Has Putin met his match?

Fear surrounds elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Muslim Brotherhood wins the first stage of Egypt’s elections.

Cock-a-doodle-doo! Croatia’s conservatives lost the parliament.

A business man wins Slovenia’s national election.

The international community is united in its condemnation the violence taking place in Libya today. What should the world do about the troubles? That is a subject of far less agreement.

Two countries are preaching restraint in this situation. The cartoon above gives an interpretation of why…  (cartoon by KAL)

A terrorist attack hits a Moscow airport…

Oh, #$%&. Rahm Emanuel gets thrown out of the Chicago mayoral race.

Also…

With all the important  stuff going on in the world  (Like the finals of Dancing with The Stars) we at USDemocrazy have completely forgotten about NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION.

Yes folks, Armageddon is Back! And two people want to do something about it: Superman (see above) and President Obama (no, they are not the same person).

Let’s focus on Obama…

Russia, our arch enemy for decades is still armed to the teeth with massive amount of Nuclear bombs, missiles and even landmines. Our teeth are similarly armed.

President Obama has his own anti-nuke dental floss that he would like to deploy to both nation’s teeth. It’s the  New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) the president signed with Russia.

Designed to replace the old and expiring START treaty

“New START limits both the United States and Russia to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, 30% below the upper limit of the 2002 Moscow Treaty.”

The treaties is signed… so the US is beginning to reduces its nuclear arms, right?

Wrong! thanks to that pesky thing called the US Constitution, the Senate needs to ratify all treaties signed by the President.

Unfortunately, many Senators, mostly Republicans have stated their opposition.

All hopes is not lost for the treaty Slate’s Fred Kaplan notes but he does fear that rather than nuclear peace

Republican leadership might think it’s more important to deny Obama any victory, to make him seem ineffective and thus erode his chances of re-election in 2012 (the GOP’s No. 1 priority, according to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell).

Republicans, tired of being cast as the villian, argue that they oppose the treaty in order to protect America rather than out of spite to President Obama.

In this spirit, The Heritage Foundation, a Conservative think tank, poses some questions on the sense of ratifying the treaty:

Question #1. Would you support a treaty that requires the U.S. to cut more weapons and launchers than the Russians…

Question #2. Would you support a treaty that requires the U.S. to share sensitive missile defense information with Russia, information that might be passed to Iran to help them plan how to defeat U.S. missile defenses?…

Question #3. Do you think an independent commission not accountable to the U.S. government should be able to dictate limits to missile defense?…

These points may not fully hold water Spencer Ackerman, of Danger Room, believes based on Republicans shifting arguments against the treaty:

First the argument was that New START would inhibit missile defense, so the military leadership assured senators it won’t. Then the GOP’s point man on New START, Jon Kyl, wanted money to modernize the nuclear stockpile. So Obama pledged $80 billion for upgrading the weapons and nuclear facilities housing them over the next ten years, and then sweetened the pot with another $4.1 billion.

Since our phone calls to the folks on Capital Hill were ignored why don’t you, our readers, provide comments on New START. Is it the road to global peace or does it weaken America’s defenses?

Thanks to Wikicommons

Spamity wonderful Spam! Russian crackdown on computer criminals drops email spam volume by twenty percent.

Fire and water ravage Indonesia. A volcanic eruption and tsunami lead to hundreds of deaths in Indonesia.

Ford Fiestas thanks to Ford’s Fiesta. Record profits achieved by Ford with expected factory expansions.

Wildfires have been ravaging Russia for the past two weeks, destroying homes and air quality in many cities. Firefighters are doing all they can, but yesterday they were joined by Prime Minister Vladamir Putin. Putin’s approval ratings have been dropping, and he’s hoping that stopping the wildfires will win him political favor.

Latin America

Finally, some good news about clothing manufacturers! Alta Gracia, a new label under Knights Apparel, is a clothing factory that pays its workers in the Dominican Republic a living wage, which is three times what other apparel workers make. Knights Apparel is the biggest college logo supplier, so college groups like United Students Against Sweatshops are heavily promoting the brand.

Middle East

President Obama is not the only one who gets to keep his beloved Blackberry. Blackberry owners in Saudi Arabia have some more time with their PDA.  The government wanted to ban Blackberrys because the devices scramble messages and other countries, like the United Arab Emirates, also plan on enforcing a ban. Currently, the government is trying to create a Blackberry server in the Saudi Arabia so that Blackberrys can be used without scrambling messages- something the country says is a security risk.

