 |
|
| FriendFeed is the easiest way to share online. Learn more » |
Matt Maisel › Likes
Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War - NYTimes.com - http://www.nytimes.com/2008...
Cee Bee, Joerg Blumtritt, Jeremiah Owyang and 47 other people liked this
"The conflict between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia moved toward all-out war on Saturday as Russia prepared to land ground troops on Georgia’s coast and broadened its bombing campaign both within Georgia and in the disputed territory of Abkhazia."
- Bret Taylor
from Bookmarklet
mmm, home work to read http://blog.wired.com/defense...
- A.T.
Interesting take by noted military strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett http://tinyurl.com/6od63z
- Dave Martin
Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ, ANNE BARNARD and C. J. CHIVERS Published: August 10, 2008 Russia and Georgia veered closer to all-out war on Saturday as Russia moved parts of its Black Sea fleet toward Georgia’s coast and intensified its air attacks.So,according to this report, we have to "pay per view" what's happening? For free access to this article and more, you must be a registered member of NYTimes.com - FAIL
- Graham Steel
Silpol: Thanks for the link. The comments were interesting to say the least.
- Mathew A. Koeneker
For me, this always brings up the question of when should countries allow separatist areas go and when should they forcefully bring them back to the fold? If the people in South Ossetia really want to be their own country, should the international community support them? Or should the sovereignty of the nation take precedence?
- Brett Cannon
unfortunately I know Georgia too well - I used to serve there on the edge of times in 91-92, my unit had been here http://tinyurl.com/5mdyq3 (yes, now abandoned airfield in Vaziani) that scratched gray square is place where my *stuff* was... what is going on now in that area looks as dumb mistake from US side and Russia got (almost) all possible excuses to leave no alive spot on Georgian surface...
- A.T.
@Brett Cannon you ask actually questions which has no single answer, IMO
- A.T.
the political decisions of "ordinary" people mostly just suck. they only see whats surrounding them. they dont understand the bigger causal connections and how the power-game is played. just take a look what happened to east timor. they are now poorer then before and their wish to be independent was based on totally whack assumptions. the decision to separate should be judged on the likeliness that the living standards of the ordinary people would go up.
- Chris Hofmann
...and not on history or the silly coolness of supporting the underdog
- Chris Hofmann
@mcdawg: look at BBC, they carry nearly the same coverage.
- 9000
Putin is still the boss, eh? The NYT articles implies all President Medvedev is doing is handing out press releases. Anyway, hope this all gets resolved sooner rather than later.
- Jim Stanger
...but BBC's coverage is more peicemeal, alas.
- 9000
more caucasian violence, sigh...
- Jim Norris
fire cease?
- ieruo
Oi no good at all will come of this.
- Geoff Schultz
It's like if Canada invaded Northern Michigan, it's just a little one-sided and pointless.
- xero
i'm afraid Canadian allusion doesn't fit well here - it's more likely to along scenario of Canadian Bacon (1995) http://www.imdb.com/title...
- A.T.
Fine, we'll call it Spain and Portugal, without 90min of John Candy cursing. ;)
- xero
It's difficult to "like" things like this in FriendFeed.
- Daniel Schildt
change" like "to "diggg"
- 阿石
only politicians like wars - because they don't have to die of being wounded, but it solves some of their problems
- A.T.
There is plenty of private industry that likes them too.
- Geoff Schultz
I think we are kidding ourselves if we thought Russia was not a threat to world peace. Though; please to not fear for the worse if you live in other countries. "You must face your fears if you are to overcome it. Fear is in the future. There is not fear in the present, only action and reaction." -- Oonu in Dinotopia
- Brandon
from twhirl
This is going to be bad, bad, bad all the way around. Georgia is our ally, and we're ignoring them. Russia, flush with petrodollars, is making up for it's lost superpower status with a vengeance. If we never invaded Iraq and succeeded in Afghanistan, we might have the moral and military might to back up a diplomatic surge to end this type of over-reaching. But we don't. So our allies suffer and our rivals outmaneuver around the world.
- Kawika Holbrook
this thing has been bouncing around the timeline forever... and no can't say I agree with the current status over there - the main problem is not knowing what the real issues are... is it geopolitical? is there oil involved perhaps?
