Lots of interesting thoughts here in the Freakonomics forum about the foolhardiness of ticky-tacky suburbia and why it is doomed.  I have to agree it is fairly ineffecient and a waste of resources, but I am not so sure about their End of the World!!!! seenarios.

 

Personally, I think that with the rise in energy prices, we will move back towards live-work communities in which housing enclaves spring up near corporate worksites and headquarters, thus minimizing the amount of travel needed.  Work, food, entertainment, all in the same community!  Furthermore, though I do expect corporations to get behind this, I expect it to be largely a self-selected transition.  One side-effect of this will be that people will tend to stay in one job longer, the exact opposite of the current trend.

 

 

The picture says it all.

 

I still have no time to write a well-researched and supported paper describing in exact detail the horrific, unwarranted atrocities the Russians have committed and continue to commit in the sovereign Republic of Georgia.  Supporting your friends and family there who the Soviet....err, the Russians are victimizing seems much more important, somehow.  However, given the number of friends and family not in imminent danger who have asked me to explain what is going on, and who have expressed dissapointment at the lack of a post on topic, I decided to link to a number of articles that I think give a somewhat balanced view of what is going on. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The US did not, in fact, encourage Saakashvili to move into South Ossetia:

A very interesting paper on the history and the path forward in Abkhazia, published just before the war:

The Russian War was a long-planned trap that Saakashvili fell into; the hook was defending his borders from bombardment by Russian proxies.

The destruction of the Georgian Military (and the six years of the GTEP program I was a part of).  Key Quote:  "An invasion of Ukraine by 'peacekeeping tanks' is just a question of time,"

Canadian Free Press reports Russian Supply problems are leading Russian Soldiers to commit war crimes and atrocities: From my family in Sachkhere we have reports of Russian soldiers demanding food, just kids with tanks.  The villagers buried them in food in a mixture of fear and Georgian traditional hospitality.

The conflict in the former Soviet Union may seem distant to many Americans. CNBC explains what’s at stake.

More to come.....and Pray for Georgia.

 

I've been too busy to write about the Russian travesty in Georgia, but every now and then I get so pissed off at some news article and the ignorant commentators that I dash something off.  Some are reprinted here just to give a flavor of my bitterness:

 

From the Chronicle:
Facts: The shelling BEGAN from South Ossetia, and the vast majority of military observers believe that Russian Paramilitias were the ones doing the shelling, not Ossetians. The Georgians responded on a quid pro quo basis until a shell fired from South Ossetia killed ten Georgian villagers. At that point, Saakashvili lauched the attack into South Ossetia....which, in case you don't know, is GEORGIAN TERRITORY.
Two: You need to hear this again. South Ossetia is GEORGIAN territory, internationally and universally recognized by other states, EVEN THE RUSSIANS UP UNTIL NOW. How did the Georgians attack their OWN TERRITORY and somehow that is inputed into an attack against the RUSSIANS?
three: Once the attack was made, the Russians launched air strikes all throughout Georiga, VERY FAR OUTSIDE OF THE SOUTH OSSETIA CONFLICT ZONE. They bombed Vaziani, Marneuli, Gori, Krtsanisi, Poti, and other areas. The RUSSIANS turned this from a back-and-forth shelling and incursion into a full-scale invasion into GEORGIAN territory. Oh, and the Russians just happened to have 500+ armor pieces and 15-25000 soldiers right across the border on standby. That take MONTHS to arrange logistically, yet the Russians somehow managed it in two days at a crossover elevation point of over 10,000 feet? This was a carefully planned and executed trap.
Four: Again, I highly recommend history as a way of understanding what is going on. Look at how the seperatist movements were fomented in Abkhazia and South Ossetia by the Russians in the months after the Georgians seceded from the USSR and really pissed off the Russians. Look at the Russians making the remaining denizens of GEORGIAN PROVINCES Russian citizens overnight, when they had not been previously, just to give them an excuse to intervene. Look at how they rubleized the economy of GEORGIAN TERRITORY just to gain economic control. Look at how they shot down Georgian spy drones and denied it until the videotaped proof emerged. Look at how they dropped a dud missile on Georgian territory a few months ago.
People who are apologists for fascist regimes like Putin's are either unable to connect the very clear dots or are willfully ignorant because they have personal agendas.

