Putin Youth Put to Work

It looks like the Putin Youth are being put to good use, this time against Britain. The gist:

A RUSSIAN activist expected to take over a sinister youth group with ties to the Kremlin has warned that a campaign of harassment against the British ambassador in Moscow will be resumed if he shows support for the country’s beleaguered opposition in the run-up to parliamentary elections in December.

Nikita Borovikov, 26, who is being groomed to take over Nashi, a 100,000-strong youth movement, later this year, gave a vigorous defence of a previous campaign against Anthony Brenton. The envoy was stalked for several months, an experience he called “psychological harassment bordering on violence”.

It's all just practice, I think.

Russia Plans Moonbase by 2032

I think Russia's being a little optimistic in planning to setup a permanent lunar base by 2032. Getting cosmonauts there by 2025, on the other hand, seems pessimistic. It's rally a rather odd juxtaposition. And overall, I think things will have changed such by then that such a goal will no longer be feasible.

But, I suppose a nation has to have goals.

Digg Report

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a light 2924 Diggs, is actually a link to a rather poignant photo that makes an important point about Islam.

Is Bush Planning to Bomb Iran? (An Obvious Question)

The Telegraph has laid out a long and detailed discussion of whether Bush is prepared to bomb Iran. To me, it seems just a case of contingency planning being leaked and then evaluated, which is not a bad thing in and of itself (the lead is, but not the evaluation). But, it should be remembered that such planning is on-going for nearly every conceivable possibility, and so the planning for a war with Iran would be just one of many.

It's a long piece, but worth the time. I won't quote anything here, because there's just too much to choose from. Give it a read.

Ahmadinejad Has Lost Iraq, Just as Bush Allies with Iran?

Here's an interesting take on Iranian President Imajihadi (or whatever his name is) and his efforts in Iraq. The essential point of the commentary is that Imajihadi has failed in Iraq by not securing Basra, which holds 70% of Iraq's oil reserves and also maintains the port by which US troops would leave Iraq.

It's an interesting argument, and makes some sense. Read the story for yourself.

Before you do, though, note that the commentary also makes a fairly strong claim that Bush has essentially allied himself with Iran in Iraq, and backs it up with some marginally compelling evidence:

President Bush boosted his pro-Iran policy with his quick decision to release the nine Iranian officials apprehended yesterday by US forces as enemy agents. Iran has thousands, if not tens of thousands of such personnel - primarily military -- in Iraq. Presumably, Bush will now permit them to stay as allies against Muqtada al-Sadr.

Also:

In fact, President Bush took the decisive step to turn Iraq over to Iran in December 2005 when -- at the urging of Rice and Pelosi -- Bush withdrew a paltry $20 million in US funding to support the moderate parties in Iraqs national elections. At that time, Iran was funding a $100 million program to support Shiite fundamentalists, who went on to sweep the elections (see David Ignatius, Washington Post, 31 September 2007)

I hadn't read about that, but if true, it's another strike against Bush. He rails against Iran in the press, but then takes actions like this. It's entirely disappointing and discouraging.

Giuliani on Healthcare

I missed this story on Giuliani, where he was speaking on health care reform in the US. I was shocked by some of his statements, the most profound of which I'll quote here. Note that when I say "profound," I mean it in the context of today's politics.

First:

To those who have followed the health care issue over the years and have learned to speak the language of health care reformers, Rudy Giuliani was saying everything wrong when he unveiled his reform plan this week.

He said that "Government cannot take care of you. You've got to take care of yourself."

He said the marketplace, not the government "nanny state," needs to do the work of fixing the nation's health care problems.

He said that "We've got to solve our health care problem with American principles, not the principles of socialism."

Then there's this beauty:

But just as important as details is Giuliani's frank language: "Americans believe in free-market solutions to the challenges we face, and I believe we can reduce costs, expand access to, and improve the quality of health care by increasing competition. America's health care system is being dragged down by decades of government-imposed mandates and wasteful, unaccountable bureaucracy."

