George Bush provided the world with another example of his shocking stupidity yesterday, when the U.S. signed a deal to build a defensive missile base in Poland. The timing is nothing short of spectacular. How better to help solve the crisis in Georgia, than to sign a deal to put missiles on the border of Russia? I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

The Polish Prime Minister went as far as to say the situation in Georgia is why we are placing missiles in Poland.

Please don’t pay attention to the country that has invaded TWO countries, only be upset by the country that has invaded ONE country. And never mind that we’ve been trying to place missiles in Poland for a couple of years. It’s the current Russian incursion into Georgia that is the reason. Please ignore all recorded history over the last couple of years.

“Last week” being in January 2007. But, yeah, we’ll go with the fantasy that the U.S. wanted to get those missiles in there because of Russia invading Georgia. The Bush administration claims we need the missile base in Poland because of “rogue states,” like “Iran and North Korea.”

As we all know, when North Korea picks a fight with the U.S., they will attempt to launch rockets the long way around the globe. No fucking way does North Korea shoot missiles across the Pacific. They will go the long way, across Asia, Europe and the Atlantic. And no way does North Korea shoot missiles at South Korea, or Japan. Fuck no. They will probably shoot missiles across Russia and China to take out Belgium at some point. Everyone knows that.

Iran, of course, is going to bomb everyone and everything. They’re obviously going to launch missiles they don’t have at Europe. Oh, you didn’t know we’re provoking Russia to protect ourselves from missiles that don’t exist? Yeah. Kind of an awesome foreign policy plan, huh? The Pentagon claims the missile base will

Totally. I mean, neither North Korea nor Iran have intercontinental ballistic missiles, so we should build a very provocative missile base on the border of Russian to stop those not real missiles. While we’re at it, we should also create a dragon defense system. I mean, if we’re going to protect ourselves from non-existent threats, lets go all the way. Build the fucking Dragon Shield, already.

Oh, and did I mention that we don’t actually have a defensive missile system? Right. We’ve been trying to build one since 1946, but it’s been a total waste of money. Actually, it’s been the biggest giveaway to the defense industry in our country’s history. Since Reagan kicked the program off big time, it’s only cost around 120 billion dollars. And the Pentagon is asking for 62 billion more. For nothing. It’s a complete joke. So, obviously we should really, really upset the Russians in order to protect ourselves and our allies from missiles that don’t exist by using a defense missile system that does not exist.

That works just fine for the defense industry. At this point, Poland should just change its name to Bait. The Russian response has been obvious and predictable to anyone who is not a moron.

Wow, I can’t believe it. And thank God that’s not the end of it.

Shocking – if you are a tool.

Hey, look! A tool! Let me know when you accomplish just one thing that is good for the world, Condi. Thanks. And good luck with that “credibility” argument. Iraq (cough, cough). Seriously, though, you’re a war criminal, so you shouldn’t be tossing around the word “credibility.” It’s embarrassing.

Looks like the only winner in this mess is the defense industry. Who would have thought? And for anyone who wants to see how this turns out, read this book. I read it in the 8th grade. Obviously, no one in the Bush Administration has. Or even scarier, they have.

FearTheReaper is a writer, actor, stand up comic. You may read more of his drivel on his blog, Stop All Monsters.

The situation in Georgia is deteriorating rapidly. For those of you who have had your heads shoved up your asses, here’s a recap and some history from Redbstrd. Georgia has been a tinderbox for years and the last thing one needs during a tinderbox situation is the simplistic, one note diplomacy of George Bush and company. He fucked the pooch on this one, plain and simple.

Historically, this is a very fucked up situation.Think Israel and Palestine. Georgia has been opposed to their aggressive Russian neighbors for centuries. And two regions inside Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, are opposed to aggressive Georgia rule. In the end, the regions don’t want to be a part of Georgia, so they looked to Russia for help. Georgia invaded the capital of South Ossetia this week and Russia responded by invading, too. The conflict has now spread to Abkhazia and beyond. That’s the incredibly simplistic summary of a conflict that has been going on since the late 1700s. You want more, read this. Oh, and don’t forget about the oil. Seems every conflict in the world includes oil as part of the equation.

We should be concerned about what our part in this mess is and how to make sure we don’t do more damage.

The Bush administration encouraged Georgia president Mikheil Saakashvili to apply for NATO membership. This really couldn’t have been a more ignorant stance to take. During a time of increasing nationalism in Russia, that reminds some of past fascist rulers, encouraging a Russian border country, with a history of conflicts, to join NATO is completely moronic. Oh, and Russia said they would not allow it.

