Ouch, Mr Will

George finds quality has dropped in US college education: Subprime college educations

Olympic Ideals

It was pretty sick starting a war during the Olympics opening ceremonies, and should the 2014 Winter Games still be held in Russia after this insensitivity?


Black Sea Watershed

By Ronald D. Asmus and Richard Holbrooke
Monday, August 11, 2008; Page A15

In weeks and years past, each of us has argued on this page that Moscow was pursuing a policy of regime change toward Georgia and its pro-Western, democratically elected president, Mikheil Saakashvili. We predicted that, absent strong and unified Western diplomatic involvement, we were headed toward a war. Now, tragically, an escalation of violence in South Ossetia has culminated in a full-scale Russian invasion of Georgia. The West, and especially the United States, could have prevented this war. We have arrived at a watershed moment in the West's post-Cold War relations with Russia.
Exactly what happened in South Ossetia last week is unclear. Each side will argue its own version. But we know, without doubt, that Georgia was responding to repeated provocative attacks by South Ossetian separatists controlled and funded by Moscow. This is a not a war Georgia wanted; it believed that it was slowly gaining ground in South Ossetia through a strategy of soft power.
Whatever mistakes Tbilisi has made, they cannot justify Russia's actions. Moscow has invaded a neighbor, an illegal act of aggression that violates the U.N. Charter and fundamental principles of cooperation and security in Europe. Beginning a well-planned war (including cyber-warfare) as the Olympics were opening violates the ancient tradition of a truce to conflict during the Games. And Russia's willingness to create a war zone 25 miles from the Black Sea city of Sochi, where it is to host the Winter Games in 2014, hardly demonstrates its commitment to Olympic ideals. In contrast, Moscow's timing suggests that Putin seeks to overthrow Saakashvili well ahead of our elections, and thus avoid beginning relations with the next president on an overtly confrontational note.
Russia's goal is not simply, as it claims, restoring the status quo in South Ossetia. It wants regime change in Georgia. It has opened a second front in the other disputed Georgian territory, Abkhazia, just south of Sochi. But its greatest goal is to replace Saakashvili -- a man Vladimir Putin despises -- with a president who would be more subject to Moscow's influence. As Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt pointed out Saturday, Moscow's rationale for invading has parallels to the darkest chapters of Europe's history. Having issued passports to tens of thousands of Abkhazians and South Ossetians, Moscow now claims it must intervene to protect them -- a tactic reminiscent of one used by Nazi Germany at the start of World War II.
Moscow seeks to roll back democratic breakthroughs on its borders, to destroy any chance of further NATO or E.U. enlargement and to reestablish a sphere of hegemony over its neighbors. By trying to destroy a democratic, pro-Western Georgia, Moscow is sending a message that, in its part of the world, being close to Washington and the West does not pay.
This moment could well mark the end of an era in Europe during which realpolitik and spheres of influence were supposed to be replaced by new cooperative norms and a country's right to choose its own path. Hopes for a more liberal Russia under President Dmitry Medvedev will need to be reexamined. His justification for this invasion reads more like Brezhnev than Gorbachev. While no one wants a return to Cold War-style confrontation, Moscow's behavior poses a direct challenge to European and international order.
What can we do? First, Georgia deserves our solidarity and support. (Georgia has supported us; its more than 2,000 troops are the third-largest contingent in Iraq -- understandably those troops are being recalled.) We must get the fighting stopped and preserve Georgia's territorial integrity within its current international border. As soon as hostilities cease, there should be a major, coordinated transatlantic effort to help Tbilisi rebuild and recover.
Second, we should not pretend that Russia is a neutral peacekeeper in conflicts on its borders. Russia is part of the problem, not the solution. For too long, Moscow has used existing international mandates to pursue neo-imperial policies. We must disavow these mandates and insist on truly neutral international forces, under the United Nations, to monitor a future cease-fire and to mediate.
Third, we need to counter Russian pressure on its neighbors, especially Ukraine -- most likely the next target in Moscow's efforts to create a new sphere of hegemony. The United States and the European Union must be clear that Ukraine and Georgia will not be condemned to some kind of gray zone.
Finally, the United States and the European Union must make clear that this kind of aggression will affect our relations and Russia's standing in the West. While Western military intervention in Georgia is out of the question -- and no one wants a 21st-century version of the Cold War -- Moscow's actions cannot be ignored. There is a vast array of political, economic and other areas in which Russia's role and standing will have to be reexamined. Moscow must also be put on notice that its own prestige project -- the Sochi Olympics -- will be affected by its behavior.
Weak Western diplomacy and lack of transatlantic unity failed to prevent an avoidable war. Only strong transatlantic unity can stop this war and begin to repair the immense damage done. Otherwise, we can add one more issue to the growing list of this administration's foreign policy failures.


Ronald D. Asmus, a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration, is executive director of the Brussels-based Transatlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Richard Holbrooke, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration, writes a monthly column for The Post.

Satellite Feed?

