“If the West doesn’t stand firm now, history tells us that the next incursion will be more outrageous, and more intolerable.” 

“Russia a second-rate, vodka-sozzled hyena; a greedy, rabid vulture.” 

Russia’s latest example of its inbred ignorant violence, its arrogant stupidity, its paranoid misunderstanding of civilised behaviour, doesn’t have to be taken lying down.

Like all bullies, if challenged they will slink away. The media doesn’t help, portraying Russia as an awesome, stealthy, scheming bear, when in fact it is no more than a second-rate, vodka-sozzled hyena; a greedy, rabid vulture.

In response to the naked aggression against Georgia, the NATO powers should immediately invite that country and Ukraine to become instant members of NATO. That would mean any attack on them is the same as an attack on all NATO members. But don’t expect any organisation which includes the undemocratic, elitist, unaccountable European Union to do any such thing. Of course the useless United Nations does nothing. No surprise there, given that Russia has a veto on the Security Council. Perhaps its time for Republican U.S. Presidential nominee John McCain to dust down his idea about getting the world’s democracies to join together in the U.N. to take action when one country so blatantly defies civilised behaviour.

Kruschovesque shoe-banging oafs
I had laboured under the misunderstanding that Russian leaders after Communism would change from being Kruschovesque, shoe-banging oafs. I half-hoped that the new regime would show a different breed of Russian. But it does seem to be a nation of meat-headed, unsophisticated, muscle brained idiots; but potentially powerful idiots.

Sure, Russia has important natural resources that we need. But don’t forget the other side of the coin. If Putin/Medvedev start to use oil and gas as a political weapon, Russian business leaders won’t tolerate that for too long. The mafia bandits and financial rapists that rule the Russian economy won’t take too kindly to their turbochav lifestyles being interrupted by something as boring as politics. And the Russian armed forces are a paper tiger compared with NATO.

If the West doesn’t stand firm now, history tells us that the next incursion will be more outrageous, and more intolerable.

BBC’s News Values Awry
Incidentally, did you see the BBCTV 10 o’clock news on the day of the Olympic Opening ceremony? The corrupt pea brains of the BBC led with this story, with Russian’s invasion of Georgia running second, disguised as an incursion into South Ossetia, which of course nobody had heard of. Then NewsNight led off with a discussion panel – about the Olympic Opening ceremony! I suppose the BBC has handed over so much money for its Olympic rights, it feels it must cram the schedules with news about this corrupt, drug-fest. Great to hear that the first gold medal of the Olympics went to Czechistan for the 10-metre air rifle event. What on earth can that be about? Firing an air rifle at a target 10 metres away doesn’t sound very difficult or much fun, but so far I’ve not raised the energy to find out anything more about this. 

Slow, Slower, Slowest Swimming Events
Now we are in the middle of the swimming events, and I wonder why swimming wastes gold medals on slow, slower and slowest ways of doing various distances. Surely it would make sense to just award medals for the quickest way to do 100 metres, 200 metres etc, not then add breaststroke, butterfly and backstroke. It’s like awarding medals for running the 100 metres backwards, or on all fours, then repeating this across all the distances. What an over-the-top joke.

 Wouldn’t it make more sense to merge all the athletic events into the decathlon, to find out who was the best all-around athlete? Specialising in the 100 metres seems ludicrous, where you train for hours every day, travel half around the world for your event, which than lasts 10 seconds.

My hero, the 5-yard sprint champ
I’m reminded of the old Michael Bentine comedy TV show from the 1960s which had athletes training hard, then warming up for the 5 yard sprint. After much razzmatazz and false starts they were off and almost as soon, they burst through the tape, with the winner falling exhausted into his trainer’s arms.  

 Neil Winton – August 11, 2008