How are the occidental powers going to cope with the situation??

The Russian army violated the boarders of Georgia on Friday, as, officially, a retaliation against the brutal and criminal military policy that the georgian government use to keep Ossetia under control. It has actually been a while since Ossetia declared their independance from Georgia, and the situation has been really crappy for all this time. Other conflicts were keeping the UN, the US and the european union busy. And now it all hits the fan,
Russia attacks Georgia, whose army, to help out their good old american friends, is almost entirely positionned in Irak, the american friends (who seem pretty interested in the old USSR "satellites" cf the whole nuclear shield story in Ukraine) are now helping the Georgian army to get out of Irak to put them back home, where they are being destroyed by a strong russian contingent, and that does not please Putin either.
Putin started a maritime embargo and warned that any shipped that would get in the security zone in the black sea would be destroyed...
The goal is clearly to take over the country, and they are on a good track since they managed to take control of 50% of the country in 3 days, according to the news centers (reliable?), and to obtain control of the gas pipe that crosses the country.
So now what?
Show the same rigidity as with the negotiations with Iran? That would be a dangerous game. Some of Russia's supporters would find there a great opportunity to let loose.
Pass a resolution? Yeah, right Russia wont use the power of veto...
Send Bush as messenger for peace and have him declare that the military operations of Russia are inacceptable was not smart, they should leave that to Khouchner, it's a matter of credibility among other things. No one can predict what's going to happen, an international military conflict? Russia taking over more countries and progressively rebuilding its geopolitical power?
The international community has lots of regional conflicts like this one to expect, that's for sure.

What would our lives be like if Gore had won the elections in 2000

I watched the Hbo tv movie "recount"yesterday, a detailed presentation of the chronology of events that led to Bush's victory at the 2000 elections. I was then in France, thinking of these elections as a fraud, but the movie gave me a whole new perspective. I imagined how crazy it must have been at the time, it must have been unbearable to watch Fox or cnn... The unfairness is obvious, the legal proceedings ending, after hope given by the Folrida Supreme Court, by an unbelievable one time BS opinion by the Supreme court, recognizing the violation of the constitution but using technical obstacles the court had itself created to refrain from ordering a recount, which would have been the remedy for these violations.
So, yeah, Al Gore should have been the winner, what would have changed for us if life was fair and the american electoral system was not a joke?
-We can potentially assume that 9/11 would not have happened
-Thus no war would have started in Iraq, and lets fantasize even more, maybe Gore's interntaional skills would have been so awesome that he would have got rid of Saddam through hmm more peaceful means
- As a consequence, The Patriot act would not have been enacted and the anti french wave would not have launched
-The UN would have more legitimacy for it would not have been stepped on brutally on so many levels.
-We would all be driving Hybrids, and they would be super cheap (sorry for the extreme positiveness, I just came back from Disneyland)
-My visas would have been less expensive (still in the idea thta the Patriot Act would have never been enacted)
and so many more things...

But no... the recount was stopped, the palm beach county electoral ballots were never taken in consideration, and so many people did not have the right to vote for BS reasons.
And why wouldn't it happen again? I'm scared for November...

Invading Myanmar?

I read in an article in the NY Times a disturbing theory. Or maybe it's just me, I don't know...

I'm not quoting the person who wrote the article for lack of interest

But his / her theory was that an invasion of Myanmar was long overdue and that now would be the perfect time, considering the junta refuses most international help, causing 1000s of deaths that could have been avoided.

Several questions arise though

1) Good timing? really? a little reminder that the population in Irak (although, granted, they got rid of a mean mean dictator) does not seem to have wealthy florishing lives, to say the least. Imagine the same situation in Myanmar, I don't think that it's a good idea to bomb a village because the junta has positions over there when people are dying for lack of food, water, safety etc etc etc. And I don't believe in what they call surgical bombing, that never worked, really.

2) Are we feeling a bit guilty?
No one except for the UN (whom nobody lsitens to anyways...) really cared about Burma until now. The junta has been governing the country since 1990, but we let the situation degrade and focused on other parts of the workd that were maybe more lucrative? and now we're talking about invading? That will not resuscitate the hundreds of thousand of death due to the regime or to the cyclon. Sorry about you big powerful countries feeling guilty.

3) what now? are we sending planes and submarines? or are we leaving qualified entities the task of negotiating for a peaceful acceptance of international help by the Junta?

Ban Ki Moon, sadly, you have to speak louder... they're not listening.

Here are some useful links:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/SSEAL/burmaaidlinks.html

CNN.com: Student "twitters his way out of Egyptian jail"

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/25/twitter.buck/index.html

Interesting... Our generation's answer to emergencies and crisis, I hope he will find his friend

First Oprah related article that made me laugh, or smile rather

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/01/17/love.songs/index.html

A "new" insight on the upcoming elections...

Today I helped a friend of mine who had an assigment for her journalism class.the mission was to walk around SOMA (that s the neighborhood that has been assigned to her for the semester) and ask people their general input about the upcoming primary elections.

I must admit that people beat a lot of the stereotypes I was expecting/hoping for.

I am not a us resident, I can't vote, I have my opinions, obviously, having lived here 4 years.

I was sure that most of the people we would interview would be torn between Obama and Clinton... Well no. A few people we saw made me feel really unwelcome in this country, aliens stealing jobs etc.. The goal being not to argue (that dude would not have understood my accent anyway). A girl my age saying that her favorite candidate was Huckabee, who for me represents the best the dysfunctional side of this country, well of course it's democracy and I really thought the open-mindness of ALL the people we've seen was awesome (who you will vote for is mostly taboo in France) although confirming my fears for the November elections.

Participating to this assignment was great, and very instructive.