Click on WORD or PDF below for full content
Picli has stunning moon pic.
Victor Davis Hanson says it looks like a “Brave Old World.”
Russia invades Georgia. China jails dissidents. China and India pollute at levels previously unimaginable. Gulf monarchies make trillions from jacked-up oil prices. Islamic terrorists keep car bombing. Meanwhile, Europe offers moral lectures, while Japan and South Korea shrug and watch — all in a globalized world that tunes into the Olympics each night from Beijing.
“Citizens of the world” were supposed to share, in relative harmony, our new “Planet Earth,” which was to have followed from an interconnected system of free trade, instantaneous electronic communications, civilized diplomacy and shared consumer capitalism.
But was that ever quite true? …
David Warren looks at Russia.
Russia has long been a very pedagogical country. She likes to teach lessons to her neighbours. The smaller the neighbours, the more lessons they can expect to receive.
Through most of the 20th century, Russia was at her most expansive. Thanks to the Yalta settlements, and the miracle of nuclear weapons technology, the whole world became Russia’s “near abroad,” and various little countries of eastern and central Europe became her disciplined pupils. She taught us all lessons in dialectical materialism and scientific socialism, until she collapsed under the strain of it.
Vladimir Putin — the strongman of Russia, regardless of passing titles — is, in addition to being an old KGB officer thoroughly schooled in the ruthless barbarism of Communist power politics, also tsar from an older school of Russian imperialism. The notion that Russia — whose land area makes her by far the planet’s largest single state — could be threatened by a neighbour 1/245th her size, should not be confused with paranoia.
We need no more believe that, than believe that the large, fully-organized Russian military force that invaded Georgian sovereign territory over the weekend, while the world was watching the Olympics, was responding to a “provocation” by Georgia’s elected president, Mikheil Saakashvili. Unquestionably the latter has exercised poor practical judgment in dealing with the bear pawing at his little realm, but that is beside the point. …
Tony Blankley too.
Charles Krauthammer says we have ways of stopping Russia’s new Putintate.
… We are not without resources. There are a range of measures to be deployed if Russia does not live up to its cease-fire commitments:
1. Suspend the NATO-Russia Council established in 2002 to help bring Russia closer to the West. Make clear that dissolution will follow suspension. The council gives Russia a seat at the NATO table. Message: Invading neighboring democracies forfeits the seat.
2. Bar Russian entry to the World Trade Organization.
3. Dissolve the G-8. Putin’s dictatorship long made Russia’s presence in this group of industrial democracies a farce, but no one wanted to upset the bear by expelling it. No need to. The seven democracies simply withdraw. (And if Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, who has been sympathetic to Putin’s Georgia adventure, wants to stay, he can have an annual G-2 dinner with Putin.) Then immediately announce the reconstitution of the original G-7.
4. Announce a U.S.-European boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi. To do otherwise would be obscene. Sochi is 15 miles from Abkhazia, the other Georgian province just invaded by Russia. The Games will become a riveting contest between the Russian, Belarusan and Jamaican bobsled teams.
All of these steps (except dissolution of the G-8, which should be irreversible) would be subject to reconsideration depending upon Russian action — most importantly and minimally, its withdrawal of troops from Georgia proper to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. …
Slate tells us why Georgia and Georgia have the same names.
The execrable Barbara Boxer goes after Tom Coburn, one of the few Senators who represent our interests. Debra Saunders has the story.
Karl Rove sees four key battleground states.
Presidential campaigns ultimately come down to who can win 270 Electoral College votes. With most states favoring one candidate or the other, this year’s contest could come down to a few battleground states.
Based on visits this past week with party leaders and old pros, it’s clear that Barack Obama will focus on Colorado and Virginia. Both have large concentrations of white, college-educated voters with whom Mr. Obama is popular. And both have seen Democrats surge recently. …
… If Mr. McCain lost Colorado and Virginia, he would likely have 264 electoral votes (assuming he carried the other states President Bush won in 2004). To win, he would have to pick up a state Democrats are counting on winning, such as Michigan. …
… Then there is Ohio. Ground zero in ’04, its 20 electoral votes will be hotly contested again this year. No Republican has won the White House without winning the Buckeye State. …
The Economist continues it’s series on bellwether states. This time North Carolina. Pickerhead thinks anyone who thinks Obama has a chance in NC must have scored some good dope.
THE past few years have been difficult for Mark Paylor, a pig, cattle and grain farmer. On a sunny summer morning in Greensboro he complains that rising petrol and feed prices have driven up his costs so far that it is impossible to compete with cheap imports. He is disgusted by trade agreements that let Mexico send America jalapeños riddled with salmonella, when American farmers have to play by stricter rules. Mr Paylor is a black and a Democrat, and he clearly wants change. He will not vote for John McCain. But he does not have much faith in Barack Obama, either: “He might put on a show to win, but he don’t understand.”
That comment suggests why Mr Obama faces an uphill climb in North Carolina. As swing states go, North Carolina is an unlikely prospect for the Democrats. It is a culturally conservative southern state that has voted for the Republican in every presidential election since 1976. In 2004 George Bush clobbered John Kerry here by a 12-point margin, even though Mr Kerry’s running mate, John Edwards, was North Carolina’s senator at the time. …
Walter Williams looks at what made some achieving black schools.
Most people know the tragic state of black education today. We know that billions of dollars are spent on federal government programs such as No Child Left Behind and the billions spent by state and local governments. If you were to ask an education “expert” to explain the tragedy, you’d get answers such as racial discrimination and underfunding.
My colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell has written volumes on black education and an article worth reading is one he wrote some years ago in The Public Interest (Spring 1976) and reprinted in his book “Education: Assumptions Versus History.” …
Ever wonder why so many Olympic records are being broken? Slate has answers.
Can we please stop fussing over every new Olympic record?
A new record means that an athlete using today’s equipment outperformed an athlete using yesterday’s equipment. It’s not a fair fight.
In swimming alone, today’s advantages include:
1. LZR Racer suit. It reduces friction (compared with skin) and is structurally designed to compress and streamline the body for maximum speed. Estimated drag reduction: 5 percent to 10 percent. Estimated average improvement in top swimmers’ best times: 2 percent. Designed by NASA scientists and computers, among others. Cost: $500.
2. Pool depth. This is the deepest pool ever used in the Olympics. Depth disperses turbulence, reducing resistance. …