As world swoons, Russia escalates

Welcome to the real world, Obama.

PM Medvedev announces that Russia will act immediately to put Iskander missiles deep within the west, in its Kaliningrad enclave that is located on Poland's Baltic shore.

No word as to whether the missiles will have nukes. Or when we can expect a Russian lightning strike to take back Crimea and its naval base from Ukraine.

While the US press sleeps, The London Times pays attention to that part of the world that understands and respects only power-- ie, the world that lies to the east of the postmodern EU:

"Medvedev announced that Russia would base Iskander missiles in its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad next to the border with Poland.

He did not say whether the short-range missiles would carry nuclear warheads. Mr Medvedev also cancelled earlier plans to withdraw three intercontinental ballistic missile regiments from western Russia.

"An Iskander missile system will be deployed in the Kaliningrad region to neutralise if necessary the anti-ballistic missile system in Europe," Mr Medvedev said in his first state-of-the-nation address.

He added that Russia was also ready to deploy its navy and to install electronic jamming devices to interfere with the US shield, which involves the deployment of a radar station in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland.

His announcement prompted a burst of applause from government ministers and parliamentary deputies assembled in the Kremlin. The President failed to congratulate Mr Obama or even to mention him by name during his 85-minute state of the nation address televised live across Russia...."

Hope.

On Another Topic Completely

From CT. I just found it hilarious. We all need hilarious right now, right? Go check it out.

Michael Turner 11.04.08 at 3:55 am

“An optional lead-in quote either from the blog entry or one of the comments above, sometimes blockquoted, sometimes double-quoted, sometimes both even though he suspects that the Chicago Manual of Style says something about how that’s redundant or misleading.”

Then he comments on the quote, rather acerbically, trying to balance high and low styles but often as not they tumble to the floor like a some word-juggler’s stumbling attempt to assemble a surrealistic image in the reader’s mind. There’s often some wrap-up sentence fragment that, bathetically, sheepishly, acknowledges the mess for what is, in all-too-obvious hopes that the self-deprecation will carry the day.

Seemingly undeterred, if anything seemingly plucky, but actually increasingly desperate and fearful of being misinterpreted, he either riffs on some other surrealistic imagery inspired by the inanity of the quote, or he adopts something like the tone of the passage quoted, carrying on the parody in that mode. However,in his attempt to reign in the more obvious sarcasm, he produces a paragraph whose humor might go over the heads of some in the audience (“’Audience’?! As if ….”)

Optional final paragraph, either with decidedly more overt humor to make it clear that the above was meant as a joke, or, if he’s tired and can’t reach that low, he reaches higher (even more self-defeatingly), and begins with “Seriously, ….”. He realizes only later, when someone else points it out to Captain Obvious, that there’s no really no point in arguing with the person quoted.

Seriously, he says, partially breaking with form (after all, the above was supposed to be the final paragraph, oh wait, that’s too obvious to comment on): I think everybody has missed something here. This new culture-jamming genre is also spoofing the “bonus content” you get on DVDs these days, where the directors, writers or cinematographers often review the entire film or TV episode, and are sometimes reduced to remarks like “he looks at the camera” just to fill time. The commentary seem to me aimed more at would-be industry participants – director-wannabes, cinematographer wannabes, film bores, etc.—than at professionals in the industry.

Rove Calls the Election...

...for Barack Obama, 338 to 200.

Sullydog's 2008 EV Prediction

Here's my prediction, based on the most recent polling. My research materials included 538.com, electoral-vote.com, rcp, pollster.com, cnn and msnbc. Obama wins the Kerry states + FL, IA, NM, CO, NV, NC and VA. He does NOT win OH, IN, MO, MT, AZ (gimme a break), ND or any contested district in NE.