It's not often that one hears a politician talking about getting government out of something, rather than getting government into it. Giuliani just jumped a bit in my opinion.

Celebrity Report: Ahmadinejad Green Lights Biopic

Celebrity Report: Well, it's on. Iranian President Imajihadi gives the green light to Oliver Stone's biopic of the wacko. And since that sentence wasn't entirely clear, the "wacko" I'm specifically referring to is Imajihadi.

Another Cheap Shot at Ayn Rand Thanks to "Bioshock"

I was pretty certain that the release of "Bioshock" would bring Ayn Rand and Objectivism to the forefront, and not in a positive light, and here's another story that support my contention. In one of the most disgusting descriptions of Ayn Rand I've read, at least in the fewest words, the News & Observer had this to say:

Rapture is the creation of Andrew Ryan, a crazy cutout of Ayn Rand, the pseudophilosopher who hated poor people and didn't care for much outside the realm of free market capitalism and sleeping around.

Yeesh.

Bush on China - Yeesh

Bush amazes me sometimes. As President, heading into the summit of Pacific Rim leaders, I would expect him to take something of harsh stance, use his bully pulpit a bit. China has a horrible human rights record, has threatened the US with economic warfare, of a sort, has done little to control the piracy of US intellectual property, etc.

Here's the part that bothers me the most:

“As a part of our engagement with China, we have worked with (President) Hu Jintao to convince him to help convert his economy from one of savers to one of consumers, which means -- and, by the way, that takes a lot of effort and work to get in a position where you can even make those kind of constructive suggestions, which means the development of a pension system, or health care, so that people don't feel like they have to hoard their money to save for a rainy day, but in fact there's some kind of safety net that is predictable, which then would convert a Chinese person who is beginning to realize better income into a consumer,’’ the president told reporters. “And then all of a sudden you've got consumers, which provide opportunity.

Rather than calling on China to rid itself of its Communist government, embrace individual rights, and allow capitalism to work freely (thus allowing that middle class to grow on its own without government interference), he essentially says that China should simply change how it controls its people's lives. I don't think it's the lack of a "pension plan" that causes the Chinese people to hoard every dollar, I think it's the fact that they have so little control over their own lives.

Read the rest if you want, but it's all pretty much just as bad.

Digg Report

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at 2536 Diggs, is yet another prepubescent post, this time a link to a non-existent story about a Facebook group devoted to finding a girl's camera because she's a "Hottie."

Huh.

Should the US Boycott the 2008 Olympics?

Here's a pretty fervent plea for boycotting the 2008 Olympics in China. It's based on a necessarily biased paper issued by the Falun Gong, and so it's hard to tell from this one blog entry alone whether things in China are as bad as stated.

Some examples:

Not only is China bankrolling Darfur’s Genocide; for more than eight years it has sought to eliminate Falun Gong, which in 1999 had an estimated 70 million practitioners in China; it has likewise abused democracy activists, lawyers, human rights defenders, religious leaders, journalists, trade unionists, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighurs, ”unofficial” church members, and political dissidents.

I've read of these particular accusations on numerous occasions, and so I would tend to give them some credibility. And, at least some in the US government agree:

All of these reports culminated, on August 3, 2007, in Congressman Rohrabacher introducing House Resolution 610 [3], aptly named because the “610 Office” in China is an extra-constitutional agency established by the former leader Jiang Zemin. It was specifically created to persecute Falun Gong and has absolute power over every level of the Communist Party and all political and judiciary systems.

Rohrabacher’s H.Res. 610 expresses “the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States Government should take immediate steps to boycott the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in August 2008 unless the Government of the People’s Republic of China stops engaging in serious human rights abuses against its citizens and stops supporting serious human rights abuses by the Governments of Sudan, Burma, and North Korea against their citizens.”

Rohrabacher proclaims, “In 1936, Nazi Germany hosted the Olympics giving Hitler a worldwide platform to showcase his fascist propaganda. It was wrong to support the Olympic venue then and it’s wrong for the United States to support this prestigious event being held in a similarly fascist regime in 2008.”

