I saw this headline first: Bush to order 8,000 troops out of Iraq.
Then I saw this one: Russia plans 7,600 force in Georgia rebel regions.
Are the American troops being moved to Georgia?
It seems like that’s what allies would do, no?
Georgia
Welcome to Today!
Oooops! 😯 Maybe that’s not such a good photo to go with the title!
Here, this next one is better:
Today is our daughter Dora’s twentieth birthday. So I made the above wallpaper with her in mind because of this transition from her teens to her twenties. Of course, it’s a good verse for all of us.
Now…two news items to start out your day….
| Happiness is key to longer life
“Happiness does not heal, but happiness protects against falling ill” says Ruut Veenhoven of Rotterdam’s Erasmus University in a study to be published next month. After reviewing 30 studies carried out worldwide over periods ranging from one to 60 years, the Dutch professor said the effects of happiness on longevity were “comparable to that of smoking or not”. That special flair for feeling good, he said, could lengthen life by between 7.5 and 10 years. The finding brings a vital new piece to a puzzle currently being assembled by researchers worldwide on just what makes us happy — and on the related question of why people blessed with material wealth in developed nations no longer seem satisfied with their lives. |
And this less happy story:
| Russia vs Georgia
A fragile cease-fire appeared even more shaky as Russia’s foreign minister declared that the world “can forget about any talk about Georgia’s territorial integrity.” The declaration from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov came simultaneously with the announcement that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was meeting in the Kremlin with the leaders of Georgia’s two separatist provinces. “One can forget about any talk about Georgia’s territorial integrity because, I believe, it is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state,” Lavrov told reporters. […] Russian troops also appeared to be settling in elsewhere in Georgia. […] The scene underlined how closely the soldiers Russia calls peacekeepers are allied with its military. |
I said two news items, but here’s a third one to end on a more positive note:
| Anything into oil
“Working with the USDA we’ve identified enough waste material around the country, we truly believe we can make the United States totally energy independent of foreign countries in about five years,” he said. WND originally reported on the project in March as Bell, an agricultural researcher, confirmed he’d isolated and modified specific bacteria that will, on a very large scale, naturally and rapidly convert plant material – including the leftovers from food – into hydrocarbons to fuel cars and trucks. That means trash like corn stalks and corn cobs – even the grass clippings from suburban lawns – can be turned into oil and gasoline to run trucks, buses and cars. |
Make it a good day today!
To Start Your Day
| Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt to military operations in Georgia on Tuesday, saying Moscow had achieved its objectives by punishing Tbilisi.
Just before meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy for peace talks at the Kremlin, Medvedev issued instructions to Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to “stop the operation to force Georgian authorities to peace.” “The aim of the operation has been achieved,” Medvedev said in televised remarks. “…The aggressor has been punished and has suffered very considerable losses.” Close U.S. ally Georgia entered conflict with Russia last week after launching an offensive to retake the pro-Russian region of South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgian rule in 1992. Moscow responded with a huge counter-offensive. |
In other good news:
Update: Russia vs Georgia
US military surprised by speed, timing of Russia military action
| The US military was surprised by the timing and swiftness of the Russian military’s move into South Ossetia and is still trying to sort out what happened, a US defense official said Monday.
[…] That the two countries were on a collision course was no surprise to anyone, but the devastating Russian response was not expected, officials said. “We were tracking it earlier in that week and we knew that things were escalating,” said a military official, who asked not to be identified. “I can tell you it moved quicker than we anticipated that first day.” |
So the US military was surprised. Was the CIA or any other intelligence agencies? If you’re among those that put your trust in these institutions, you’ve misplaced your trust. Look to the Lord Jesus!
Good News…
…followed by bad.
Potential Leukemia Breakthrough
| Australian scientists said Monday they had mapped a blood cell structure which could hold the key to improved drug treatments for diseases such as leukaemia, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.
[…] “We hope that this discovery will lead to targeted therapies, more specific to the malfunctioning cells seen in diseases such as leukaemia.” |
Lesbian, Atheist, Muslim to “Attempt” Christian Life
| A new television program being broadcast this month follows a group of 13 non-Christian volunteers, who, on camera, attempt to “live by the teachings of the Bible for three weeks.”