No, shit. Anyone who had bothered to read any history of the region would have known that, but we are talking about a president who didn’t know the difference between Shiites and Sunnis when he invaded Iraq. Nuance and intelligence are the enemies of George Bush.

Bush has been giving weapons and training to Georgia for several years, while he pushed for the country’s entry into NATO. Europe said, “No thanks,” because they are not fucking morons. They knew if Georgia was allowed into NATO, it would mean war with Russia, which is exactly where we would be now if our retarded president had his way. We would be at war with Russia, obligated by NATO treaties to send troops to defend Georgia. Sound good? That’s how stupid Bush and his people are.

Now, throw in the fact that the U.S. has invaded two countries in the past seven years, and we actually don’t have the ability to take a stance against an aggressive Russia. Bush invaded Iraq by using false intelligence, lying to the UN and the American people. It’s kind of hard for a guy who killed someone, standing with blood all over his hands, to call someone else a murderer, without everyone looking at him funny. Also, any military or other support we could have given Georgia is being used in two wars. And Russia knows that.

But, it’s not like some in the Bush administration aren’t calling for the U.S. to jump into this fight. Colossal dipshit and the greatest threat to America since the Japanese, Vice President Dick Cheney, would like us to get in this fucker.

Oh, good. Call up the president of Georgia and act like you are president of the United States, dick. What a completely insane promise to make. What the fuck does "not go unanswered" mean? Judging by past Bush administration responses, that ain't good. But then, these are the same neo-con idiots who have wreaked havoc on the world, so it can’t be a big surprise.

Okay. Line crossed. What do you propose, genius? The people of Georgia are expecting our support because of this EXACT TYPE OF LANGUAGE over the years.

Not coming. Not actually your friends.

It's not and we're in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sorry about that. How about a mint?

It's called being on the other end of Bush foreign policy. Kind of a bummer, huh?

Smell that? It’s smells familiar, kind of like the Shiites rising up against Saddam Hussein under the first President George Bush, after he encouraged them to fight, after he insinuated they would be aided in their battle, after he stupidly made public statements he should not have made. They were slaughtered, just as the Georgians are being slaughtered today.

Bush I basically told the Shiites we had their back and they were slaughtered, while our soldiers were forced to watch, unable to engage. Now Bush II has done the same with Georgia and the result is not surprising.

John McCain, of course, wants to make the situation worse. Old School believes the situation escalated because NATO didn’t vote Georgia into the organization. Uh, yeah. That would be true, I guess, in a world where Russia didn’t say the exact opposite.

Hey, World War III! How you been? John McCain actually wants us to do the exact opposite of what should be done. Just to summarize, he wants NATO to vote for a war with Russia. Because, you know, that’s what happens when you bring a country into NATO who is at war with Russia. Johnny wants to play “bluff” with Russia and hope they would back down. You know, the Russia that is going through a bout of insane nationalism and knows the U.S. is incredibly weak militarily. Hey, draft age guys, you up for it, or what?

Oh, and please don’t pay attention to the fact that McCain's top foreign policy advisor was a lobbyist for...Georgia.

It’s interesting. A McCain win could mean World War III, but any destabilization in the world only helps McCain because of his military background. It’s weird, but somebody predicted a more unstable world as part of his future election breakdown. And hey, he also predicted the surge would be a success! Who would have thought with all that paying off of the enemy and whatnot….

FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comic. You can read more of his blathering on his blog, Stop All Monsters.

"Russia is fighting a war with us in our own territory," Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili announced today.

Reuters reported today that the Russian military has entered into territory claimed by the Republic of Georgia - what is currently a breakaway region known as South Ossetia. Russian tanks are currently clashing with Georgian forces in South Ossetia and the Russian airforce is striking targets in Georgia proper.

Russia's decision to use force stemmed most immediately from Georgia's attack on the Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali yesterday. Conflict over spy drones, mutual sniper attacks, and artillery shelling has marred Russian-Georgian relations in the preceding weeks and months.

Russia claims that Georgia is to blame for the fighting:

Meanwhile, the Georgian president accuses Russian forces of intentionally targeting civilians and dismisses the Russian claims.

For those not familiar with politics of the south Caucasus, Georgia is an independent nation that borders Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. The nation is known for its excellent wines (like kindzmarauli and kvanchkara), spicy cuisine, and being the birthplace of Iosif Dzhugashvili - better known as Stalin. The landscape of Georgia is beautiful and it is home to four UNESCO cultural heritage sites. The population of Georgia is overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox and has been Christian since Roman times. It is also the home to 12 different living languages (plus Russian and Armenian) and at least 18 distinct ethnic groups.

Russian-Georgian relations date back to the early 1860s, when King Herekle asked for Russian aid (as a fellow Orthodox nation) to secure their independence against both the Ottoman Turks and the Qajar Persians who competed for dominance of the Caucasus. Russia, under Catherine the Great, repeatedly failed to honor military obligations to Herekle but due to court intrigue, the aging monarch feared for the survival of his dynasty. Consequently, he signed the Treaty of Georgievsk in 1873, making Russia the protector of the eastern half of modern Georgia. Under Paul I, Russia formally annexed eastern Georgia in 1801 and conquered the rest within 10 years. The nation remained part of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union (with the exception of a brief independence following the collapse of the Romanov dynasty) until 1991, when Georgia declared its independence.

Things were not rosy* for post-independence Georgia, however, as even the former Soviet dissident and human rights activist Zviad Gamsakhurdia ruled in an authoritarian manner (even accusing his enemies of "sabotage" and treason). After his ouster by a violent coup, the opposition forces appointed Eduard Shevardnadze as president of the nation. His rule was likewise characterized by corruption and nepotism, leading to his peaceful ouster in the Rose Revolution of 2003. Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov negotiated the resignation of Gamsakhurdia in a summit meeting with the Georgian president and the opposition (including pro-Western and American-educated current president Mikheil Saakashvili).

While political representation has taken a turn for the better in the past five years in Georgia, the country is plagued with problems. Almost half of the population lives beneath the poverty line. Corruption and crime are rampant. More importantly - two regions of Georgia broke away after the 1991 independence: South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Following Saakashvili's campaign promises to clamp down on separatism, the leader of the autonomous region of Adjara also threatened to secede, leading to another crisis. While Georgia resolved the Adjara crisis peacefully, it was defeated militarily in its campaigns in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgia cannot exert military control over either region, largely due to Russian support of the separatists. Both of these conflicts led to slaughter of innocent civilians by all sides and ended in ethnic cleansing of the Georgian population in the breakaway regions.

South Ossetia continues to be a problem for Russian-Georgian relations. The UN, EU, and NATO refuse to recognize South Ossetia as an independent nation, while Russia extends visas to the population. Georgia hopes to suppress the Ossetian de facto independence and Saakashvili is under pressure from the public to do so. Meanwhile, Russia backs South Ossetia as a means of exerting power over Georgia and countering American influence in the region.

America, in fact, is deeply involved in the Russian-Georgian conflict at least in the eyes of the two players. Following George W. Bush's visit to Tbilisi in 2005, the Georgians renamed the street by their airport to "George W. Bush avenue." As a Reuters article notes, the United States has 120 soldiers in Georgia. President Saakashvili asserts that the influence of the US is even deeper, though. According to him, the latest Russian-Georgian conflict:

He continued to say:

Meanwhile, the NY Times reports that:

The United States will have difficulty remaining uninvolved, especially given Georgia's immediate decision to pull these troops out of Iraq.

US Presidential candidate John McCain has called on Russia to withdraw from Georgia and asks for an emergency UN Security Council meeting (Note: one already took place 12 hours before he called for it). Some bloggers are already claiming that this event will increase McCain's rating in polls because of his hawkish stance.

*Yeah, that's a pun on Georgia's Rose Revolution...

The Arctic is full of oil. It is estimated that 25% of the world’s undiscovered oil is in the Arctic. It is our oil. It cannot be another country’s oil because it is in the Earth. Any oil that is in the Earth is America’s oil – it has been given to us by God to put in our cars. It is written in the Bible somewhere, page 238, I think. The Arctic’s oil is finally becoming available and it is largely because of the United States.

We use quite a bit of the Earth’s resources and we produce a large amount of pollution. That is just how we roll. Because of the Greenhouse Effect, Arctic ice is melting, which is finally giving us access to oil. Since we are creating so much of the pollutants that cause the Greenhouse Effect and melts the ice, we should be allowed to take the oil. It just makes sense.

Evil Russia has other ideas. A couple of weeks ago, Russia claimed the Arctic by planting its national flag on the ocean floor below the North Pole. Russians loved it, comparing it to when we planted our flag on the moon. (Much fucking harder) Russia is clearly confused if they think planting a flag has any meaning in the year 2007.