Communist China lost its bid for the 2000 Olympics because of its horrific human rights violations. Recognizing this concern, the Chinese regime explicitly promised to improve human rights [4] in order to win the 2008 Olympics Games. Its subsequent record belies its empty promise. Human rights in China have not improved; they have grievously deteriorated.

Ultimately, I think I would support such a boycott, although, like Carter's boycott in 1980, I don't think it would have much effect. And as I think about the whole thing, it strikes me how much of a free rein China receives in the mainstream media for its human rights violations vs. its economic policies and product safety issues. Hmmm.

Russian-Chinese Alliance Not Likely?

This Wall Street Journal blog post posits that worrying about the Russian-Chinese relationship might be a little premature. Basically, it says that Russia and China have too much not in common to form an alliance. It makes some good points, but then so do some of the commentors.

The gist:

Despite some fears in the West, China and Russia have too little in common to form a mighty Sino-Russian axis anytime soon, writes foreign-policy analyst Ian Bremmer in Slate. Some Washington observers worry they see the early signs of a military bloc in events like the two countries’ recent joint military exercises. But these small instances of cooperation shouldn’t disguise the fact that the two countries’ fundamental interests don’t mesh, says Mr. Bremmer, president of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

I dunno. Russia and China are a little unpredictable right now, I think. It bears watching.

More Lunacy from Ahmadinejad

Here's more ranting by Iranian President Imajihadi. I swear, the guy is literally nuts. One cannot believe the things that he's saying in this news conference without being a conspiracy wacko. And he's setting foreign policy for a country that's trying attain nuclear weapons.

And, worst, we stand back and allow it to continue.

Here are some quotes:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday launched a new verbal attack against Israel, accusing Zionists of sowing conflict, publishing offensive cartoons and “lying about being Jewish.”

“Zionists are people without any religion,” Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly predicted that Israel is doomed to disappear, told a news conference in Tehran.

“They are lying about being Jewish because religion means brotherhood, friendship and respecting other divine religions,” he said.

He also said that “Zionists” were behind a cartoon in a Swedish newspaper depicting the head of the Prophet Mohammed on a dog’s body that sparked an official protest by Tehran to Stockholm.

“They do not want the Swedish government to be a friend of other nations. I strongly believe they are behind it (the cartoon). They thrive on conflict and war.

“They are an organised minority who have infiltrated the world. They are not even a 10,000-strong organisation,” he said.

And then the money quote:

“Anywhere they are found there is war. Anywhere where there is war they are behind it,” Ahmadinejad added.

Echoing his previous predictions about Israel’s future, the president said: “If the world is calm, people, Europeans, Germans even, will uproot them.”

And as the blog post says, you'll find all this in very few mainstream media outlets. This stuff should be front-page news, if our media really wanted the public to understand what's going on in the world.

"Bioshock" Not Objectivist-Friendly

If this The Phoenix review of the upcoming game "Bioshock" is any indication, then the game is certainly not based on Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, or on Atlas Shrugged. Here are some quotes that justify that comment.

First:

According to BioShock’s foundation myth, Ryan envisioned his sub-aquatic metropolis (inspired by Ayn Rand, and especially Atlas Shrugged) as the place where man could realize his potential, unfettered by the restrictions placed upon him by government and religion. He populated the city with the greatest minds the world had to offer: industrialists, doctors, artists. Rapture had room only for the productive; there was no place for the weak, the infirm, or even the mediocre commoners that Ryan considered a drain on society.

Objectivism does not suppose that a society could function without government--there has to be some entity that can protect individual rights, which is the fundamental principle upon with Objectivist politics is based. Second, Ayn Rand had nothing against "the mediocre commoners," insofar as the typical person was as productive as his or her abilities made possible and to the extent that any person did not live life as a parasite upon the more productive. And so, from the beginning, the game's premises are perversions of Objectivism, not examples of it.

Then:

What you learn pretty quickly is that the first fissure in Ryan’s master plan opened with the discovery of an element called ADAM, which allowed for genetic modification far beyond the bounds of medical science. Freed from any ethical constraints, the people of Rapture set about developing strange and perverse abilities for themselves.

