Mother Nature is pissed?

Has it occurred to anyone else that maybe all of the epidemics we are facing are mother nature's way of population control? In the past, these epidemics would run rampant killing thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands. It kept the population of the planet pretty low. With the way we live today, we are sucking everything out of the earth because there are too many people. We are draining aquifers for irrigation, turning farmland into desert due to over production and poor farming practices, polluting rivers and water sources that we drink from due to farming and industry. I have heard it said that some scientists think that the earth is already over populated, that 3 billion was about all that would be sustainable on the earth. Well, we are approaching 7 billion, so what does this mean? It seems that mother nature is fighting back, trying to get us under control again. Why else would these viruses and diseases be jumping from animals to humans? We had avian flu, now swine flu, plus there was SARS, and I am sure others as well. Just something to think about.

Embarrassing American Diplomacy

http://www.politico.com/singletitlevideo.html?bcpid=1155201977&bctid=14985653001

The above link is to the video of Hillary Clinton giving the symbolic "reset button" to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Clinton says that they tried to get the right Russian word for "reset," but they did not. This is embarrassing in itself. There are many Russians living in the United States, as well as Russian language scholars and students. With those resources available, how did they get it wrong? Granted, Russian is quite difficult as a language, as I am well aware, but how can you get a word wrong when you have an embassy and a consulate in Russia? Seriously, they could have sent someone to one of the Russian Universities, or even just onto the street to ask what the word for reset is. If that was not embarrassing enough, when Clinton is told that the word they put on the button was "overcharge," she makes a comment to the effect of "We won't let you do that to us, I promise." How arrogant is that? The whole idea was to thaw relations, not prove that Americans are arrogant. This whole incident is just embarrassing, and leads me to conclude that it is not surprising that people think that Americans are stupid. When we have leaders that can't get one word correct, and then make arrogant comments when they find out its wrong, it is no wonder there are negetive feelings towards the US. All I am saying is that if we are choosing as a country to repair the damage of the Bush administration, then we need to take a less arrogant approach, and more importantly, get the details right!

More to think about...

Maybe the ranter had a point. I have been thinking about the top 1% that holds the wealth of the world. Since I am studying Russian history/ politics, why wouldn't I make a parallel to it? Anyway, if you look at the Oligarch class in Russia, they are the wealthiest class, BY FAR!! (Please pardon my propaganda here) They can be equated to the robber-barons in the United States, stealing resources/infrastructure to make themselves filthy rich. The Russian Oligarchs have done just this. In an article from Foreign Affairs in 2000, Lee Wolosky claims that “the tycoon's predation has sucked up the country's wealth and impoverished broad swaths of Russian society.” This is exactly what the ranter was talking about. He made claims that by the top 1% controlling 50% of the world's wealth, it impoverishes much of the rest of the world. The Russian oligarchs constitute the top 1% in Russia. Ironically, while the West was trying to make a demon out of Putin and are still trying to do so with Russia in general, Putin when about systematically redistributing wealth to the poor. He managed to raise the average income from under $100 per month to around $600 per month. He did this by re-nationalizing the oil industry, and taking the oligarchs out of the picture. While this is totally undemocratic, the results are obvious. Yes, this is somewhat socialist, and smacks of the Soviet system, but again, the results for the average person are visible. The other question is, why has the West sought to make enemies of Russia again? Did the West forget that Russia is a massive nuclear power? Did they also forget that Russia gives Europe most of its natural gas, and when the OPEC nations decide to raise the price of oil, Russia picks up the slack so that the West does not have the lines for gas that is did in the 70's? This year should prove to be a very interesting one, as the START I treaty expires in December of 2009. That means that there is going to have to be a new treaty created and signed by both sides. This should make for an interesting political year between Russia and the USA.

!!! = Propaganda

His comment was “Leave your propaganda out of it!” My modern Russian History Prof made this comment when talking about me using exclamation points in an academic paper. I suppose I should know better but it was funny to me. I have never sat down with a prof before to go over a paper, except for that time when I failed a paper because I did not follow the directions. At least I got the chance to fix my mistakes so I did not fail. That was nice. With the current paper, however, we talked about content, and where, in the Russian mind, I just didn't really understand what I was talking about. To Russians, Stalinism is the prisons, gulags, killings, fear, and general terror of that era. While, yes, all of this went on, to me Stalinism was the system of government that he created, and used the above things to form it. For me, they were not as important as the government system, whereas the Russians (in general) feel that Stalinism is only about the repressions and killings. Its interesting how you can have lived in a culture for a long time, but still know so little about it. The other comment made about the paper by my prof was that it is a touchy subject anyway, even among Russian Stalin scholars. That made me feel better. I suppose it would be like talking about Hitler in Germany, or Che in South America. It was also quite interesting to find out that Russian students are vicious cheaters, and with the introduction of the Internet to Russia, this has only gotten worse. This discussion came about because I used the American system, where everything, everything, everything has to be cited. One of my poli sci profs at USM said once “When in doubt, cite.” The thing is, it is so ingrained in me now, that if I write something, I think about everything I have said and wonder, “Is that really my idea, or is it someone else's?” Oh well. Better to do that than get kicked out for plagiarizing something unintentionally. So, things to remember: !!!= Propaganda (although sometimes propaganda is a good thing), and cite cite cite! When did I turn into a nerd?