Speaking of political protest, it's interesting that sometimes it's called "democratic," and sometimes it's called "criminal activity"
Police Disperse Opposition Picketers in Georgia
3 hours ago
By Olesya Vartanyan and Ellen Barry--Tbilisi Georgia (New York Times)-- Police dispersed a gathering of around 100 demonstrators with clubs on Monday, seizing journalists' cameras, as street protests against President Mikheil Saakashvili's government extended into a third month....Crowds have tapered off since April 10, when huge peaceful demonstrations first gathered to demand Mr. Saakashvili's resignation, but several recent protests have ended violently..... On Friday, as Georgia's parliament gathered for the first time since the opposition campaign started, protesters waited outside Georgia's parliament and pelted several members, and the speaker, with eggs. Later, they threw rocks at security guards.
Diplomats from France, Britain and the United States condemned the protesters. The United States Embassy released a statement saying their actions "crossed a line from free expression of opinion to criminal activity." Opposition leaders complained that foreign diplomats should not involve themselves in the country's internal politics....
And speaking of Georgia,
Russia threatens to veto West's UN Georgia plan
1 hour ago
By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS, June 15 (Reuters) - Russia's dispute with Western powers over its neighbor Georgia came to a head on Monday as Moscow threatened to veto a Western plan to extend the mandate of a U.N. mission in the former Soviet republic....Georgia President Urges UN To Renew Abkhazia Mission As Part Of Georgia
June 15
TBILISI, Georgia (AFP)--Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Monday urged the United Nations to renew its monitoring mission in Abkhazia while still recognizing the breakaway region as part of Georgia....
and speaking of Russia,
Russia Seeks Bigger Afghan Role Before BRIC Summit
By Lyubov Pronina
June 15 (Bloomberg) -- President Dmitry Medvedev will seek to increase Russia's role in resolving the conflict in Afghanistan at a regional security summit that may also include talks with reelected Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Russia's contribution may include "giving Afghanistan practical assistance in restoring its economy and expanding the practice of regular political consultations," Sergei Prikhodko, an aide to Medvedev, told reporters in Moscow yesterday.
Medvedev will meet with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts, Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari, today during a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a six-country security alliance that includes China and four former Central Asian Soviet republics. The two-day forum in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg will be followed late tomorrow by the first summit of the so-called BRIC countries.
Medvedev has repeatedly said Russia is prepared to cooperate with the U.S. to bring order to Afghanistan...
Iranian president puts off Russia trip
The Associated Press - 11 hours ago
...The change in plans came amid street protests in Iran following Ahmadinejad's re-election in a bitterly disputed vote Friday. The embassy did not give a reason for the decision....
AA,
Just curious if the ad you see over at the right side of the page is "Find A Russian Beauty"?
I shit you not, when I clicked to read your post concerning, what I discovered, was a former Soviet bloc nation.
I nearly fell out of my chair.
AndI am sorry to say, I think 'Volume' (in numbers) is the deciding factor in leagal/criminal activity. I really hate that it seems to ALWAYS work that way.
June 15, 2009 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't get that one, it must be you, have you been looking at buy-a-slave-bride sites lately? Then when you clicked on this story, the Spyware Monster figured you might like a Russian? Just kidding...
Instead I've got: whiten teeth, lose weight, and as a New York resident, I can make $63 an hour part time! I don't know how they know I live in NY, and they got need to whiten teeth thing right, but they are wrong about the need to lose weight, that's one problem I don't have.
June 15, 2009 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whew!
I wondered what I had searched to cause me to get those same ads.
I very, very rarely click an ad. Do you think those crummy ads are Google's way of encouraging clicks more attractive ads?
June 16, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
They can see your IP address. They know what ISP / network you are on from the IP address. They can know the city just from public internet data associated with that IP address.
Ultimately, under a suitable legal condition, they can obtain the exact street address of the PC which is assigned that IP address. I'm not 100% sure of this part. They might know your exact location just by looking without the need of any justification. But I think it takes a warrant and contacting the ISP to get the subscriber name associated with an IP address.
June 16, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
They're not infallible; they think McKinleyville is in the Bay Area.
June 16, 2009 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sometimes ostensibly democratic protests get way out of line and become de facto criminal activity.
