He mispronounced Saakashvili. No surprise. He mispronounced Sarkozy. Duh. He's sending Condi to France (to eat cheese and discuss surrender?). He mispronounced Tbilisi. He's sending the Secretary of Defense to head humanitarian aid?

• CNN's coverage here.

• Transcript (not including goofs, mispronounciations, and comical outtakes).

Reuters and lenta.ru report that Georgia is withdrawing troops from the war-devastated South Ossetia. This also just got reported by France 24. I cannot get to any Georgian news sites for another confirmation, it looks like all of them are under a massive cyberattack.

Don't get too excited though - interfax.ru   reports that Georgian troops are just relocating to new positions.  

Pictures below the jump.

After a false hope of yesterday's ceasefire, the war in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia has flared up, with Georgia bombarding South Ossetia's capital Tskhinvali and a column of Russian armor moving into South Ossetia.

According to civilian refugees from Tskhinvali, "the town is destroyed, with piles of corpses everywhere."

In one of my previous diaries, I described an earlier confrontation involving Russia, Georgia, and Abkhazia (a breakaway republic that tries to secede from Georgia). Now, that one, over a Georgian flying robot getting shot down, ended up with nothing after some huffing and puffing... however, now things got much nastier in the vicinity of another chunk of Georgia that is trying to secede - South Ossetia, where it actually came to a shooting war with dozens of people hurt or killed.

However, in a startling recent development, Georgia's president Mikhail Saakashvili has announced a unilateral ceasefire and major concessions to South Ossetia. What could this mean?

Georgia has announced that a Russian MiG-29 fighter shot down a Georgian Hermes 450 unmanned surveillance drone over Abkhazia, a Georgian province that proclaimed independence from Georgia a few years ago after a rather nasty civil war.

This led to a rather heated 40-minute conversation between the presidents Putin and Saakashvili, and now Georgia has requested  for the UN Security Council to be convened to address what Georgia calls "an act of military aggression."

Not a candidate diary.

In one of the West Texas school districts (Ector County), since 2005, students were taught "the story of the creation, the life of Noah and his ark" according to the Bible as literally accurate historical descriptions. I don't think it made any news then.

However, now New York Times covers the story because several brave parents with some help from ACLU (Moreno v. Ector School County Board) sued the district and forced it to settle.

I think it is rather depressing that in these days, even such a small (and somewhat ambiguous - see below) victory of law and reason over [I don't even know what to call that thing] has to be regarded as important news and covered by the New York Times.

Not a candidate diary.

Kosovo, formerly a province in former Yugoslavia (and subsequently in Serbia), just declared its independence in defiance (at least according to the inevitable statement of the Russian ambassador) of UN rules. This independence will likely be recognized by at least some  EU states on Monday.

This diary is about what's going to happen next - and it looks like it will be a cascade of declarations of independence from other breakaway regions, mostly aligned with Russia, specifically South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Pridnestrov'ye. Russia and Serbia are quite likely to recognize the independence of these regions. Be aware - some links are advocacy sites for the independence of corresponding regions, so employ your critical skills while browsing. Also looks like Abkhazia is a country in need of a better webmaster for their English-language site...

Not a candidate or super Tuesday diary.

News just came in that a fifth fiberoptic undersea cable has been severed in the Middle East.

The cable problems started on January 23, when the Flag Telecoms FALCON undersea fiber optic cable near the Egyptian port of Alexandria was severed. Three more cuts followed, with another cut of the FALCON cable reported just recently. This results in considerable Internet traffic losses for Asia, in particular, Egypt and Iran. This report from internettrafficreport.com shows Iran knocked offline completely, although it may be incorrect. Update: it is incorrect.

The official explanations of what is hapenning are... limp as official explanations.

Myspace is a popular social networking site. About two years ago, it was bought by Rupert Murdoch's media empire. I don't know if it sucked before that (probably it did), but this acquisition sort of made the suckage official by instituting (as of 2006) this content ownership rule...

By displaying or publishing (”posting”) any Content,  [...] you hereby grant to MySpace.com, a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and through the Services.

You think you own the content? Well, Rupert owns it too!

However, this suckage is about 10 inches of vacuum short of the most recent suck: Myspace admins just went and shut down a 35,000 member atheist and agnostic group.