But Russia wasn’t happy with just planting a flag. The red menace also took rock samples in an attempt to prove that underwater Arctic mountains are a continuation of Russia. Clearly this nonsense must stop. Russia has actually reduced its CO2 levels since the 1990s, which means they haven’t done shit to make the ice melt. We are still the #1 producer of CO2. Russia is taking advantage of our hard work and trying to steal our oil.

The 1982 UN Law of Sea Convention gave nations a 200-nautical-mile “economic zone” from their coastlines. 150 countries have ratified the treaty, but the US has not. Suddenly, 25 years later, President Bush is urging the Senate to ratify the treaty. Hopefully they do soon, so we can get our sweet, black gold. Canada, Norway and Denmark also border the Arctic Circle, but they can be dismissed because they are either weird or really small.

But that hasn’t stopped Canada from getting uppity. Our northern neighbors are planning on building two new military facilities in the Arctic as well as spending $7 billion on new Arctic patrol vessels. They are also talking some serious smack.

No question? This fight is between the US and Russia, stay the fuck out of it. Go club some seals or play some hockey, you freaks.

Here’s a delightful image. What if the United States had 120,000 male teenage Ann Coulters running around? Sounds like the ultimate nightmare, doesn’t it? That is what seems to be happening in Russia. They are known as “Nashi” and they speak the same extremist language as Coulter. They fanatically support Putin, call the political opposition traitors and fascists and demonize foreign powers. The only difference between Coulter and the Nashi, is that the Nashi have no problem with using physical force to make their point.

The Nashi aren’t the only group. There are also the “Young Guard” and “Walking Together.” The one thing these groups have in common is their fanatical devotion to Putin, much like the Sturmabteilung’s fanatical devotion to Hitler.

They are highly disciplined and sponsored by the Kremlin. They must receive basic military training before they can become members. The Nashi also have a volunteer “police force,” who patrol and “if necessary beat hooligans." These young militants form what is essentially a private army, devoted to one man: Putin.

Meanwhile, Putin is stoking the fires of anti-Americanism. At a recent military parade, Putin made comments about “new threats” to the world “as during the time of the Third Reich.” Pretty much the same kind of talk Adolph was spewing out during his rise to power. And the crowd at the Independence Day parade soaked it up. Mostly because the only people allowed into Red Square that day were members of the youth groups. The kids are catching on to Putin’s message.

Super and totally not creepy.

The Nashi claim they are fighting against fascism. (Exactly the same claim made in the early days of the Nazi party and by Benito Mussolini’s Blackshirts.) Unfortunately, fascists seem to only be defined as people who criticize Putin.

Meanwhile, the kids are doing some really quality work in Russia.

And the Young Guards are doing their thing. They have staged training sessions in how to handle an “Orange Revolution.” At the end of one training session, the Young Guards grabbed baseball bats and smashed up a mock Orange tent camp. That might discourage any future protestors a bit.

The Nashi are also using technology in ways the Nazis could have only dreamed of. They pass out brochures and SIM cards in Moscow. The SIM cards allow users to text the Kremlin, where Nashi volunteers are waiting to receive the word of whatever horrible event is occurring on the streets and respond. If any Orange revolution activity is seen, the Nashi will send out texts to their foot soldiers to respond. (Might be a really great use for the new iphones, by the way)

The Nashi are also taking their message to outlying village schools, to teach the young minds about the truth.

You can’t really argue with that description of Putin. Poor, little, lonely wolf. It’s really quite scary if you think about all the rats. The Kremlin has given $220 million to help fund these little fascists. And they get some sweet perks.

The Nashi are now paying off in spades. In May, Estonia removed a statue of a WWII Soviet soldier in Tallin. The small country suddenly found itself overwhelmed by a cyber attack. Servers went down and NATO Internet security experts were brought in to combat the assault. Russian sponsored protests in Estonia left 1 dead and 99 injured. In Moscow, Estonia’s ambassador was attacked by the Nashi and were only stopped when the ambassador’s bodyguards sprayed them with mace. The ambassador and his staff were forced to flee the country. Nashi barriers shut down the highway from Moscow to Estonia. They created a large sign that read, “You are driving toward fascist Estonia.” This all happened because Estonia took down a statue. What if the small country had actually really done something negative toward Moscow. What would the reaction been then?

The world is, understandably, a little freaked out.

Well, what can you do? This shit is off and running. It’s 1933 Germany all over again.

And you thought Bush was bad news….

While time passes and the end of June looms closer, the heated debate regarding Kosovo Independence still seems uncertain.