Human rights organizations speak out against Somalia’s use of child soldiers, who are partially funded by the US government.

Asia

China and Taiwan have started trading with each other! Could better political ties be in the future?

Australia

Congratulations to Australia’s newest Prime Minister, Julia Gillard!

North America

It’s 2010, but this story about Russian spies sounds like it’s straight out of the 1950s.

South America

Farmers in Peru turn to coca production again to support themselves.

You know, just some warheads. Courtesy of Wikicommons.

Have you had a drill in school where you curl up under your desk and hope that the Soviets don’t drop a nuke on you?

Believe it or not this was a standard practice in US schools not long ago. Clearly American school desks were once quite robust if they could protect children from nuclear annihilation.

With poorer school desks available today, we were relieved to learn that the Russians and the Americans have agreed to reduce their arsenals of nuclear weapons. (Check the link for our explanation.)

Today, President Obama and Russian President Medvedev are set to sign the “new START” (START = Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) in Prague, signaling a new wave for American nuclear policy. To go along with this big meeting, the Obama administration just released the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

Essentially, one key factor in the nuclear weapons game is the idea of deterrence. You know, if Country A has the power to destroy Country B and vice versa, then they both might be deterred from using them against each other. Right?

What the NPR says is that the U.S. will respect the idea of deterrence while promising not to use nuclear weapons against countries that have promised not to use them either — in other words, countries that are down with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Sounds diplomatic enough, right? But there’s more…

Slate points out that the United States hasn’t given up its potential to use nuclear weapons first against certain nations, and there are a few other important messages within the NPR:

Second, it provides another incentive for countries — even unfriendly countries — not to develop nuclear weapons (if they believe the U.S. declaration, anyway).

Third, it further isolates those countries that are in violation of the NPT — which is to say, Iran and North Korea.

The report additionally indicates that the United States will no longer be producing new nuclear weapons, just rehabilitating the old ones when needed.

The NPR was sure to not please everyone, given the sensitive nature of the subject, and one of the displeased was Walter Shapiro, writing for Politics Daily. Speaking of the document:

This is an inspiring piece of writing filled with bold pronouncements that are immediately contradicted by fine-print caveats. The document unequivocally pledges that America will not initiate a nuclear exchange (except in those cases where we might) and earnestly promises to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in the overall national security strategy (while maintaining most of the current nuclear arsenal as a devastating deterrent).

Additionally, Michael Levi for The Daily Beast sees the policy shift happening in the NPR, but notices a loophole:

The United States now appears to be keeping open the option of using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear Iran, but not against other states that might pose identical military threats.

Levi also points out in his piece that essentially, the real ways to deal with current nuclear threats, like nuclear terrorism, aren’t quite explicit in the Review at all… (This could be a problem.) He concludes,

Those efforts, though, receive only passing attention. That’s fine: This strategy is supposed to be focused on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. But it means that the administration still has much work to do.

What these two writers have in common is the complaint that the report doesn’t really do all that much in terms of creating peace. (But the trust-building potential is there.) Though not discounting that there actually is a shift happening, they note that the dramatic shift some might have been hoping for just wasn’t there.

One thing is clear from what we’ve sampled here: there’s no clear-cut path to a nuclear-weapons free world, and that’s why this Review isn’t clear-cut in its ways to get there.

All we can hope for is that the U.S.’s nuclear defense strategists won’t find themselves in a “Dr. Strangelove” kind of setting…

Let us know what you’re thinking! Can we have a world without nuclear weapons, or are we just going to keep living on the edge of our seats (or under our desks)?

This is something you DON'T hit your mom with. Courtesy of WikiCommons.

So grounded.
Minnesota Twins leadoff man Denard Span hit a hard foul ball that struck his mom in the chest during Wednesday’s game.

Drillin’ for Criticism… Obama’s Oil Drilling Plan Under Fire

Is there an Olive oil crisis on April 1?!?

Revealed… Chechen Militant Claims Responsibility for Moscow Bombing

Image Courtesy WikiCommons via Shayan Sanyal

Well, he was just saving you time…

Police say a motorist fleeing officers in Cleveland abandoned his car and jumped a fence — landing in what turned out to be a prison yard.

Considering responses… Russia mourns their lost and the world awaits the next step.

So what’s in the mystery meat… FDA cracks down on food fraud.