This sounds too much like a missile defense test. It was a military satellite that had ceased unspecified function shortly after reaching orbit a couple of years ago. Then it stayed up there until recently, when the news broke that the satellite might come down and spread toxic fuel. Then a day later the news broke that the Navy would modify a missile to possibly take it down - a $30 million modification. Then the Navy said "yeah, I think we will try to shoot it down." Then they did. It all seemed like it came about too smoothly in a short amount of time, like it had all been planned out pretty well over a good long time - without public awareness.


Missile Hits Dying US Spy Satellite

By ROBERT BURNS
The Associated Press
Thursday, February 21, 2008; 1:07 AM
WASHINGTON -- A Navy missile soaring 130 miles above the Pacific smashed a dying and potentially deadly U.S. spy satellite Wednesday and probably destroyed a tank carrying 1,000 pounds of toxic fuel, officials said.

Officials had expressed cautious optimism that the missile would hit the satellite, which was the size of a school bus. But they were less certain of hitting the smaller, more problematic fuel tank, whose contents posed what Bush administration officials deemed a potential health hazard to humans if it landed intact.

In a statement announcing that the Navy missile struck the satellite, the Pentagon said, "Confirmation that the fuel tank has been fragmented should be available within 24 hours." It made no mention of early indications, but a defense official close to the situation said later that officials monitoring the collision saw what appeared to be an explosion, indicating that the fuel tank was hit.

The USS Lake Erie, armed with an SM-3 missile designed to knock down incoming missiles _ not orbiting satellites _ launched the attack at 10:26 p.m. EST, according to the Pentagon. It hit the satellite about three minutes later as the spacecraft traveled in polar orbit at more than 17,000 mph.

Because the satellite was orbiting at a relatively low altitude at the time it was hit by the missile, debris will begin to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere immediately, the Pentagon statement said.

"Nearly all of the debris will burn up on re-entry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days," it said.

The use of the Navy missile amounted to an unprecedented use of components of the Pentagon's missile defense system, designed to shoot down hostile ballistic missiles in flight _ not kill satellites.

The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates _ not a military commander _ was to make the final decision to pull the trigger.

The government organized hazardous materials teams, under the code name "Burnt Frost," to be flown to the site of any dangerous or otherwise sensitive debris that might land in the United States or elsewhere.

Also, six federal response groups that are positioned across the country by the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been alerted but not activated, FEMA spokesman James McIntyre said. "These are purely precautionary and preparedness actions only," he said.

Blackwater

This Blackwater thing is crap. I never realized there were so many contractors there - 180K compared to the 160K military. That's way too many. It's at least too much money to pay those guys. And what is the training and control? Do they still follow the same rules as the regular military?

Sarkozy Runs


(Photo by Remy De La Mauviniere -- Associated Press)

"I am not deterred . . . by the accusation that jogging is right-wing," he says. "Of course it is right-wing, in the sense that the facts of life are generally right-wing. The very act of forcing yourself to go for a run, every morning, is a highly conservative business. There is the mental effort needed to overcome your laziness.


By Joel Garreau
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 7, 2007; Page C01

Fleeting Glory in Albania

Fleeting Glory in Albania
By Eugene Robinson
The Washington Post
Tuesday, June 12, 2007; Page A25

George W. Bush, Hero of Albania! At least there's one place in the world where they show the Decider some love.

That was a wonderful reverse-Borat moment Sunday, with the joyous townspeople of Fushe Kruje yelling "Bushie! Bushie!" and Albania's prime minister gushing over the "greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had in all times." The crowd pressed in for autographs, photographs, a presidential peck on the cheek. Years from now, in his dotage, Bushie will feel warm all over when he recalls those magical hours in Albania. How they adored him!

Outside of greater Tirana, however, the president's stock as an apostle of freedom continues to fall -- and rightly so. Even as Albania swooned, the rest of Europe was digesting a blue-ribbon report issued Friday about the abduction, secret detention and abusive interrogation of suspects in Bush's "war on terror."

The report was done for the Council of Europe by Swiss legislator Dick Marty, and its opening paragraph is worth quoting at length:

"What was previously just a set of allegations is now proven: large numbers of people have been abducted from various locations across the world and transferred to countries where they have been persecuted and where it is known that torture is common practice. Others have been held in arbitrary detention, without any precise charges leveled against them and without any judicial oversight. . . . Still others have simply disappeared for indefinite periods and have been held in secret prisons, including in member states of the Council of Europe."

Citing "clear and detailed confirmation" from knowledgeable sources, Marty concluded that Poland and Romania, as long suspected, were two countries that hosted secret CIA prisons where "high value" detainees were held and interrogated.

Polish and Romanian officials have said they are shocked -- shocked! -- that anyone would accuse them of having anything to do with CIA dungeons and/or the "enhanced" questioning techniques that the report describes as torture. But Marty is a former prosecutor, and he puts together a compelling case.