Ever since the March 24, 1999 Nato Bombing Campaign to push out Serbs, the Serbian province of Kosovo has been under UN control. With the United States leading the campaign, former president Bill Clinton seems like a leader in Kosovo, where 90% of the population is ethnic Albanian.

The ethnic Kosovo Albanians are rising a statue of former President Bill Clinton on Clinton BLVD in Prishtina.

The United States has said it would present a new resolution to the UN Security Council by June. However, Serbia considers Kosovo its heartland and will not let go. Russia, as Serbia's ally, threatened to use its veto if that resolution were to be presented.

To better understand why it's so hard for Serbia to let go of Kosovo, I'll quote what a Serbian interpreter told me while I was on an escort mission here in Kosovo.

This is basically what happened in Kosovo. Yes, the Serbian military was wrong for killing "some 10,000 ethnic Albanians in an 18-month counter-insurgency war against Albanian separatist guerrillas." But that is not the people's fault so why should they lose their own land?

I am not here to criticize, but mainly to stress the point that although the status of Kosovo is near, there will never truly be a resolution.

With cultural and religious differences -- Albanians being Muslim and Serbians being Orthodox Christian -- problems might always be there, even after independence.

Either way, whether or not Kosovo gets it's independence, one side will not be happy.

The UN knows this, and is mainly the reason why it's taking them so long to decide on a resolution.

Somebody had better get on the ball with some counterbalancing chipper news quick, because things are starting to heat up over in the old Eastern Bloc and I'm not talking about the weather. Not that Estonia has ever been on the absolute greatest terms with Russia Proper, but whenever somebody shuts down a consulate, it's kind of a sign that things are worse than usual. So what's the deal, guys?

Meanwhile, back in Moscow...

And thusly the Estonian Consulate in Moscow was shut down, with all work stopped and them refusing to give visas until the situation has settled down.

Apparently all this tension has been rising in anticipation of "World War II Day," on account of it's a big patriotic pride point for ethnic Russians, but not so much for Estonians who were liberated from the Nazis only to be promptly (and forcibly) colonized and reabsorbed into the USSR upon their defeat.

So, now the EU is sending over some delegates to have a little chat with Russia, and has "strongly urged" them to chill the heck out and handle things within the protocol of the Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations, which basically means being respectful and not kicking said delegates into a pit like the guy from 300. So far, Moscow's mayor Yuri Luzhkov has reacted by referring to Estonia as "barbaric" and calling for a boycott of everything relating to the little country. So who knows how that's going to go.

So-o-o-o, how about that weather in St. Petersburg, eh?

One of the world’s greatest drunks died today. Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin went to the big vodka bottle in the sky at the ripe old age 76. After leaving office in December 1999, he experienced heath problems, including heart failure. His funeral and a day of national mourning will be on Wednesday. They would have a national day of drinking to celebrate Yeltsin’s life, but everyday is national drinking day in Russia.

The Big Y was the first democratically elected president of Russia in 1991. He stopped a coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that same year. He was hailed as a defender of democracy but things did not go so well after that.

That was a sort of nice thing to say about a dead guy. At least Gorbachev did not call Yeltsin a national embarrassment, which is what he was by the end of his reign. His second term was full of public gaffes, financial crises and a battle against impeachment. The ruble lost 75% of its value in 1999 alone.

Yeltsin’s behavior would have been funnier if he was not in charge of a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons. By the end of his presidency he was a delightful combination of power hungry and out of touch with reality. He also sent troops to fight a war in Chechnya that was not winnable. Seem like anyone you know?

In 1999, during a press conference over the war in Kosovo, Yeltsin said that if President Clinton were to cause some sort of accident in Yugoslavia, Russia would "send a missile". His spokesman quickly explained that this was not official policy.

During his final year a former head of security claimed Yeltsin has attempted suicide twice and that he was unfit to govern. He often appeared drunk in public, once stumbling during a ceremony in Uzbekistan. On many occasions he needed support to walk or stand while at public engagements.



Dance, boozy dance!

FearTheReaper will be appearing at the Irvine Improv April 27-28.

Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov left a lasting impression on the world when he was defeated by Deep Blue, IBM's chess supercomputer, in 1997, suggesting that machine may some day overtake humanity's progress in logic and reasoning. That conclusion was supported today by Russian security forces, who along with Premier err.... President Putin are dragging the country back to the bad old days through their suppression of political dissent, and is now pointed directly as Kasparov.

Free speech and the ability to criticize a government is a cornerstone of democracy and liberty. The Russian constitution guarantees these freedoms explicitly:

Maybe it's time Putin and his thugs read up on their own constitution?

Russia began building the first of floating nuclear power plants on Sunday. Yes, floating nuclear power plants. What could possibly wrong? Aside from the Chernobyl disaster and the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk, when has Russia ever had a problem with nuclear accidents?

Russia plans to build at least six more nuke floaters even though critics have pointed out that because the power plants will be floating on the sea they are more vulnerable to accidents. You know, because they are FLOATING ON THE FUCKING SEA. Sometimes the world’s oceans act up a bit.

But Russia believes the potential of a disaster is outweighed by the fact that the plants will bring power to the countries remote areas. Also, they can be sold to other nations, who really need floating nuclear plants.

Great, that makes me feel better.

Hey, uh, solar nanotechnology, you ready yet?

Say what you will about the cold war and the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation that it represented - at least it was fairly obvious where the threat was coming from. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the downfall of its internal security apparatus also came huge lapses in the ability to safeguard its nuclear weapons stockpiles. With numerous countries looking to develop their own nuclear arsenals and a newfound capitalist spirit being embraced in former Soviet republics, we can all celebrate the creation of a new market for weapons grade uranium, where buyers can easily purchase, rather than having to develop, the key ingredient to make their very own nuclear bombs.

And the Bush administration is mostly concerned about uranium enrichment in Iran? This is the real deal, and chances are that if someone was caught selling it that there are others who haven't been caught yet.

Enacting what appeared to be a poorly written scene from a late night Showtime made-for-TV spy movie, former KGB spy Alexander Litvenko blamed mother Russia for his radiation poisoning that subsequently led to his death.

While his words may have been poorly chosen, it should not diminish the seriousness of his allegations. Litvinenko has been an avid critic of post-Communist Russian policy, and specifically the apparatus left over from the remains of his former agency, the KGB. And who was former director of the KGB? None other than Vladimir Putin, the west's friendly neighbor and ally who has been responsible for brutal human rights violations in Chechnya, as well as crackdowns on dissidents and even what many believe to be the framing of political rival and oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Would someone capable of all this be willing to poison and murder a former agent who spoke out against Putin and his activities? It doesn't seem like much of a stretch.

European scientists revealed one of the most exciting pieces of news in quite some time: Ships can now sail “unhindered” from Europe to the North Pole without all that pesky ice getting in the way. Huge patches of ice-free sea now stretch from Norway and the Russian Arctic to the North Pole.

Scientists discovered this wonderful development by analyzing satellite images taken in late August. The brand new ice-free zone is larger than the British Isles – but the food is better in the ice-free zone.

Someone call the Guinness Book of World Records! But sadly, the open water has begun to freeze again as something called autumn approaches. But odds are the water will be back next year, as the northern polar ice cover has been getting smaller for 25 years. Between 2004 and 2005 Arctic ice shrank by one seventh, which illustrates how we are winning the war against ice.

The new ice free water will create transpolar passages that countries such as Canada, Russia and the United States will claim rights over. The US will obviously win that confrontation because most Russians are drunk and Canada is our bitch.

In the ultimate NIMBY move, Bush has uniltaterally decided to enter into an agreement with Russia that would pay the Russians to store our nuclear waste.

I don't feel alone in thinking that this is a terrible idea, for a whole variety of reasons. First off, Vladimir Putin isn't exactly democracy's best friend, and establishing this kind of deal with a wannabe despot doesn't really make the US seem to be that interested in the pursuit of democracy elsewhere. Russia has also been the repeated target of terrorist attacks from Chechnya, and nuclear waste sites make tempting targets. From an environmental perspective a large scale agreement like this could remove any sort of domestic pressure to come up with a feasible and safe way to deal with nuclear waste - out of sight, out of mind, and politicians will deprioritize it as an issue. In addition, the issue of shipping nuclear waste halfway across the world just increases the possiibility of an accident that could result in loose fuel rods (not to mention that terrorists would be salivating at the chance to try and screw up the transport some how.) Finally, once it gets in Russia, are we really in a position to trust the Russians to deal with the fuel in safe manner? Their track record isn't exactly stellar in that regard.

Congress isn't likely to be happy about this decision on Bush's part, as he didn't need congressional approval to make this new pact. Congress does, however, have the authority to overrule his decision, but it would require a 90% majority in both houses. Good luck. Looks like we'll be stuck with this.