- ben rogers
from twhirl
The Extremely Long Odds Against the Destruction of Earth | Cosmology | DISCOVER Magazine - http://discovermagazine.com/2008...
Matt Maisel liked this
"Can we be sure that a black hole created at the LHC wouldn’t expand and swallow the earth? I think the honest answer to this question is yes. The black holes that would be produced at the LHC must also be produced by the hundreds every day due to energetic cosmic rays bombarding our earth. When cosmic rays smash into particles of earth material, it’s the same type of collision that happens in the LHC. So the very fact that we exist here on earth to talk about these things tells us that even if black holes are produced, pretty much everything is very safe. Either black holes are not produced at all, or they decay very, very quickly due to Hawking radiation or an equivalent mechanism."
- Robert Seidman
from Bookmarklet
BREAKING: Tech news, China's major web sites ordered to shutdown for 3 days re: quake mourning, see @marcvanderchijs @frankyu
Oliver Ding, Pierre-Philippe Martin, sage brennan and 19 other people liked this
How's that going to help anything other than slow commerce in China?
- Internet's Tad
from twhirl
Damn, yet another example of China's government pushing around its media to serve its purposes. That's one way to get sad news off of newspapers.
- Robert Scoble
This is a sad development
- Anand Sharma
This feels like an effort to control the flow of information even more than controlling commerce. Is it customary to shut down for a 3-day mourning period? would that happen if the head of state died?
- Karoli
This is their culture... if you ask me, it's fascinating that we, in our culture, simply could not function with allowing our entire economic structure to lay dormant for three days... after this mourning period passes you will see China right back on the fast track to global domination. Might actually say something about our government's and our businesses purposes, eh? Just a thought.
- Matt Shaulis
http://twitter.com/fuzhead... has more.
- Robert Scoble
shutting down websites is like telling people they can't think about anything else cept the quake for three days. It's stupid and it's not gonna work.
- Stan Schroeder
How sad it is that the government of China can't embrace a tool for communication in disaster relief. Fear trumps helping people every time.
- Jason Ellis
I think we all agree it's a bad move, question is, are they going to enforce it? Or rather, do they really want to?
- Amit Morson
CNN has nothing on this shut down yet. But here's an article on the mourning: http://www.cnn.com/2008...
- Robert Scoble
Why don't they just shackle them all so they can't move - can't mourn properly /and/ move about. This is totally a power play.
- Hafthor Stefansson
Amit, If they do manage to enforce it, what does that say about the ability of a country to silence the Internet?
- Jason Ellis
Matt - it's an excellent example of the lack of freedom in China...
- Internet's Tad
It seems to be another example of China suppressing the Internet, free thought, and the flow of information.
- Brad
Lack of freedom, yes. I do not aim to argue that point in the least. However, people love to jump all over China at every opportunity... what they don't realize is that behind the sushi curtain there is a millennia old culture and tradition that is easy to write off by westerners as "oppression" etc... the traditions of these people pre-date the oppression by a long shot. Mourning and somberness is a facet of that culture.
- Matt Shaulis
http://twitter.com/fuzhead... has a link to the actual edict in Chinese. @fuzheado reminds us that the press has had tons of freedom to cover quake too, but that misses the point. The government there is in control of when the freedom to publish starts and stops.
- Robert Scoble
It may simply just be a way to show respect... nothing else...
- Fredrik Wennberg
from twhirl
Gee China, just when you have the opportunity to show the world how much you've changed, you pull a stunt like this. Pathetic.
- darnell
Matt, sushi is from Japan. Not China.
- Akiva Moskovitz
(DarnellClayton): @Scobleizer Gee China, just when you have the opportunity to show the world how much you've changed, you pull a stunt like this. Pathetic. (fuzheado): @Scobleizer Clarify, the SC edict tells sites to actually to participate in mourning, so it's not CENSORING quake news, its the opposite!
- Robert Scoble
@Matt I don't think anyone is upset about the society's culture -- it's the government practices and policies. Why should the government have any say in how people mourn and express sobriety?