Below is a quote from a letter sent out to parents of children attending a very academically respectable and fairly mellow Catholic school by the school's ermm... spiritual advisor, regarding Philip Pullman's books, apparently prompted by the release of the movie based on the first installment in His Dark Materials trilogy.

And what's so abhorrent and detestable about the Catholic Church in Pullman's novels?  Mr. Pullman is working to bring millions of children into contact with their demonic helper and in their diabolical revolt against God and religion - Christian and Jewish.

Personally, I have great respect for Phil (not to be confused with Bill) Pullman, and I think that in his literary area, he stands head and shoulders above a certain author enjoying an enormous (and totally mysterious to me) popularity. My friend who received this letter is unfamiliar wit his work. He told me that, after having received the missive quoted in more detail below, he will take his kids to see the movie and will read the books. That's the good news. The bad news is that, apparently, the faith of some of the people who dare call themselves Christians is so weak that it cannot tolerate a challenge even from an animatronic talking bear.

First they fired Mike Malloy, then I'm hearing that they're firing Jerry Springer, and now they are about to declare bankruptcy??? The news have been picked up by several news agencies and blogs, some of the latter of a very unsavory sort (gloating like their neighbor's cow dropped dead), but Think Progress has the exclusive...

Air America Radio will announce a major restructuring on Friday, which is expected to include a bankruptcy filing, three independent sources have told ThinkProgress. Air America could remain on the air under the deal, but significant personnel changes are already in the works.

Cannot say that I like the take of Ana Marie Cox (or whatever fat guy with a beard is blogging that stuff now) on the event...

We've always thought that people who go around calling themselves liberals or conservatives were equally brainwashed, but shocking new developments today suggest that the lefties may be slightly less susceptible to jackasses screaming on the AM radio.

However, this is among the nicer things being said about the supposed demise of Air America Radio in the blogosphere.

Remember the California congressional race in which Francine Busby lost to Brian Bilbray with a narrow margin of about 7,000 votes, thus leaving the district of "Duke" Cunningham under Republican control?

Well... Some people think that the County Registrar Mike Haas may have been too hasty certifying the election results. Yeah, that's right: the outcome of Busby vs. Bilbray has been challenged in court. According to San Diego Union Tribune,

A lawsuit filed Monday asks a Superior Court judge to toss out the results of the June 6 special election in which Republican Brian Bilbray defeated Democrat Francine Busby to finish the remaining term of disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Washington Post published several letters to the editor discussing Richard Cohen's column "So not funny." To remind you (like you need reminding), it dealt with Stephen Colbert's scathing monologue addressed at G.W. Bush at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. The general tenor of the letters can be captured with one quote...

Mr. Colbert wasn't "funny" because nothing is "funny" about the Iraq war, this administration or a press corps that has, for the most part, eaten what the administration has fed it.

Here's the full text.

This letter, appearing in a somewhat strange place (a World of Warcraft forum), comes from a person whom I know and respect. It  provides some insight into the situation in Biloxi, which may be as bad as that in New Orleans...

The entire letter is reproduced below. Follow the link to the original text to see the responses of the Warcraft players pledging donations, expressing support, and calling for government accountability.

Parents Television Council (PTC) is the online wingnut organization infamous for providing online complaint forms redirected to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). They take credit for the FCC lynching of CBS following the "indecent" exposure of Janet Jackson's breast during the 2004 Superbowl (looked like a very decent breast to me, although that nipple jewelry thingy was way tacky).

However, be it the imminent departure of Mike Powell from the FCC chair post, or the "even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then" instance, today FCC rejected 36 indecency complaints from PTC.

Details can be found at washingtonpost.com (free subscription required) or at newsday.com. Also some fun stuff below...

I observe some interesting fates befalling Bush-Cheney bumper-stickers, especially in the vicinity of college campuses. While the prize for ultimate defilement should probably go to the treatment of a Bush-Cheney sticker described here, El Busho regalia displayed on vehicles are also creatively modified in a variety of ways. If you have observations similar to mine, please share them here.

Disclaimer. I want to explicitly state that one should keenly appreciate the difference between political speech and property damage, so I do not necessarily approve of what I observed.