 

Posted to James Urbaniak's blog:

I feel compelled to a respond to your comments on a situation that I don't think you know much about. Yeah, Saakashvili allowed himself to be tricked into giving Russia a flimsy excuse, but that's about all he did wrong. This is the culmination of a multi-decade Russian plan.

Russia has been prodding Georgia into this conflict for years. First, they fomented, armed, and supported the seperatist movement in Georgia that expelled the large majority of ethnic Georgians in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Once they had been expelled, the Russians granted the victorious minority oppressors Russian citizenship by fiat, even though there was no legal nexus or justification for such. Shortly thereafter they rubelized the economy of both internationally recognized Georgian provinces, and began building railroads, ports, and air strip infrastructure direct from Russia to the provinces. They then dropped bombs into Georgian territory and shot down unarmed UAV's within Georgian territory and repeatedly violated Georgian airspace in a very aggressive manner.

The shelling from South Ossetia was the straw that broke the camel's back. The fighting escalated after the three Georgian policemen were killed, but once the ten villagers were killed, Saakashvili moved into South Ossetia - which, again, is Georgian territory. Russia promptly launched airstrikes deep into sovereign Georgian territory and far outside of the conflict zone, including Vaziani, Marneuli, Tbilisi, Poti, Gori, and others. They had 20,000 troops and around 500 armor pieces, something that takes months to mobilize, just across the line at the 10,000 foot Roki tunnel border crossing. They promptly occupied almost all of the country and remain just outside the capital as I type.

It was very clearly a trap, and Saakashvili proved that he let his emotions overrule his judgment. But that is about the extent of blame he should take for this - he decided to finally take a swing back at the neighborhood bully and got decked for it. Now Russia is kicking them while they are down while the world fidgets nervously.

In recap: Russia militarily supported the expulsion of the majority ethnic Georgian population from both Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the 1990’s and granted the remaining residents of both provinces Russian citizenship by fiat years later even though there was no legal nexus for the granting of this status. Claiming that the newly-minted Russian citizen’s support of independence or annexation under the principle of self-determination justifies such action makes a mockery of the concept and indicates that the best way for a country to attack inconvenient sovereignty is to launch pogroms against those ethnicities considered undesirable and offer citizenship to those oppressors who survive.

NB: The Sochi winter olympics are just around the corner...so convenient to annex the adjacent territory a few years before.

 

 

Again from the Chronicle:

Many who started to follow this story from the moment Georgia moved into ITS OWN INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED TERRITORY, South Ossetia, don't seem to grasp any of the history or nuance of the situation. Russia "retaliated" for this by a full-scale invasion of Georgia's interior, which is patently ridiculous. But nobody ever mentions the numerous Georgian policemen and villagers that were killed innocent Georgians, which is what precipated Georgia's hasty action. Bottom line: The Russian proxies provoked Georgia to play right into their hands. Georgia didn't provoke the neighborhood bully, it finally decided to take a swing back. the rest of us in the playground are sitting back and watching Georgia get beat down for daring to try and stand up for itself.

 

Posted to Fox News:

 

 

I have not had time to write about Georgia - too many family and friends I am trying to help there.  but I found this article interesting.  If I've the time I will write about the egregious actions of Russia, and why we should care, soon.

Chavez's packed Supreme Court has uphelp his law that allows him to ban people from running from office that are "suspected" of corruption.  The previous law prevented people who had been arrested and convicted from running; that makes some sense, and might save us from idiots like Jefferson in Louisiana.  To no one's suprise, it appears that the vast majority of the "suspected" are members of the opposition.

 

I don't know what more proof anyone needs.  This guy is a thinly disguised communist dictator who has not declared himself as such simply because he was able to utilize Barnum's Theorum to gain office.  I feel so very bad for the Jeffersonian minority in Venezuela.

This could represent a potentially world-changing advancement in energy science.