Notice that part, "freed from any ethical constraints." It's an implication that Objectivism has no ethics that would guide individuals in such a situation. Of course, Objectivism does have such an ethics, and it would result in individuals making the most rational long-term decisions possible--meaning, an Objectivist would be the last person to undergo a genetic modification without considering the possible effects. Then again, it's interesting that "developing strange and perverse abilities" is, according to the review, primarily an ethical question.

Finally:

And yet, the freedom given the player is also subverted to give the game its greatest resonance: if the free will of one diminishes that of another, are they not both slaves? Andrew Ryan dreamed of a city where the great would not be constrained by the small; Rapture failed because he didn’t understand that the great rely on the small. As one character says, Ryan brought people to Rapture to be captains of industry, but they still needed someone to clean the toilets.

Again, although Objectivism does exalt the greatness of mankind, and therefore holds particular respect for those who utilize their abilities to the fullest, it does not conversely consider those without such abilities to be inferior. All Objectivism demands, morally, is that each individual strive for the highest that he can achieve, whether he's a brain surgeon or a janitor.

Objectivism in no way assumes that "the great (are) constrained by the small," except to the extent that government links a chain between them and makes slaves of the productive for the non-productive. If this review is correct, then "Bioshock" is a horrible rendition of Objectivism that will do nothing but perpetuate the negative stereotypes held by those who understand very little about the philosophy.

Digg Report

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at 4383 Diggs, is a link to a new way to advertise men's underwear. Again, a reversion to Digg's underlying prepubescence.

Russia Examined

Here's a nice piece in the Moscow Times that discusses the likelihood that Russian geopolitics will become even more strained in the last few months of Putin's Presidency. More than that, though, it discusses Russia's general approach to world affairs, and makes some interesting points.

A few choice quotes:

A curious pattern emerges when examining Russia's politics over the last quarter century. Fundamental changes come in eight-year cycles, and the transitions from the end of one cycle to the start of the next are accompanied by flare-ups in foreign relations.

An intense struggle for power took place from 1999 to 2000 at the end of President Boris Yeltsin's term. Those years saw the start of a second war in Chechnya, the rise of former KGB officer Putin, a corruption scandal involving members of Yeltsin's family and the Bank of New York affair -- all of which brought relations with the West to a critically low level. The situation began to stabilize only in the spring of 2000, when Putin took office and Western leaders started building bridges with the Kremlin.

...

It turned out that the West was not prepared for Moscow to assume a new, stronger position in international affairs. Up until recently, the Kremlin had been willing to compromise on most disputes with the West. But now Russia feels its own strength and is less inclined to give in to its partners' wishes.

...

Russia's ambitions and self-confidence, fed by its oil and gas euphoria, have become greater than its realistic abilities, given the global changes taking place in the modern world. Moscow's eagerness to make up for what it lost after the Soviet collapse as quickly as possible has proven stronger than a calmer, more rational calculation of what it can realistically achieve.

The West is quite disappointed after discovering a distressing fact: It really is difficult to resolve many important issues without Moscow's participation. But Russia is not interested in cooperating on someone else's terms. This stems not only from obstinacy, but also from a growing sense that Western formulas for managing global affairs are simply ineffective. From Moscow's point of view, the situation in Iraq and the turmoil in the Balkans are convincing evidence of this.

Read the whole thing. Incidentally, it says a bit about the West, as well.

Municipal Wi-Fi - On its Deathbed At Last

And, as I mentioned here and here and here, it seems that I was right. There's no business model for municipal Wi-Fi (meaning that, were any to be rolled out, they'd have to be funded by taxes), and newer technology can do the job better. The best thing is, they're failing before they had a chance to negate the newer technology, meaning that we can continue to look forward to privately-created technological advances that will make our lives easier and better.

As long as government just stays out of it.

