The Cold War Continues... Was it Ever Really Over?

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By now, assuming you have been paying any attention at all to the news for the last several days, you should have heard about Russia's rapidly escalating invasion of Georgia. They're pretty much after a regime change because Georgia's president happens to want to join NATO. Ole' Mother Russia can't have that, so she's bombing a tiny country. So far, up until today, I have only been hearing the rest of the world's opinion on this. Today, thanks to digg.com, I have now "seen the light" of the other perspective. And, here it is, in all of its Cold War sounding propagandist flavor, Russia, Again Savior of Peace and Life from the Russian news organization: Pravda. (note: this Pravda is apparently, according to Wikipedia, an "unrelated" newspaper run by former Pravda employees...)

It features such amazingly insightful quotes as:

"After having offered a cease fire in hostilities, the back stabbing Georgians immediately violated the cease fire, invading South Ossetia and causing massive destruction and death among innocent civilians, among peacekeepers and also destroying a hospital."

"Georgian troops attempted to storm the city much as Hitler‘s Panzer divisions blazed through Europe. Also noteworthy is the fact that Georgian tanks and infantry were being aided by Israeli advisors, a true indicator that this conflict was instigated by outside forces."

"Meanwhile, the western corporate media was maintaining a blackout of “the grand silence” on the aggression of Georgia. When they did finally report on it, they were as usual telling the story backwards with headlines such as “Russian Jets Attack Georgia” and “They Have Declared War Against Us” as though Georgia had not done anything wrong."

- Russia, Again Savior of Peace and Life

It's pretty ridiculous. Meanwhile, according to the Los Angeles Times: "Russian soldiers open second front in Georgia", Russia has been expanding the frontlines, further confirming the "rapidly escalating invasion" bit I wrote above.

Russia is becoming a big western problem. We could be seeing another Cold War beginning. About a month or so ago, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had a rather old skool idea: Putin says Russia needs to go back to Cuba: media At about the same time, this story came out:
Newspaper Hints at Return of Russian Bombers to Cuba You can also read it in Newsweek here: Russian Moves in the Americas

That story has, since then, been vigorously denied. You can read about that here: 'Cuba bomber plan' denied by Moscow But, don't be surprised if it happens anyways. I won't be. Angry, yes. Surprised, no.

It seemed that an impertinent fellow had dressed himself up as a preposterous parody of myself. I had drunk more champagne than was good for me, and in a flash of folly I decided to see the situation through. Consequently it was to meet the glare of the company and my own lifted eyebrows and freezing eyes that the real Professor came into the room.

"I need hardly say there was a collision. The pessimists all round me looked anxiously from one Professor to the other Professor to see which was really the more feeble. But I won. An old man in poor health, like my rival, could not be expected to be so impressively feeble as a young actor in the prime of life. You see, he really had paralysis, and working within this definite limitation, he couldn't be so jolly paralytic as I was. Then he tried to blast my claims intellectually. I countered that by a very simple dodge. Whenever he said something that nobody but he could understand, I replied with something which I could not even understand myself. 'I don't fancy,' he said, 'that you could have worked out the principle that evolution is only negation, since there inheres in it the introduction of lacuna, which are an essential of differentiation.' I replied quite scornfully, 'You read all that up in Pinckwerts; the notion that involution functioned eugenically was exposed long ago by Glumpe.' It is unnecessary for me to say that there never were such people as Pinckwerts and Glumpe. But the people all round (rather to my surprise) seemed to remember them quite well, and the Professor, finding that the learned and mysterious method left him rather at the mercy of an enemy slightly deficient in scruples, fell back upon a more popular form of wit. 'I see,' he sneered, 'you prevail like the false pig in Aesop.' 'And you fail,' I answered, smiling, 'like the hedgehog in Montaigne.' Need I say that there is no hedgehog in Montaigne? 'Your claptrap comes off,' he said; 'so would your beard.' I had no intelligent answer to this, which was quite true and rather witty. But I laughed heartily, answered, 'Like the Pantheist's boots,' at random, and turned on my heel with all the honours of victory. The real Professor was thrown out, but not with violence, though one man tried very patiently to pull off his nose. He is now, I believe, received everywhere in Europe as a delightful impostor. His apparent earnestness and anger, you see, make him all the more entertaining."

- The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton