The present conflict between Russia and Georgia brings back the memories of the first Bush-Putin meeting in Ljubjana, in 2001. Both presidents seemed to hit it off quite well. Mr. Bush described his Russian counterpart as a straightforward and trustworthy man.

As a matter of fact, George W. Bush said after that meeting that: “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul…”

Wonder how Mr. Bush feels about that statement now, particularly in view of the fact that Russia has violated even the Olympic truce…

As if that wasn’t enough, some four years later President Bush in a meeting with Palestinian ministers said that that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq – and create a Palestinian state.

Based on that information we can assume, I suppose, that the U.S. president is capable of seeing into man’s souls and that he actually communes with God, to the degree that our Creator actually talks to him. As far as I can ascertain, God has only spoken to a very select group of people, most of whom, or maybe even all, have been saints. Is anyone out there delirious enough to consider George W. Bush a saint? I seriously doubt it. But wait! That sort of delusional behavior has been observed before in psychiatric institutions. There we can not only meet individuals who also firmly believe that God speaks to them, but also a broad selection of historical figures, such as George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte and so on.

Admittedly, the situation in the Caucasus is not quite as black and white as some try to portray it, but as anyone can easily confirm, the whole region was conquered, occupied and messed up by Russia quite some time ago. Something along the lines of the British conquering, occupying and exploiting huge portions of the Middle East, what they at the time called “India”, large parts of Africa and even far eastern chunks of Asia. Many of the Middle Eastern and south Asian problems have in fact been caused by the arbitrary borders and divisions implemented by our friends the Brits. Let’s not forget the conquest of the Americas and the plight of the many native inhabitants, most of who continue to live as second-class citizens even to this day. How about the blatant invasion and occupation of Iraq and the hundreds of thousands of victims of that outrage, or the Israeli-Palestinian debacle, which has been simmering longer than most of us have been alive?

In view of those facts the rather massive Russian “reaction” to Georgia’s moves could be considered a relatively small event. But is it? Let’s not forget that several gas and oil pipelines cross Georgia and that these are the only pipelines bringing Caspian Sea oil and gas to the West, which do not pass through Russian-controlled areas. Obviously that fact alone makes Russian moves seem a lot more important than simply a threat to a small U.S. ally in the Caucasus.

Speaking of stupid, how about the “protest areas” that the Chinese government set up around Beijing during the Olympics as a show of the “right” to express one’s political, or any other displeasure? As it turns out, those “protest areas” are empty. Why? Because the Chinese commies have set them up not only to fool the international community and the IOC to give them the Summer Olympics, but also as traps. In short: anyone found protesting there gets hauled away by police. So the award for stupidity goes to all of those who have given the Olympics to China.

In closing, this brings me to some thoughts about incredible stupidity and naiveté on maybe a much smaller scale. This weekend we went to see a pretty good new Woody Allen movie, called “Vicky Christina Barcelona”. So nice to revisit Spain, this time on the screen and see some normal people actually enjoying life, instead of the usual U.S. rat race. Funny thing is that all of the compelling characters in the movie smoked without shame, had few if any sexual hang-ups, drove diesel cars and unlike the great majority of our “fearless” leaders, actually spoke some foreign languages.

Which would you rather be? A dumb, naïve loser who thinks that God speaks to him, or a happy, worldly, smoking, drinking, well-educated man (or woman) who knows which end is up?

It is August 8, 2008 – that’s 8.8.8 for all of you Chinese believers in the good luck that the number 8 is supposed to bring and the Beijing Olympic opening extravaganza was just being broadcast on U.S.TV, although the event has taken place many hours before.

Since I, along with millions of other people have decided to boycott the Chinese communist party, their occupation of Tibet and all the other human right outrages and absolutely, positively not watch the opening, or closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, I put on my very nice and controversial T-shirt, bought from Reporters Without Borders and instead of watching the opening of the Beijing Olympics at home, which the NBC television network broadcast at 8pm on 8.8.8, headed for my neighborhood sports bar, hoping to see Jenny the waitress again.

Before I even walked into the bar the T-shirt already attracted some curious stares from a group of people leaving the bar. I asked to be sat in my usual, smoking area, on the left, just started rolling my first cigarette, when I heard: ”Oh my God! I knew it would be you, who would have the balls to wear that shirt. Fortunately, all of the Chinese seem to be home jerking off over the opening ceremonies, so you shouldn’t get into too much trouble”. It was of course Jenny, wearing not only a big smile on her pretty face, but also a pretty tight and skimpy pair of shorts, in which I haven’t seen her before. ‘You look great, baby!” I blurted. “Thank you. Knowing you were a leg man and since I sort of suspected that you would be here today, I did it for you”. An ever bigger smile from her and an absolutely huge one from me. She really had great legs. Slim, but well muscled and arrow-straight. No knock knees, or bowlegs here, folks. Just the best pair of legs you could ever hope to lay your eyes and hands on. “A big Sam Adams, as usual?”, she asked. “Please and could you find me an ashtray, I don’t see one here?” I requested. “Coming up, honey”. I watched her from the back, walking away. Really, really prime. Good thing I came here again, I thought.

I looked around. Most of the many and different-sized TV monitors were tuned to the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. I didn’t look much, since I was seriously boycotting the opening, but couldn’t help noticing what seemed like thousands of dancers carousing through the stadium. Cameras showed some close-ups, of Bush in shirtsleeves, with a pair of binoculars in his hand, looking clearly bored and also crowds of almost hysterically happy Chinese spectators. I turned away from the TVs, just in time to finish rolling my cigarette, when Jenny showed up with a big ashtray and a nice, frosty mug of beer for me.

“Are you hungry,” she asked. “Not that much. Sit with me a while, grab a beer and I will roll you one of these cigs”, I said. “In a few minutes”, said Jenny. “I got to finish up a couple of things and I’ll be back”.

I took a sip of the beer and stared rolling Jenny’s cigarette, remembering that she liked it just a bit looser and easier dragging that I did. Looked around and saw her coming back. She sat across from me in the booth, with a beer of her own. I decided to do the old-time movie trick and put both cigarettes in my mouth and lit them with the Zippo. She laughed out loud. I took a drag on both and handed the one made for her, which I remembered to put into the right side of my mouth in order not to mix them up. Jenny took a drag, held the smoke a while and exhaled with evident satisfaction. “This is good, but seems like a different tobacco than last time,” she said. “It is that organic New Mexico American Spirit. I alternate it sometimes with the Drum and Bugler, when I can get it”, I explained.

“You know, after getting really disgusted with Chinese occupation of Tibet, Darfur and the 200,000, to 300,000 Internet police that they seem to have, I also decided to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics on TV. At first I wanted to boycott the entire Olympics, but decided just to skip the opening and closing ceremonies,” she said. “These are after all the main showcases of the Chinese Communist party. They really want to show the progress they have made during the past 30 years. While practically destroying their country,” I added. “I hear that in the entire wide Beijing region most of the major rivers are mostly dried out, that you drive over these long bridges, over dry river beds,” she said.

“That’s apparently true and despite the fact that they moved a lot of the polluting industrial plants away from Beijing for the Olympics, while polluting other parts of the country and reduced the automobile traffic, it is pretty obvious that the pollution still hangs in the air all over the place,” I said.

“When can you get off tonight?” I asked. “In about an hour”, said Jenny. “OK. Bring me that burger and we can get away from this endless TV coverage here. And lets plan to also boycott the Sochi Olympics in Russia. Now that Russia has invaded South Ossetia and its at war with Georgia and considering what they did in Afghanistan and what they are doing in the Caucasus, the IOC should have never given them the Olympics.” I said. “And unless China gets out of Tibet and actually, formally recognizes it as an independent country I am not only not going to watch their Olympics, but will make very effort not to buy their products,” said Jenny.

“Lets just go to you place and forget about all of those things, at least for tonight”, I said.

The latest crop of John McCain’s television ads claims that Barack Obama is in fact Moses, that he’s “the one”. It even features Charlton Heston in his famous role of from the Ten Commandments…wonder if the McCain people got permission to use that from Metro Goldwyn Mayer…

Actually, for Republicans these desperate attack ads seem to be reasonably funny. Kind of a surprising discovery, actually.

Just like the Moses ad, the ads comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton (for which McCain already got criticized by Paris’ mom) say absolutely nothing about McCain himself. They only try to undermine his opponent.

The Obama campaign responded with a bit of humor, accusing McCain of abandoning any last pretense of civility.

“On a day when major news organizations across the country are taking Senator McCain to task for a steady stream of false, negative attacks, his campaign has launched yet another,” said an Obama spokesman. “Or, as some might say, ‘Oops! He did it again.’”

Isn’t the Obama ad a bit more “normal” and realistic. You be the judge.

I just wonder when McCain will produce an ad telling voters why he should be president.

So far, we haven’t heard too many arguments to convince us to march towards Bush’s third term. Have you?

Speaking of Paris Hilton, take a look at this hilarious video. She sounds more presidential than Bush and McCain combined.