Pakistani leader would like to hug Gov. Palin as his military fires on US helicopters

Pakistani PM Zardari (Mister Ten Percent) would like to hug Governor Palin because she’s so gorgeous, while at nearly the same time his military was firing at US helicopters straying over the Pakistani border from Afghanistan. Might a VP Palin be necessary to stave off war with Pakistan? We live in strange times.

We’ll all be picking lettuce in Mexico without the bailout

Lead story on my Bank Systems and Technology email by a teenaged reader. He does offer the intriguing prospect of paying for the bailout by using the funding for the Iraq War. Odd story though for a tech newsletter.

Palin meets Indian PM Singh

Here’s a photo of one world leader meeting a possibly future world leader, courtesy of the Indian Embassy in Washington. What do you think they discussed? Outsourcing, Pakistan, nuclear weapons technology? A photo gallery of Dr. Singh’s visit to America is here.

Panic, multiple crises

• Gas shortage crisis chits where I live now (Charlotte) – gas station lines, people leaving their cars on the side of the road because they ran out of gas
• President Bush tells us to be afraid, very afraid
• Congress can’t agree on what to do with bailout – Bernanke and Paulson can’t make their case
• Stock market, 401Ks tanking
• McCain suspends his campaign
• On other fronts, things haven’t been going so well in Afghanistan
• Are you scared yet?

Should Transnistria be given NATO membership?

Off the Strange Maps blog is this map and background on the improbable state of Transnistria, which lies precariously between Moldova and Ukraine.

I went to a Eastern European food store in Charlotte, and I actually purchased a box of cookies that was a product of Moldova.

Transnistria occupies the sliver of Moldovan territory hemmed in between the river Dniester (2) in the west and the Ukrainian border in the east. It is about 400 km long, from north to south, and typically no more than 20 km wide, sharing its snake-like look on the map with a few other nations, notably Chile, Norway and the Gambia. Except that Transnistria doesn’t appear on most maps.  No other country recognises the independence of this freak accident of world politics, not even Mother Russia – at least not yet (3).

The birth of Transnistria is an indirect result of the death of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union broke up in the early 1990s, Moldova was one of the 15 constituent republics that gained its independence. Moldova, which shares language, culture and history with neighbouring Romania had the distinction of being the only Romance-language Soviet republic. Its ‘western’ orientation hasn’t helped it integrate into Europe, as the Baltic states have done: Moldova remains one of the poorest countries on the continent, notorious for corruption, smuggling and prostitution.

It may be argued that Moldova’s near-failed-stateness is the cause – or the effect – of its conflict with Transnistria. That strip of Moldovan territory was heavily industrialised in Soviet times, and populated with migrants from other parts of the Soviet Union: Russians, Ukrainians and others. That typically ‘Soviet’ mix of nationalities felt no desire, post-USSR, to be integrated into a state dominated by Moldovans, and looked east for protection.

Cossacks and Russian regular troops helped Transnistria fight its brief war of independence from Moldova in 1992. Since then, the rogue republic has remained virtually unchanged, frozen in time like a Soviet fly in geopolitical amber. Lenin statues still adorn the Transnistrian town centres, and the main ideology seems to be nostalgia.

Somebody recognizes South Ossetia and Abkhazia

Other than Russia. If you hadn’t noticed in recent years, Daniel Ortega, the nemesis of Ronald Reagan and leader of the 1980s Sandinistas, is the duly elected president of Nicaragua, in 2008. He has recognized the statehood of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and has received a nice return in modern weapons from Russia.

A sign of things to come

Asheville, NC, 100 miles west of me, is in a crisis:

• Top story in the local newspaper – ‘Search for gas continues’
• Community college closes in afternoon because of gas shortage
• Lines at gas stations like 1973. Police stationed at gas stations to prevent violence
• City buses are running on a 20-30 minute delay this morning because they cannot find space to drop off riders on roads clogged with motorists in gas lines
• Hospitals needing to prioritize personnel

Southern Baptist Convention bans ‘racy’ magazine

From this WordPress blog, the Southern Baptist Convention forced bookstores it owns (the Lifeway Christian bookstore chain) to pull copies of Gospel Today magazine from public view because, there is a group shot of female ministers on the cover. Original story here from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. You have to ask for the magazine now at Lifeway, like you would a copy of Hustler from the 7-Eleven.

Road rage, where in the Cotswolds? – woman burnt alive in her car

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4804007.ece

Two women engaged in a road rage incident, one refuses to leave her burning car, dies stomping her foot on the gas and telling witness to ‘Fuck off’ while she immolated herself.

The proletariat is rising up, in India

In response to being laid off from their jobs at an Indian car parts company, the suddenly unemployed workers beat the CEO to death. More than 60 were arrested in connection to the crime.

A spokesman for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said: “Such a heinous act is bound to sully India’s image among overseas investors.”

The murder has stoked fears that outbreaks of mob rule risk jeopardising the subcontinent’s economic rise.

In the most high-profile incident so far, thousands of violent protestors recently forced Tata, the Indian conglomerate that owns Land Rover and Jaguar, to halt work on the plant being built to produce the world’s cheapest car – the £1,250 Nano. The move could result in nearly £200 million in investment written off.