CNN Creates Anti-Israeli Propaganda Piece

CNN and Christiane Amanpour have apparently created a nicely misleading and deceptive anti-Israeli piece in their three-part series, "God's Warriors." Now, anyone following the history of Israel and the Israeli/Arab conflict shouldn't surprised by this piece, nor find it particularly worse than any other anti-Israeli propaganda.

Here are some quotes:

The August 21 broadcast was the first of God's Warriors, a three-part CNN series, ostensibly examining the role of people who want "God back in their daily lives, back to the seat of power." In actuality, the deeply false premise of the programs, established in the opening scene, is the equating of Jewish (and Christian) religious fervency with that of Muslims heard endorsing "martyrdom," or suicide-killing.

Yes, again, the media insists on morally equating Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, even though it's only Islam that today not only engages in constant, on-going violence but perpetuates a culture with violence at its very roots.

AMANPOUR is similarly deceptive and manipulative in other depictions of nefarious Jewish power, respectfully interviewing both Jimmy Carter and John Mearsheimer, and giving not the slightest hint of the gross factual errors in the charges leveled by the two controversial figures whose recent, incendiary allegations against Israel have been extensively debunked.

Carter declares absurdly that no member of Congress could vote against aid to Israel "and hope to be reelected." Amanpour does not, of course, remind him, or viewers, of the numerous members who have opposed aid to Israel and been repeatedly reelected, including Senate Majority leader Robert Byrd and more than a dozen representatives.

This is common anti-semitism, like what might find on any skinhead Web site. CNN might as well have used the "ZOG" (Zionist Occupational Government) monicker used by neo-Nazis.

The money quote, in this case because it's central to every anti-Israeli's misperceptions of Israeli/Arab history:

Numerous other falsehoods and distortions mar the production. Amanpour declares bizarrely that "the 40-year tug of war over Jerusalem began when Israel bulldozed the Arab neighborhood next to the Western Wall and built a plaza where Jews now pray." Obviously, the modern battle over Jerusalem "began" 60 years ago, when the Arabs attacked in 1948 to destroy the newborn State of Israel, seizing the eastern side of Jerusalem, including the Jewish quarter of the Old City. Every Jew was expelled or killed and all synagogues were destroyed. Thereafter, for 19 years, no Jew could pray at the Western Wall and Christians had limited access to their holy sites.

One might agree or disagree with the creation of Israel, but it was a two-sided effort where the Palestinians were granted their own right to establish a state. They chose not to, instead trusting that the Arabs would push the Jews into the sea. That's the essence of the Israeli/Arab conflict, and it's not often mentioned when the poor Palestinians are being defended by individuals like Jimmy Carter.

Digg Report

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a light 2624 Diggs, is a link to an essay of sorts about how "everything (one) does is illegal." The piece actually has a ring of truth to it: as Ayn Rand said (to paraphrase), government regulation basically makes everyone a criminal.

So, here's a Digg with at least a little importance.

Guardian Supposes that US Should Engage Russia to Solve Problems

Here's a bit of naivete from the Guardian, on how America should push for Russia's help in stablizing the Middle East. As Russia moves ever closer to outright dictatorship (or nationalistic fascism), we're supposed to "engage" them in solving all of the problems that we've created. Really, it's all just a bunch of assertions made while wearing some serious rose-colored glasses, and it's not all that meaningful for anyone who doesn't believe that appeasement is a solution.

Here's an interesting quote, though:

The Anglo-American axis must also swallow its pride and enlist the active support of Europeans, especially France, which was not the only major country to try, rightly, to pull the US back from its folly in Iraq but is also the only continental European state with a network of useful relations in the Middle East.

First, since France rid itself of its corrupt regime (you know, the one that was taking kickbacks from Saddam Hussein under the "Oil for Food" program), the US is engaging with France. Second, I see Great Britain as a European state, and so there's been European engagement all along. The author of the story shows his biases in failing to point this out.

Russia is not our friend, and has proven that it will not act with any honesty in "helping" us solve any problem. Their arms sales to Iraq directly before the war is the kind of "support" that we can expect from them.

I swear, it's like it's 1938 all over again.