You should try talking to it. 'Cause, like, supposedly they can hear you even though it's all, like, ten-thousand leagues under the sea.

This...

Three weeks later, Mr. Bush went to the Black Sea resort of Sochi, at the invitation of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. There, he received a message from the Russian: the push to offer Ukraine and Georgia NATO membership was crossing Russia’s “red lines,” according to an administration official close to the talks.

Afterward, Mr. Bush said of Mr. Putin, “He’s been very truthful and to me, that’s the only way you can find common ground.” It was one of many moments when the United States seemed to have missed — or gambled it could manage — the depth of Russia’s anger and the resolve of the Georgian president to provoke the Russians.

...reminded me of this.

Later the transcript has Glaspie saying: "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."

Which in turn reminded me of this...

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

When it comes to foreign policy it's probably best to heed the advice of Jesse Jackson and "stay out of the Bushes." Their incomptence is generational. In fairness a president McCain would be just as clueless

Will you look at the man? He's a Freudian delight; he crawls with clues!

It's with a sense of bitter irony that I note Fareed Zakaria's ridiculous piece "What Bush Got Right" about foreign policy came out in the same week yet another foreign policy disaster arose given in large part to the continued incompetence of Bush's entire administration in this arena. They've been in over their heads since he first took the oath of office and, contrary to Zakaria's assertion to the contrary, nothing has happened to change that situation.

I don't like to write or even think about these sorts of global crisis these days. Truth be told I've been irrationally trying to focus on other stuff in the hope that it would blow over, resolve itself or the adults in the Western European community would step in and bring and bring a peaceful resolution to the fighting.

I'd be the first to admit that's a naive and unrealistic approach. It's just that I have a hard time with accepting the alternative; that our leadership are nothing but a bunch stupid children. I find myself very nervous watching Bush and Cheney poke at Russia over the conflict in Georgia. I've used the example many times but it's akin to being trapped in a room with a monkey that's playing with a grenade. Eventually he's going to figure out how to pull out the pin...

I'm second to nobody in my opinion that the "tough guys" that make up this administration are really a bunch of blustering pansies. One thing I've learned is that the guys that talk the most smack are usually the guys that spent most of high school stuffed in a locker. They're the guys who are cheerleaders or look for excuses to get out of going to Vietnam. They're cowards who can't back up the crap that comes out of their mouths. As a man I don't have much of an opinion of the manliness of men like Bush and Cheney.

Having said that I also recognize it's for exactly this reason that they feel they have something to prove, especially if they're own hide isn't on the line. That's why I'm not sure the tack that Matt Yglesias (via Digby) takes in calling them out is the best one to use here.

"This highlights, I think, some of the limits of the kind of bluff-and-bluster approach to foreign policy that seems popular among conservatives these days. Or, rather, it highlights the fact that popular as bluster-based policy making is on the American right it can have some extremely high costs and that, tragically, a large proportion of those costs can wind up being borne by the people who were nominally supposed to be the beneficiaries. "

Bush has been throwing some extremely bellicose language at Russia yesterday. The kind of language I can't remember being used by an American president since at least the Berlin Wall came down. Pointing out that he's all hat and no cattle might not be the best thing to do here. On a personal level he's a coward. But he's also an incurious, stupid coward who has demonstrated zero predilection towards considering the consequences of his decisions whether to our security as a nation or the well-being of the troops under his charge.

I believe the phrase is "don't poke the bear." In the case of George W. Bush I would change that to "don't poke the teddy bear, it's not stuffed properly."

Sharon, don't you understand what's going on? The world's a disaster.

Man, you leave for the weekend and everything goes to hell. The Gaza strip erupts into violence, the U.S. bombs a Somali town, Iranian President Ahmadinejad visits Iraq, Venezuala and Ecuador are on the brink of war with Columbia and Van Halen breaks up yet again.

Sometimes one has to sit back and wonder if mankind will ever be able to break the genetic disposition to conflict and or if David Lee Roth's ego will always be too much for Eddie to overcome.

In Pakistan police fired tear gas at lawyers. If it was the United States the police would be heroes.

Russia held an election with the results somewhat questionable. Dmitri Medvedev will share power with outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin. Thank God we've never had to face a situation where we had two Presidents here in the United States.

As a final sign that the apocalypse is nigh our own Overdroid won an ACME award from the prestigious ACME Comedy Theater in Los Angeles for Best Sketch Comedy series. Surely he is the Fourth Horseman.

(Note: this shot is not fuzzy. The subject is.)

'Course, three minutes to Wapner.

Overdroid made a great observation on my last post-

Sure, and things are so great in Russia now. Also - I'm not to worried about the social pendulum as I am in the scarcity and environmental pendulums. In fact, they aren't pendulums - they are finite resources that won't swing or bounce back when gone (take you pick - greenhouse gasses, oil, water, or all of the above).

He's right. Finite natural resources may not be able to wait on the political power pendulum (PPP) swinging back towards those that are more friendly to a scientific approach to the natural world.

Jerome a Paris has a diary up at Kos today that touches this very issue. Jerome takes apart a Financial Times column on politics and global warming:

Politicians have understood that appearing to be at least greenish is good for their election prospects, but to them it's just one issue among others. The message of the column is there: that "tick the box" approach is wrong, and the issue of global warming requires their full, total and undivided attention*.

And it comes from one of the most influential voices of the London "beltway". Not a green wacko. Not a single-issue activist. A respectable, moderate member of the establishment.

Outside of a few uber-conservative politicians who stubbornly insist on reciting industry talking points to cloud environmental issues those of who support stronger governmental action towards protecting natural resources are winning the fight for the hearts and minds of the general public. We just need to translate that into legislative action. This is where we have to watch the clock.

But what about conservatives? The recent spat about Civil Rights that emerged from political ads running around the country might give us a hint as to where they'll be on this issue in a few years. As an example; two weeks ago the National Black Republican Association ran ads in Maryland claiming that Martin Luther King was a Republican.

Conservatives have a tendency to drag their feet and stubbornly fight the reality of a given situation until the last minute where they gloriously pirouette and claim the opposite position, the position they've been fighting all along, as their own.

In twenty years conservatives will claim that it was they, not progressives, that fought to limit greenhouse gas emissions and warned of a looming peak oil crisis.

Then we can pat them on the head and tell them them "that's nice."

As long as we don't have to do it while standing in three feet of water.