Osama bin Laden is still at large.
If you haven’t read 110 Stories, you should.
Last year. Edward, in 2004.

Deference outlives ideology. If the Kremlin is for it, and Washington is against it, Ortega must be in favor.
From AFP, via
Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega has revived Cold War ghosts by recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia, supporting Russia’s stance on the breakaway Georgian regions.
Ortega, a former Marxist guerilla leader who had close ties to the ex-Soviet [...]

So, the Second Balkan War.
Unless you’re a history buff, or Bulgarian, you probably don’t know about this. And that’s fine. Unless you’re a history buff, or Bulgarian, there’s no reason to. Still, I think it might have some relevance to recent events.
Short version: back in 1912, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece teamed up [...]

So, Georgia Georgia Georgia. Yet there’s one name I’ve hardly seen mentioned: the late Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the first president of independent Georgia.
That’s sort of strange. Because if there’s one man who’s responsible for the current mess in Georgia — more than Saakashvili, more than Putin — it’s Gamsakhurdia.
Why?

[...]

For a while now I’ve had a private theory about the way our world used to work. It goes like this: although communism may have been bad for the people of Russia (and of the Soviet satellite states), it did a useful job in keeping the west honest through negative example. Free speech? Yes, we [...]

It seems clear they done it; for God knows what reason - arrogance, hoping beyond hope, misjudgment - Georgia started something it couldn’t finish. The Russians, for their part, were playing for it for years; the harassment campaign, the motor-rifle regiments parked up on the southern road. But however wrong they were, I’m saddened by [...]

What Henry said.
Just one key part of the argument:

Russia sees the spread of democratization as a threat to its control of the ‘Near Abroad.’ It has been pushing quite deliberately for a redefinition of the norms of territorial integrity and intervention that would legitimate its continued presence in Georgia and elsewhere, and allow it to [...]

Not all of the reports are consistent, but they are increasingly consistent: Russian forces have reportedly taken the central Georgian city of Gori, essentially splitting the country in two and occupying the main east-west highway. Russian forces are reported to be in Zugdidi, a larger Georgian town near to Abkhazia. Russian forces have reportedly taken [...]

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn has died at age 89. Not much to add to all the obituaries, just my two kopecks’ worth that A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was the most important book published between 1950 and 1975. Just when you think Solzhenitsyn is finished with his tour de force, the last sentence falls [...]

It seems self-proclaimed guru Dragan Dabic aka Radovan Karadzic may possess some healing powers after all. At least, that is what some Dutch Srebrenica veterans hope (hat tip Eric Gordy):
Former Dutchbat soldier Johan de Jonge is elated about Mr Karadzic’ arrest. He hopes there will be less focus on the former Dutchbat soldiers now that [...]