Links and Minifeatures 2008 08 11 Monday

Carnival of Personal Finance

Georgian president says Russian troops have cut country in half

But a top official at the Georgian embassy in Moscow, Givi Shugarov, said Russian troops appeared to be moving toward Tbilisi and he alleged Russia's goal was "complete liquidation" of the Georgian government.

If all the Russians wanted was South Ossetia, there would be no need for this. Putin wants the soviet empire and soviet glory days back.

Russia trying to crush democracy, Georgia leader says

"We are in the process of invasion, occupation, and annihilation of an independent, democratic country," Saakashvili said at a news conference Monday.

"The goal of this operation is regime change in Georgia."

Saakashvili then abruptly ended his conference call with reporters, saying, "We have to go to the shelter because there are Russian planes flying over the presidential palace here, sorry."

Democracy is a threat to Putin and Russia's power. That and the economies of the West, which have been fueled by Democracy.

n an op-ed piece in Monday's Wall Street Journal, Saakashvili argued that the conflict is about "the future of freedom in Europe."

If Russia succeeds, Saakashvili said, it would mark the end of Western influence on any of the former Soviet republics.

"It is clear that Russia's current leadership is bent on restoring a neocolonial form of control over the entire space once governed by Moscow," he wrote.

and

"While we appealed to residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia with our vision of a common future, Moscow increasingly took control of the separatist regimes," he wrote. "The Kremlin even appointed Russian security officers to arm and administer the self-styled separatist governments."

More, including a map of the campaign, at Powerline

More good sense at Q and O

Tigerhawk asks a very timely question: Where are all the condemnations from the so-called "anti-war" groups?

I suspect they're glad to see an evil ally of the oppressive US and George W. Bush's evil war get conquered.

No surprise for anyone familiar with them: Deliberate Decisions Are the Best

When it comes to making life-changing decisions, neither snap judgments nor "sleeping on it" trump good old-fashioned conscious thought, new research suggests.

But people are lazy. They want a magic bullet for decision making. There isn't one, except to get the facts and consider the implications carefully.

In all experiments, there was some evidence that conscious deliberation can lead to better choices and little evidence for superiority of choices made "unconsciously," the researchers said.

Even if you get something wrong, you're better off with deliberative decision making than "sleeping on it" or "snap judgment"

"Our research suggests that unconscious thought is more susceptible to irrelevant factors, such as how recently information has been seen rather than how important it is," Newell said. "If conscious thinkers are given adequate time to encode material, or are allowed to consult material while they deliberate, their choices are at least as good as those made 'unconsciously.'"

Name that Party, Detroit edition: Not one mention of the fact that he's a Democrat

This isn't any technical charge. He's out on bail awaiting trial for assault and perjury and various other corruption charges, including multiple felonies. During this period, he has violated the conditions of his release at least twice. And unlike the case of Ted Stevens, where he's accused of much less serious infractions and the press put his party (Republican) in the headlines and repeated it half a dozen times in the article, the AP couldn't be bothered to name Kilpatrick's political party once (to be fair, they did mention that his mother is a Democrat, although what relevance that has is beyond me).

Calls for France to rethink its Africa role

A bombshell of a report by Rwanda this week implicating high-ranking French officials in the arming and training of Hutu forces that committed genocide in Rwanda - could have been issued last November. President Paul Kagame sat on the 500-page study, approved by the Rwandan Senate, for months.

Okay, it's a nine and a half minute video. Anyone not susceptible to Jedi mind control will find it hilarious. The Vote Reaper

HT: The Anchoress