This, I am convinced, is how future generations will remember George W. Bush: as the president who abandoned our traditional concepts of justice and human rights, choosing instead a program of state-sponsored kidnapping, arbitrary detention and abusive interrogation techniques such as "waterboarding."

We will remember him for the Iraq war, of course. But I hope and believe we will give at least as much weight to his erosion of our nation's fundamental values and basic character.

We will remember him as the president who established a prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complete with kangaroo-court military tribunals in which detainees were not allowed to see the alleged evidence against them. We will remember that long after it was clear that Guantanamo was doing serious harm to our nation's reputation in the world -- on Sunday, Bush's former secretary of state, Colin Powell, called for the place to be shut down "this afternoon" -- Bush stubbornly kept it open.

We will remember Dick Cheney not for accidentally shooting a fellow hunter but for apparently being the loudest and most strident voice inside the administration against honoring the concepts of due process and habeas corpus that define justice in civilized societies. We will remember the negligible regard he holds for the Geneva Conventions.

We will remember Alberto Gonzales not for his hapless stewardship of the Justice Department or the firings of those U.S. attorneys-- well, actually, we will remember him for those things -- but we'll also remember that when he was White House counsel he dutifully provided legalistic justification for subjecting prisoners to treatment that international agreements clearly define as torture.

We will remember this whole misguided administration for deciding to wage the fight against terrorism in a manner that not only mocks our nation's values but also draws new recruits to the anti-American cause. We will remember this White House for unwittingly helping the terrorist cause perpetuate itself.

Marty makes this point in his report. "We are fully aware of the seriousness of the terrorist threat and the danger it poses to our societies," he writes. "However, we believe that the end does not justify the means in this area." Resorting to "abuse and illegal acts," he says, "actually amounts to a resounding failure of our system and plays right into the hands of the criminals who seek to destroy our societies through terror."

Nineteen months from now, a new president will begin trying to repair some of the damage this administration leaves behind. Bushie, meanwhile, will be back on the ranch, spending his days clearing brush and perhaps daydreaming of his Albanian glory.

Lots of Butts

A Topic That Definitely Caught My Attention On My Recent Observer Project: cigarette filters washing off streets and floating in waterways, injested by animals and littering shorelines.

"[Cigarette butts] also present a threat to wildlife. Cigarette filters have been found in the stomachs of fish, birds, whales and other marine creatures who mistake them for food ... Composed of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic, cigarette butts can persist in the environment as long as other forms of plastic."
--Clean Virginia Waterways (from www.cigarettelitter.org)

(from Discovery Channel :: News : Earth :: Cigarettes Top Trash List, 7 June, 2007)

Cigarettes Top Trash List at Waterways
Brian Skoloff, Associated Press

June 7, 2007 — Smokers are littering shorelines and waterways worldwide with millions of cigarettes, and their filters topped the list of trash items culled during last year's annual international coastal cleanup, according to a new report.
More than 350,000 volunteers removed about 7 million pounds of debris from 34,500 miles of coastlines and waterways, along with ocean, river and lake bottoms, The Ocean Conservancy said in the report, released Thursday.

Sixty-eight countries participated in the daylong cleanup last September. This year's cleanup is set for Sept. 15.

Of the 7.7 million items of debris collected worldwide in 2006, cigarettes and cigarette butts accounted for roughly 1.9 million, the sixth consecutive year they have topped the list. Coming in second at about 768,000 items were food wrappers and containers that can be extremely dangerous to wildlife.

"A plastic sandwich bag floating in the ocean may look like a jellyfish, a favorite food of sea turtles," said Sonya Besteiro, the cleanup project manager. "If a sea turtle ingests a plastic bag it may feel full and stop eating, which results in starvation. Or the bag could block the animal's digestive system and cause death."

During the 2006 cleanup, volunteers found 1,074 animals entangled in debris, including fishing line and nets. Only one of those animals survived — a female seal found in Hobe Sound.

Discarded fishing gear and plastic debris kill an average of more than 1 million sea birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles each year, the conservancy estimates.

Last week, an endangered Hawaiian monk seal drowned after becoming entangled in a fishing net off Oahu. In October, Hawaiian wildlife officials found a 5-month-old monk seal dead in another net.
"With only 1,200 monk seals left, this is such a terrible loss," said Christine Woolaway, who coordinates the coastal cleanup in Hawaii, the state with the most threatened and endangered species at 329.

Since 1986, more than 6.5 million volunteers in the project have removed 116 million pounds of trash from beaches and waterways in 127 countries, according to the conservancy, a Washington-based environmental advocacy group.

The United States had the most participants in 2006, according to the report, with 182,100 people cleaning about 4.1 million pounds of trash from 10,550 miles of waterways and coastlines.

Canada saw the second best participation with about 26,550 people, followed by the Philippines, where 25,500 volunteers helped out.

California and Florida saw the most participation in the U.S., with about 56,000 and 28,000 people participating, respectively. The two states collectively removed about 1.5 million pounds of debris over 4,600 miles of shorelines and waterways.