Missles and Spinach

Don't Fear the Spinach



This very nice little article from the Moscow Times (see sidebar) sums up a very stupid situation very nicely, as well as reflecting my own opinion on the issue. Yulia Latynina, my favorite Moscow Times opinion writer since Masha Gesen left, sums up pretty well both the US and Russian flaws in the issue. America is impudent, then again, that's not unusual. Russia is down right psychotic, believing it's somehow back in the Cold War when it comes to its power. And maybe it is technically, but relatively its behind, because in the past 15 years the rest of the world has moved on. Moscow may have more money than ever, but its lost most all its influence. And when it tries to flex its oil and gas powered muscles, rather than intimidating its neighbors, it irritates them.



Sadly, I don't see an end in sight for Russia in this. The country needs to realize how much it has to learn, and that, and it's no longer cock-of-the-walk. Now, US has the same problem, but seems to be handling it better. The rise of multiple nuclear powers, the formation of the EU, the emergence of India, China, and Brazil have all redrawn the power map, and the old rules don't work. The game isn't about nuclear arsenals and simply saying "It's us or the communists/capitalists." It's different, and the sooner everyone, especially russia, realize this, the better.

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Irony

I read something incredibly ironic Monday in the Moscow Times (see sidebar). According to an article, Russia has been playing host to member of the Hamas faction of the Palestinian Authority. You know Hamas, it's basically a terrorist group that is bent on destroying Israel, and it recently won majority within the PA. Since they won't acknowledge Israel's right to exist, nor renounce violence, the west ceased all aid to Palestine.



Now, here's the ironic part. Khaled Mashaal, leader of Hamas, was speaking to a press conference in Moscow, and said, "Our goal is to encourage the international community to start cooperating with the Palestinian government and to exert pressure on Israel to recognize the Palestinian state's right to exist." Whoa...wait, you, a pseudo-government of a non-sovereign territory that has as its stated goal the annihilation of Israel and meanwhile won't even acknowledge it should exist, you demand acknowledgment and support from Israel? Do you know see the irony in that statement? Or the hypocrisy?



Honestly, the election of Hamas into the government killed any legitimacy of the government in both my eyes and, I believe, in the eyes of Israel. It would be like Ireland voting in the IRA, the IRA stating that it still has the right to blow bombs up in Britain, and then demanding the UK treat them as if they were an acknowledged stat with legitimate goals and policies. You just don't do that!



And here Putin is hosting them, acting like some big diplomat. I think they're trying to play a game and come out on top as a big deal peace broker for the middle-east, not, I suppose, understanding the concepts of isolation and shunning. Honestly, the purpose of isolation was to show that there are limits. You cannot spew the sort of idiocy that Mashaal does and be recognized as a legitimate ruler. Except apparently in the Russian Federation. Because, this is the same country where the President dropped gubernatorial elections, and has managed to re-write election laws to exclude all but the so called "center-right" and "center-left" parties, which just happen to BOTH be yes-men groups for the Kremlin. These along with other political bizarrities (yes, I made up my own word) make the words of Mashaal look almost sane.



Then again, maybe it just shows itself to be foolish.

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Some Additions

I'm excited...somebody is actually reading this, judging by the fact that I have comments. I'm almost positive those aren't from me, so I guess it's stuff to be excited about.



Anyway, some additions to the sidebar: I added two new comics I started reading. Looking for Group is about a-ah-interesting group of characters adventuring. I really can't call them heroes. You'll have to read it to understand what I mean. It's loosely based on the Blizzard game World of Warcraft, if I understand correctly, but as I don't play and I still think I get the humor.



The other comic is Order of the Stick, an absolutely hilarious comic about dungeons and dragons table top role playing. It's downright, laugh out loud hilarious, especially if you know some about DnD. It's got a LOT of archive to fully read through, but having just finished it myself, I can tell you it's worth it. If you know dungeons and dragons stuff.



The other new bit on the side is links to one of the people whose comments I mentioned above, JCM. We both post a lot at the PvP message board (see side bar, comics), and I guess he followed my link here at one point. Anywho, thought I'd post link to his stuff.



Have fun people,

Alex

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Wheee for firefox

As I write this, I am not even logged onto my own blog, I'm perusing the add-ons section of Mozilla Firefox.



I'm having fun with this. Plug-ins are cool is my opinion so far. Of course, Firefox has been pretty consistent to me in its superiority to IE. In fact, it's easily arguable that IE 7 is just a big ripoff of Firefox.



Anyway, back to browsing.

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