“Make Me a Christian,” broadcast in a three-part series, asks the participants to be mentored by four pastors from a variety of backgrounds – Anglican, Catholic, Evangelical, and Pentecostal – as they attempt to live like Christians, an effort that runs in stark contrast to many of the participants’ backgrounds. The 13 volunteers who will make the effort include a tattooed militant atheist biker, a man who converted from Christianity to Islam, a lesbian schoolteacher, a lap-dancing witch with a lust for expensive shoes, a middle-class yuppie couple that can’t find time to spend with their children and a party animal who claims he’s slept with over 150 women. Whether people can be made into Christians by a three-week crash course in discipleship, however, remains a matter of debate. […] The show’s website concludes with the teaser line, “All this is just the start of their three hard weeks. Can they embrace Christian ideals and learn to live in a different way or will their old lives prove just too strong to resist?” |
You cannot live the Christian life without Jesus.
There is no Christian life without Christ. Not in real life. And certainly not in for-TV life.
| As a Russian jet bombed fields around his village, Djimali Avago, a Georgian farmer, asked me: “Why won’t America and Nato help us? If they won’t help us now, why did we help them in Iraq?”
A similar sense of betrayal coursed through the conversations of many Georgians here yesterday as their troops retreated under shellfire and the Russian Army pressed forward to take full control of South Ossetia. |
Note to other countries: Who will go to war against Russia for you? 😯
| Dozens of Russian warplanes staged air raids in Georgia on Monday, officials said, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States of trying to undermine Russia’s mounting military offensive.
[…] Russia and Georgia pursued their attacks as diplomatic tensions worsened. US President George W. Bush, Georgia’s biggest western ally, said he had told Russia’s influential prime minister that its bombing of Georgia was “unacceptable.” Putin responded by accusing the US of trying to disrupt the Russian military operation by transporting Georgian troops from Iraq into the “conflict zone.” “I regret that some of our partners are not helping us but in fact are trying to impede us,” Putin said directly referring to the US flights of Georgian troops. […] The UN refugee agency said up to 80 percent of Gori’s population of 50,000 have fled the city because of Russian attacks. […] Russia, which has already moved battleships to the Black Sea and said it has sunk a Georgian navy vessel, is preparing to deploy 9,000 troops to bolster its forces inside a second separatist Georgian region, Abkhazia, a military spokesman was quoted as saying by Interfax. It will send more than 350 armoured vehicles to add to what is officially a Russian peacekeeping force in the breakaway region, the spokesman said. |
“What is officially a Russian peacekeeping force” highlights a concept I’ve found difficult to grasp for years. Look at Russia’s track record through fairly recent history and who wouldn’t consider their “friendly” military presence anywhere without at least some trepidation?
PS to Putin: So some of your partners aren’t helping you? Well, what’s the US to do when it’s also partners with your adversary? Ah, the strange world of geopolitics. And of plain ole politics. 🙄
Well, may the good news from Australia result in new and effective cures for leukemia. Amen.
Russia vs Georgia
And it’s not at the Olympics:
| Russia seizes South Ossetia
Russian troops backed by tanks and fighter jets seized control of South Ossetia on Sunday as fears grew of a wider conflict with Georgia over the separatist region. Georgia said it had withdrawn most of its troops from South Ossetia in the face of a build-up in Russian firepower and that it had lost control of the near-destroyed regional capital, Tskhinvali. […] “We’re being driven away. The place was in flames and we couldn’t stay,” Pavlik, an elderly man travelling by foot, told AFP as he fled from the conflict zone. […] Russia backs the separatist government in South Ossetia and sent in tanks and troops on Friday in response to pro-Western Georgia’s military offensive to take back the province which broke away in the early 1990s after a separatist war. […] “We have left practically all of South Ossetia as an expression of goodwill and our willingness to stop military confrontation,” Georgian National Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia told AFP. […] The movement of Russia’s naval fleet from their base in Ukraine to positions near Georgia also threatened to destabilise the region. Ukraine’s foreign ministry threatened to prevent the warships from returning to their base in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol. […] Georgia’s army of less than 25,000 men is confronting a Russian force which can count on more than one million troops and has dominance of both skies and sea. On the diplomatic front, a meeting of the UN Security Council on Saturday failed to agree on a call for an immediate ceasefire. |
Russia on the move. Imagine that.
Georgia may be an ally of the US. But the US is rather occupied elsewhere these days.
Next thing you know, we’ll hear Iran moved against Israel. And China against Taiwan. And North Korea against the South. And Iran against the US.
Or something.
Wars and rumors of wars, you know.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
So face it.
Well, anyway. What shall we Christians in America do?