podpolia

It seems a Russian defector in London was poisoned the other day with thallium. (For a discussion of thallium’s toxic effects, look here.) The scary part is that it seems that the FSB may have been behind it. With murders of political opponents of Putin on the rise lately, it really makes one wonder…

UPDATE 11/20/06 12.16PM: There’s more here, including what Litvinenko did that might have caused the FSB to be unhappy with him. There are also links to other articles about suspicious killings of Russian dissidents.

I haven’t really been posting much lately. I think I’ve mostly been enjoying not having to think about the election, although I’ve also been taking naps after school, and haven’t been online quite as much. In any event, I thought I would post a link to this article, which is a review of a book analyzing statistically the ‘conservative Christian’ group in society. This agrees with many things I’ve said over the years about the portrayals of Christians as a monolithic social group, and how that is incorrect. Fairly interesting stuff.

This should be entertaining.
Considering that the United States already has legislation in place that essentially gives the government the right to invade the Hague if Americans are seized by the International Criminal Court (see Sec. 2008 a), somehow I don’t think that we will be very interested in letting that happen. I’m not sure if the German government is crazy enough to try to press the charges, but I know that the US would not take kindly to it if they did.

Well, the Democrats took the House, and may have taken the Senate as well (the deciding factors aren’t likely to be known for a month or so yet). On the whole, this is about an average gain for this point in a two-term presidential administration. There’s not as much of a shake-up as we would see if there were, say, term limits on Congress, but don’t expect THAT one any time soon. My predictions seem to have been fairly close — the Democrats got a few more seats in the House than I predicted, but the Senate predictions were more or less on the money. It’s harder to predict congressional elections, so I’m more or less pleased with myself.
I’m really glad the election is over. I’m thoroughly sick of politics for now. However, now I have something new to hate: early Christmas stuff.

It almost looks as if Saddam’s death sentence has made him think about things in a different way. Either that, or he’s hoping to avoid the death penalty in the appeals process. In any case, it’s a good thing that he is now calling for peace between sects in Iraq.
In another interesting article to hit the news today, a documentary is coming out in which the director purports to show that suburban America is more dangerous than Iraq. It would be interesting to see how the film handled the comparison between the two.

Well, the elections are tomorrow. My prediction: the Democrats will take the House by a few seats (6 at the most) and the Senate will be Republican controlled, but by no more than two seats.
I could be wrong though — congressional elections are much harder to predict than presidential elections.
Anyway, go out and vote tomorrow, no matter who you plan on voting for!

I would have to say that at first glance, this is not good. One Islamic government in the near east with nuclear technology is bad enough — seven, spread from Morocco to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, would be… well, bad.
Luckily, most of these countries are on decent terms with the United States right now, and I think we should try to keep it that way. The US has been considering helping Egypt with a nuclear power program, and I believe that under certain conditions, this could be spread to a region-wide movement if certain conditions are met. Namely:
– It must be for peaceful purposes,
– It must be openly verifiable by the international community as being power-production only, and
– It must utilize some type of nuclear power generation that is difficult to use to develop atomic weapons.
With the United States involved at the ground floor in helping these countries to develop the technology, we could keep an eye on how it is being used directly, possibly as a condition of assistance. Not only would this allow IAEA oversight, but the US could keep an eye on things as well.
In fact, if the United States were to start working with these (mostly desert) countries on peaceful nuclear development for desalination and similar purposes, it could benefit American image greatly in the region. That way, the US could keep pressure on Iran for running a nuclear program and hiding parts of it from the IAEA, while showing that it was interested in helping Islamic countries, and had no objection to peaceful atomic power. Making the Arabian peninsula into an arable place, at least along the shoreline, would be a major achievement as well as an indication that America was trying to make life better all over the world.
Unfortunately, the immediate reaction to the desire of these Arab states to want nuclear technology is going to be extremely negative, and with some justification. If the situation is worked correctly, however, it could provide a major PR coup for the United States, while allowing it to keep pressure on Iran.

It looks like the verdict in Saddam Hussein’s trial is still going to come out on Sunday. Not only is this good news for the Republican election prospects, but it’s close enough to election day that retaliatory attacks won’t get much airplay before the election. There had been some doubt about whether the verdict would be ready, but it seems that the Iraqi court will be done when they expected to be.

Well, the terrorist endorsements are in again — and once again, they want you to vote democrat. I doubt the media will cover this particular bit of information — they probably learned their lesson last year when Kerry lost after getting the al Qaida endorsement. And besides, what’s a bigger story — a sidelined figurehead of a terror organization in decline supporting a candidate in an American presidential election, or the heads of the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades, Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad supporting an entire American party in a congressional election? I bet the media’s answer will be the former, rather than the latter.
However, it is also interesting to note that the terror leaders are amused by Nancy Pelosi’s beliefs that the resistance in Iraq will magically end when American troops leave.
It’s a pity this story won’t get much play — this might actually open some eyes on what the stakes of this election are. Unfortunately, I doubt that will happen. It just isn’t in line with the media’s narrative that the Democrats are the saviors of the country — nay, the world! — in this election.

UPDATE 11/2/06 6.50 PM: It’s just a lucky day for the democrats! Now an Iranian mullah agrees with Pelosi that the US should leave Iraq.