I'm not up on the devilish details in this case, but I do think that confiscating cameras could be either to get evidence of criminal activity or to suppress the press (or both).
So, dunno what point if any you had in mind...
June 15, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
dunno what point if any you had in mind...
Oh, just mainly the "it's in the eye of the beholder" thing. (I also thought back to the quotes from Chinese citizens a while back calling Tibetan protestors ungrateful "hooligans.")
I heard a quick one-or-two-sentence report of the new Georgian protest on CNN, and then they jumped back to the Iran story (because they got so many protests from the public about not enough coverage on Iran, that's all they'll cover now, hah.) And I went to look it up for more and found the stories on the stuff going on at the UN, and after that was reminded of how Iran and Russia are pretty big buds.
To be honest I was also thinking about a lot of the things. Like the way we cover global news is that only the loudest squeaky wheel gets the grease, and we seem to only be able to handle one story at a time, and want to learn all the details on that one story, and this is getting worse with the internet, not better as one might have predicted a couple years back.
Meanwhile, our leaders don't have that luxury, they are, rather, looking at a global spiderweb, where all kinds of shit is going on allover the world, and where one tiny thing they do might influence a lot of other important things elsewhere. That they can't always trust or support the good, right and true knee-jerk reaction in support of this group or that group is the right thing to do, as it might bring them big shit down the road. And they might also say some things they don't mean because it's necessary to prevent some big shit hitting the fan down the road.
(I was also thinking everyone should be required to watch "Charlie Wilson's War" in high school, or something similar, followed up by what happened later, of course. And how I think George Washington turned out to be pretty wise guy toward the end of his career.)
June 15, 2009 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. on I'm not up on the devilish details in this case, I should add that neither am I. The statement just struck my eye the minute I saw it, and, as I said, got me thinking on all the above ramblings.
June 15, 2009 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great post.
Spare, sharp and provocative far beyond the immediate topic.
That's not exactly en vogue here, but please - more of these!
June 15, 2009 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. There's a similar post also wishing that we covered more world stuff here.
June 16, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was hitting the Speaker of the House with eggs, right? I mean, I’m all for revolution but there has to be limits….
June 16, 2009 12:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
The irony here is too thick to cut.
Saaka was brought to power by massive demonstrations in Tbilisi that were fully backed by the USG.
June 16, 2009 1:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
The irony here is too thick to cut.
It boggles. That's part of the reason I didn't say more. Geopolitics these days ain't as easy as it used to be.
June 16, 2009 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tangential to the point of bordering on being OT, but your linkage of the sitauations in Georgia and in Iran induced an unexpected "thank God John McCain isn't the president! moment.
I find I never know when one will hit.
June 16, 2009 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yah, good point on McCain.
June 16, 2009 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like most Americans, I guess, I completely forgot about this mess. Like the problem had evaporated.
And Russia's interest in Afghanistan. Geeez, it cannot seem to keep its mind off this place. Its almost obsessive compulsive.
Thank you for this post.
June 16, 2009 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
And Russia's interest in Afghanistan
I think it's always been about the whole area; while Afghanistan is not exactly a valuable prize, the bordering Iran and Pakistan are a different story. Before when they were commies, it was about that, now it's about something else. It's their 'hood, after all.
We haven't always exactly been hands off with Mexico, and I wouldn't exactly call them a top level prize....
It's amazing in a way that NATO taking over in Afghanistan hasn't riled Russians way way more than it does. It was one thing for the U.S. to go there after 9/11, it's another to make it a long-term NATO thing.
June 16, 2009 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Afghanistan is valuable because of it's location (in the strategic sense and as a transit route for pipelines) and it's purty red flowers.
Geopolitics these days ain't as easy as it used to be.
No kidding. One has to "specialize" in a region to make sense of how things work within a larger context. In the case of Georgia and it's crazy leader, our idiotic backing of him just goes to show that a change in administrationsdoes not mean that there is actual change when it comes right down to it.
Don't forget that the dummy Joe Biden is Saaka's special friend...
June 16, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
AA, throwing rocks has been a legal issue ever since the Stone Age.
June 16, 2009 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
But didn't it also help David become king? :-)
June 16, 2009 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, Ahmadinejad finally showed up in Moscow, and geez louise, feisty as ever:
June 16, 2009 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink