sfarber

Thanks to this week’s visit to Pravda, we learn that Georgy Kirpa , former Ukrainian Transportation Minister and organizer of the (now unsuccessful) presidential campaign of Victor Yanukovich was found dead of an apparent suicide, amidst the surfacing of allegations of over $130,000,000 in missing state funds (intended to build a bridge) were evidently diverted to the Yanukovich campaign are coming to light. Some speculate this was not a suicide at all. We, of course, won’t even talk about the possibilities of what Mr. Kirpa might have been able to tell the new government about, oh, election fraud, in the...

Let’s get right to it, shall we, and report some apparent good news out of Sudan in the nature of a peace deal, a power sharing arrangement between the Khartoum government and its southern area rebels. This particular conflict is blamed for upwards of two million deaths, and is one of Africa’s longest-standing. It, like the conflict in Congo that has apparently killed nearly five million people, is, for whatever reason, less high profile than the conflict in Sudan’s west, the Darfur region. The Darfur conflict rages on, however, but we’ll take good news where we will find it. This...

For whatever reason, the President has announced that the United States will be doing the right thing, and he has increased American pledges of tsunami disaster relief some ten-fold, to $350 million, and sending a delegation led by lame duck SecState Colin Powell and presumed dynastic heir apparent JEB Bush. On the bad news side, those dollars are worth less than they have been before, as the dollar sinks to a nine-year low against a “basket” of other currencies, especially the euro. Well, no matter. The year is at an end. And so, we come to another new year’s eve....

I understand that this is actually a mistranslation of the famous cliche that the Chinese character for “crisis” is an overlay of the characters for “danger” and “opportunity”. Let’s play that out. Right now, we have a massive humanitarian crisis where rapid fire logistical, monetary and other support would doubtless do a world of good (if delivered quickly enough). We have an American government with little will to do anything beyond a token showing (for which it has duly– and rightly– been criticized). But… we have other immense resources… Once again, I’m going to go back to my theme: where...

Words are pretty much inadequate to describe the after effects of the monstrous earthquake and tsunami that has killed over 80,000 people across Indonesia and on into Southern Asia, the Indian Ocean and over to East Africa. Given that thousands of Americans are among the missing (though only a dozen are confirmed dead), and the President has apparently taken umbrage about being called “stingy”, perhaps this event will raise our consciousness of that part of the world where most of its people live. Perhaps. In the meantime, ironically, the two hardest hit areas in terms of death toll, Sumatra’s Aceh...

As I traversed a midtown Manhattan subway corridor, in the space of perhaps 50 yards I was accosted by no less than four equal, yet important groups: the Scientologists, the Jews for Jesus, the Evangelical Protestants, and finally, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Note that now that Sun Yung Moon is a “legitimate business” (owning UPI and the Washington Times), his people haven’t been seen for eons. Previous record for that corridor: two. Was I tempted to use the straight-arm and knock these people down in the manner of Robert Hayes in Airplane!? Surely, I must be joking. I’m not joking, and...

Ending over a month of massive street protests and the so-called Orange Revolution, opposition candidate Viktor Yuschenko claimed victory in the Ukrainian presidential election, capturing over 52% of Sunday’s vote. Naturally, his opponent, Victor Yanokovich, cried fraud, and vowed to fight on and take a challenge of his own to Ukraine’s Supreme Court. International observers concluded that this round of elections was relatively clean (compared to the last one), and it appears most Ukrainians are accepting the results (as did the nearby authoritarian regime in Minsk… or is it Pinsk… Byelorusse… no, I think its Minsk… ancestral home of a...

Ho hum. Stories about “Christmas miracles” of long lost family reunions or seeming generosity that, really, aren’t anything other than a seasonal excuse to sell tabloids or get zombies to watch the local news, will crowd out consciousness of what should probably be the largest story of the new millenium… the humongous 8.9 Krakatoa-magnitude earthquake near Sumatra and resultant tsunami– in death toll, certainly, way beyond 9-11 (a tragedy which people from the victim nations were doubtless concerned over, something which will not likely be reciprocated from here). The fact is, this is an unfortunate harbinger of how natural tragedies,...

While I’m still waiting to hear Democratic outrage over continuing to engage American volunteers into needless death and dismemberment in the Iraqi desert (I’m still waiting… and waiting…), I have little doubt we will NOT hear similar silence in response to the clear implications of Dubya’s (W as in wield-the-ax) likely budgetary priorities as set forth in this La-La Times (registration required, damn them) piece. (Thanks, and saints be praised, to Bruce-the-veep for the always timely assist; Bruce also sends along this Grey Lady piece on nucular proliferation where we can expect a defeaning silence from boths sides of the...

Well, after careful tabulation by our team of auditors from Arthur Andersen, we have determined a winner in the talking dog’s guess the electoral college outcome contest. In plain “closest” terms to the winning margin, the winner would be m’self, who predicted that the winner would have 282 e.v.’s (actual number was 283). However, your TD got carried away with himself, and predicted that it would be John Kerry with that number instead of… the other guy. Next closest was a guess of 293 e.v.’s (with some insane overguessing in the popular total, though contest rules provided that popular vote...