19 June 2009

Senator Boxer's vanity on display as she attempts to upstage her betters



The email I sent to Senator Boxer, following this disgraceful episode...

Dear Senator Boxer,
Your attempted 'smackdown' of General Walsh on national TV was stupid and unnecessary. It shows a contempt for the military in your blatant oneupmanship, and casts you as a vain, preening, self-centered, spoiled brat.
Any military officer of flag rank has worked far, far harder to get where they are than you ever worked to get elected. Any fool can fill a Senate seat (just ask Senator Burriss from IL). But you do NOT earn a star on your shoulder by demagoguing your way to an election victory. You earn it with 25 or more years of selfless service to the nation in places no one wants to go, doing jobs no one else will do, and will little expectation of thanks for it.
Your behavior is a disgrace to California and the Senate and next time you feel the need to wear your title front and center, you better first do a comparison of what it really took to earn that title.

16 June 2009

More Russian Attempts to Isolate Georgia

Russian veto ends UN mission to Georgia - Yahoo! News
Russia has brought to an end the nearly 16-year-old U.N. observer mission that monitored a cease-fire between Georgia and its breakaway Abkhazia region.
Russia exercised its veto power in the U.N. Security Council — toppling a Western plan to extend the life of the U.N. mission for another year, or even two more weeks, to work out a compromise. The vote late Monday was 10-1 with four abstentions — China, Vietnam, Libya and Uganda.
The mission's mandate expired at 0400 GMT Tuesday, (midnight Monday in New York), requiring about 130 military observers and more than a dozen police to leave. Both the name — the U.N. Observer Mission in Georgia — and references to Georgia's territorial sovereignty were sticking points.