Ossetia ascribes far too much competence to George W. Bush and the people around him.

In the end, George W. Bush is a tool of ideologues who have as their goal the destruction of the United States Government, which they feel is too much an impairment to their ability to make profits off of the suffering of other people. He is not a Putin or even a Medvedev who controls the machinery of state, Bush doesn't control even what he has for breakfast. Anyhow, one of the side effects of this is that the competence of major arms of the U.S. government has been destroyed by driving out competent people and replacing them with incompetents who can then be used as an excuse to dismantle portions of the U.S. government. An example is the U.S. Secretary of State, who as National Security Advisor was warned that al Qaeda was about to strike inside the United States by hijacking airliners and, rather than issue a directive to the domestic law enforcement services to be on the lookout for al Qaeda operatives trying to hijack airliners, instead feebly asked the people at the meeting where she was warned to gather more information. As her reward for incompetence she was made Secretary of State. That is the sort of incompetent person that is appointed to positions in the U.S. government today. Even if the CIA advisors in Georgia noticed the preparations to invade Ossetia, there was literally nobody competent in the U.S. government that they could communicate that to, all the competent people have been fired or pushed out into retirement as part of the plan to destroy the U.S. government...

So in any event, the notion that the U.S. somehow "allowed" Georgia to do this does not pass the laugh test to those of us who have viewed with dismay the dismantling of major portions of the U.S. government over the past seven years. Most of the upper echelons of the U.S. government are no longer competent to walk and chew gum at the same time, much less evaluate urgent notices from CIA operatives overseas... and these people have nuclear weapons. That is scary. Very scary.

I notice that people outside the United States ascribe more competence to the U.S. government than it deserves. I suspect that this happened to the Georgians -- they got mixed signals from the morons at the U.S. State Department and decided that this was a deliberate action on the part of the U.S. government to say that the U.S. would back them if they took action without actually saying so. Sad for all the dead Georgians and Ossetians, this ascribing of competence to the U.S. government was utterly wrong. The U.S. government is a bunch of morons with nuclear weapons, and should be depended upon for nothing more than invading the wrong country (the only country in the Middle East that did *not* contribute to the WTC destruction) and sending aid to "democracies" that boil and skin alive their own people.

-- Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin