Russian and Georgian War

The Russia-Georgia War.

Answer me this: “Why can’t we live in peace together?” We, Russians and Georgians, both put our flag upon the Reichstag! This certainly must mean something!

And of course, everyone is telling a different story, as if both sides are talking about different events, not immediately connected. It is clear that Saakashvili is a good doll with strings pointing westward. But I am no political analyst, all that aside, can Russian government be that stupid to get into this war?..

I have a few Russian channels at home and in a summary form, here’s what is conveyed:

• There is genocide against Russian and South Ossetian people in the region
• Russian troops haven’t bombed a single civilian object. All the footages of bombed civilian sites are originated by Georgian troops themselves. To quote: “It is a very smart technique to destroy your own civilian object, make it look as if it’s been bombed by the opponent, blame it on the opponent, and complain about how a big and huge Russia attacks a small and week Georgia”.
• Russian citizens tried to leave Tbilisi, but the local police stopped them and restricted them to stay within the city.

What the Georgian government is saying you all know from the news. I have no information about it that would be conflicting with what’s conveyed by, say, BBC.

If you are curious about my personal opinion, then I really do not have much to tell you, except the fact that it is entirely sad that a bunch of gentlemen (if they can in fact be called so after these events) want to play toy soldiers.

I’ll try to update this post for any interesting or controversial information I might encounter.

As an arbitrator, who knows both Russian and English, and sees how the conflict is conveyed by the international media and the Russian media, I may suggest a few things:

• I recommend following BBC news (here), as they, to my mind, seem to be more or less objective and neutral.
• Check this blog for anything that is in conflict between what international and Russian news tell.
• I strongly do not recommend following CNN news, as their story is very flavoured with American position, which in turn is very-very subjective for understandable reasons…

Let’s sincerely hope this bloody madness…

Update: Russian troops are now moving into Senaki. Interestingly, both sides are calling for a ceasefire (Russians, according to Russian media, and Georgians, according to international media), but there isn’t any ceasefire.

‘Volga Down the Volga’ by BBC

BBC World channel today featured the Volga Down the Volga TV programme. It is about Russia, where

BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes takes a leisurely drive in a Volga car down the Volga river in Russia, meeting a diverse mix of people along the way.

I found it to be surprisingly very realistic and objective. Usually, all presentations of Russia to the rest of the world are somehow smeared and often very much; but not this one. It gives a very nice mix of the enormous beauty of Russia and the great pity that there are so many troubles with it.

There was this moment that I particularly liked. The Volga car really is a very iconic symbol of Russia. However, the car is terrible! It barely compares to some budgetary Ford car of 1960s. So this reporter decides to make a visit to the GAZ factory (where Volga’s are made). He shows a bunch of workers, who, he says, work very hard; but the problem is that the technology of car manufacturing is from 1950s and 60s, so that there is no future for Russian car industry with this approach. He says, then, that that’s why this person (he takes a brief interview) is put in place, who will try to manage and implement new approaches and attempt to bring Russian car industry to a much higher level. After this man said a few words about what he intends to do, the reporter says approximately the following: “And how Russia exactly is going to do that [change the approach and implement new technologies], you are going to understand for yourself”. The camera then shows two men, standing in front of some apparatus and discussing things in good English with Canadian accent. The reporter then continues: “These two men are Canadian engineers, specifically brought here, along with a large amount of equipment directly from Detroit, to implement, and learn and teach these new technologies on the GAZ factory.” As the reporter remarks, “this will hopefully bring Russian car industry to finish operating in the 1950s and 60s, and start operating in the 1990s.”What a beautiful, although sad enough, sarcasm!

Found online

I post here a couple of extracts from the world of (1) astronomy and astrophysics, (2) biology and archaeology, (3) technology, (4) politics and the world that I have found on the internet.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Discovery of the Candidacy for the Furthest Galaxy: The Hubble telescope has come across a galaxy, presumably 13 billion light-years away, making it a strong candidate for the furthest and hence youngest galaxy ever observed. It has been given the name (or the code, rather) A1689-zD1. The galaxy would have formed only 700 million years after the Big Bang; if this is the case, then this galaxy must be one of the first few that helped end the dark ages of the Universe. The discovery was made by means of the natural magnification, provided by the galaxy cluster Abell 1689. [full article here]. Update: 13 billion light years away is actually so very huge. If you think about it, it amounts to about metres away; that’s 4,000,000,000,000,000,000 metres. And we worry that our work is too far away from our home!
2. Dark-matter powered first stars: When a star emits radiation, it does it through thermonuclear fusion reactions that occur deep inside it and its nucleus. There is a suggestion that the early stars — that existed about 100 to 200 million years after the Big Bang — were predominantly fueled not by fusion, but rather by annihilation. As the Universe was still relatively small at that time, matter and antimatter existed in high proximity (as opposed to, for example, what it is today), this suggestion has a significant base. [full article here].
3. Smaller Version of the Solar System Is Discovered: Scott Gaudi of Ohio State University and his colleagues “said Wednesday that they had found a miniature version of our own solar system 5,000 light-years across the galaxy — the first planetary system that really looks like our own, with outer giant planets and room for smaller inner planets.” The object was named OGLE-2006-BLG-109. “… a planet about two-thirds of the mass of Jupiter and another about 90 percent of the mass of Saturn are orbiting a reddish star at about half the distances that Jupiter and Saturn circle our own Sun. The star is about half the mass of the Sun.” “… warm rocky planets — suitable for life — could exist undetected in the inner parts of the system.” The planets were discovered by means of the microlensing. ” … on March 28, 2006, a star 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius began to pass in front of one 21,000 light-years more distant, causing it to flash. That was picked up by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment, or Ogle.” The collected data provided the knowledge of “not just the masses of the interloper star and its two planets, but also rough approximations of their orbits”. [full article here; for those who have access to Science articles, here are their results].
4. Beautiful Nebula (photo): (Traffic Alert!!!) view photo.
5. Crab Nebula (photo): (Traffic Alert!!!) view photo.

Biology and Archaeology

1. Modern Birds Existed Before Dinosaur Die-Off: “Modern birds originated a hundred million years ago—long before the demise of dinosaurs, according to new research.” Until recently, fossil records were interpreted as if modern birds originated about 60 million years ago; however, the genetic analyses (based on the concept of molecular clock) suggest that these originated some 40 million year earlier (that being 100 million years ago). Dinosaurs disappeared some 65 million years ago. [full article here].
2. 20 Facts About the Human Genome: Here. Perhaps you will find something you don’t know (I did).
3. Who Eats Who: What a great shot!
4. Finding an Underwater Lake (video): Excellent extract from “The Deep” programme. (Traffic Alert!!!) Watch video.

Technology

1. Air-Fueled Car: “A French engineer has claimed he will be ready to start selling a car with no carbon emissions within a year.” (Traffic Alert!!!) Watch video.
2. Zero Emission Car: Here is a short explanation of the suggestion of collecting the carbon dioxide, emitted by a car, in order to later reuse it. Good idea, but, as someone mentioned it in the comments, the overall energy produced from this ‘recycling’ is probably not going to be much. But then again, we need to see the actual calculations.
3. These are in tight connection with point 3 of the list of 2008’s saver technologies.
4. Information age: How exactly has information and communication technology evolved over time? A very nice photographic timeline (here).

Politics and the World

1. The (supposed) 1980 Soviet particle beam weapon construction site (photo): If Soviet Union indeed ever had a project of developing the particle beam weapon around 1980, the construction site is believed to be captured in this American satellite image.
2. Chicago to Raise the Environmental Awareness by Turning Lights Off: On March 29 from 20:00 to 21:00, as part of the Earth Hour 2008, Chicago will turn the lights off. I wonder what is the estimated cost of saved energy over this hour — must be a very-very large number. If anyone among the readers is from Chicago, I would like to see a few photographs of the city during the hour — that must be magnificent! [reference]
3. View from Mountain Everest: Have you ever stood on “the top of the world”? Are you planning on doing so any time soon? Well, me neither. But at least we can can a sense of what it is like, by taking a look at this splendid panoramic photograph: (Traffic Alert!!!) here.

Building Genomes and Internet Censorship

I have read two very-very short articles, which I found quite interesting. To make a list:

1. Building Genomes, by Michael Brudno, The Arts & Science Review, University of Toronto, 2007, 4:2, page 21.

Brudno talks about the use of computers helps understanding of the human genome, specifically through the comparison between the genome of human beings with that of other species: “Many of the analysis of novel genomes have concentrated on how similar other species are to humans.” As an example, he says that human and mouse genome differ by about 40%; the difference between two humans is 0.1%, on average of course. The surprise came with the studies of the Ciona (which is a sea squirt) genomes, the result of which was an assemblage of “two similar, but different genomes”; the difference being almost 5%.
The conclusion was that “most organisms have two copies of the genome: one ingerited from the father and one from the mother.” So, the human genome from a father and that from a mother differ by 0.1%, which is minuscule enough to have been neglected by the scientists and believed to be a single genome.
Now, the scientists are attempting to build this genome, and in that order, they turn to computers and hence here are a few open questions, posed by Brudno: “how do we assemble two jigsaw puzzles which are only five percent different, but the pieces of which have become intermingled?” “How much variation is possible between two individuals from a single species and what are the biological processes that cause this variation”?

2.Internet Censorship Worldwide by Ron Deibert, The Arts & Science Review, University of Toronto, 2007, 4:2, page 38.

This isn’t actually too much of an article, but more of just a world map with some information, which illustrates national, governmental or other type of control over the world wide web. Deibert breaks the level of control into 4 categories, listed from least to most controlled: inderect, nominal, substantial and pervasive. As expected, China, North Korea, Pakistan and a few others were listed under “pervasive”, being the most controlled. However, I was completely surprised to see Tunisia on under the pervasive, too. To me, this country always seemed to be very liberal, quiet and tourist-oriented. If anyone has any more information or thought on that, I’d be happy to hear.
Other countries, such as Russia and Ukraine, were listed under “watchlist”, meaning they are to be investigated in the next short little while. My prediction is, of course, the pervasive level, would you agree? A number of European countries, such as Spain, Italy, Sweden and many others weren’t listed under any category and appeared blanck on the map — I wonder what can be said about them.