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
How soon until the number of people Scoble follows on Twitter exceeds the population of China?
- Louis Gray
Well, I'll say something nice about China - at least they're officially asking for and receiving help from abroad. That will help save countless lives on top of the ones they're saving themselves. That fact, just by itself shows that China HAS changed. And it shows the enormity of the catastrophe. So, censoring == bad, not trying to burden yourself for providing for millions of homeless == good!
- Internet's Tad
Wouldn't cultural based morning happen voluntarily?
- Brad
All chinese is agree that
- coze
Akiva, thank you for correcting me... it was a pretty weak attempt at humor as it was... I probably deserve more of a lashing... you are a scholar and a gentleman.
- Matt Shaulis
AP article on China "letting" media report on Quake story: http://ap.google.com/article...
- Robert Scoble
I'm not trying to defend the policies or actions of an oppressive regime. I fear I've been misunderstood and did nothing to help my case by shooting off a stupid (and ignorant) sushi remark... All I am saying is that very few people seem to be aware of something: the people were likely anticipating... WAITING for the powers that be to announce how long the mourning period would be, so they could commence to, in unison, honor their cherished heritage. Then again, I'm not Chinese and should (and will) stop.
- Matt Shaulis
Marc van der Chijs (@marcvanderchijs) " TV also says that all public entertainment will not be allowed in next 3 days. Does that mean cinema's and bars will be closed as well?" and John Kennedy (@feng37) "Zhang Xiaozhou mentions friend in Shenzhen ordered to shut his bar down for these 3 days"...If true that's a lot of people out of work for three days. Is this just for Sichuan or all of China. Also, it's the middle of the night in China. Why not make this announcement during the day?
- Robert Stevens
Just to be clear... the major sites aren't being shutted down, as @fuzheado mentioned: "Stop recreational services" for 3 days - game, audio, video sites and forums. do a google translate of the edict, too large to post here.
- dave
I don't necessarily have a problem with the concept of going dark during a public mourning period; quite a lot of US media properties, shows, etc did so after 9/11, for example. I am not so sure I like the idea of a government-mandated shutdown, though.
- Rachel Luxemburg
Westerners... Ugh.... When will you learn to listen first before you speak? Did anybody notice they are shutting down recreational sites, not news and commerce? Seems rather insensitive to be playing games while others are experiencing such great pain. What is wrong with asking Nero to stop playing the fiddle?
- Luke Gedeon
They're stopping the olympic torch too - Not as significant but historically noteworthy
- Charlie Anzman
I thought they were closing ALL business...not just web sites.
- Chris Nixon
Chris, yes.. but The250 care only of the web. ;) (Excellent point by Charlie Anzman [as usual Charlie ;)] ... much more interesting topic of conversation, imho.)
- Matt Shaulis
China three day mourning period begins Monday at 1428 (0628 GMT), one week to the minute since last week's earthquake struck. Via BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2...
- Robert Stevens
I think China has shown an unusual amount of openness around the quake and maybe we shouldn't be so quick to judge on this one.
- Jon Dillon
This is not the fact, the fact is that some local government departments suggest that they ( entertainment site ) should stop operating.now, almost all of the site can also be visited.
- zheng
The commentators here completely miss the point. This event is being experienced in China like 9-11 was experienced in the US. From your first knee jerk reaction, @Scobleizer its funny how good you are about identifying important news and then how bad you are at understanding it. I don't like top down media control either but how about trying to understand WHAT is different about China instead of immediately judging it using our own lens? This is EXACTLY what the the US did with Iraq.
- Elliott Ng
Elliott: this is a conversation. You're more educated than I am. Why don't you just help me become more educated rather than call me an idiot?
- Robert Scoble
Point taken Robert. Easier to rant than to reason. My bad. Let me try to outline it in a blog post. Sorry.
- Elliott Ng
OK, here my post. Is anyone even reading this thread anymore? Safe travels Robert. http://is.gd/ioZ
- Elliott Ng
And here's @pdenlinger more thoughtful take. http://is.gd/ip3
- Elliott Ng
here's @imagethief analysis. What do you think Robert after reading this? http://is.gd/inE
- Elliott Ng
Other ways to read this feed:
