When AIM meets a country, you get

Me: Hey, Georgia! What’s up?

Georgia: Well, my president was shot. Technically, that’s not true, but it makes a good headline. What really happened is this: On Sunday, November 23rd, my president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and Polish president Lech Kaczyinski were shot at in their traveling motorcade. The presidents’ motorcade was stopped by a Russian patrol shortly before the firing occurred. The group turned back after being attacked by a burst of automatic gunfire. Luckily, nobody was hurt, including the plethora of bodyguards. Russian officials deny the attacks came from them, and it is unclear exactly who fired the guns.

Me: Personally, I think the shots were in fact fired by Russians. They have been increasingly provocative against you, Georgia. And the firing happened coincidentally after the motorcade was stopped by a Russian patrol, yet another clue that the attackers are Russian. I also heard that the Polish president claims he heard shouting in Russian, and there was a shaky camera present. But neither sources are conclusive and it remains undetermined who did the shooting. I’m just glad that nobody was hurt!

Georgia: Thanks, Spencer. Hope to talk to you soon!

Here’s what really actually happened (copied from VOANews.com)

By Stefan Bos

Georgian officials say shots were fired at a motorcade carrying the presidents of Georgia and Poland. No injuries were reported. The Georgian leader blames Russian troops in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia for Sunday’s incident. But as Stefan Bos reports from Budapest, Russia’s military and South Ossetia have denied their forces were involved in the gunfire.

Flanked by bodyguards Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili, second from right, and his Polish counterpart Lech Kaczyinski (r) are seen shortly after shots were fired at their motorcade, 23 Nov 2008

Shaky television pictures showed a convoy carrying Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and his Polish counterpart, Lech Kaczynski, turning back amid automatic gunfire.

The incident occurred after the motorcade was allegedly stopped by a Russian patrol while traveling to a refugee camp in Georgia, near the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

It is unclear from television footage who might have been shooting. Mr. Saakashvili blamed Russian troops manning a checkpoint on the border with South Ossetia.

Russian and South Ossetian authorities strongly denied their troops attacked the motorcade. South Ossetian defense official Ibrahim Gassaev accused Georgia of “distributing misinformation,” while a Russian military official in the area said allegations of Russian troops firing on the convoy “do not correspond to reality”.

But, Poland’s President Kaczynski said suggestions that the incident was staged are “lies”.

Mr. Kaczynski noted that although he heard people shouting in Russian, he could not determine whether the shots were directed at the presidential motorcade.

The Polish president was in Georgia to mark the fifth anniversary of Georgia’s Rose Revolution that swept Mikheil Saakashvili into office.

But the celebrations were overshadowed by concerns about the aftermath of a brief war in August between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia and Georgia’s other breakaway region, Abkhazia. After the conflict, Russia recognized both areas as independent states and stationed thousands of troops there.

At a religious ceremony marking the anniversary of the Rose Revolution, President Saakashvili made clear that the struggle for a reunited Georgia would continue.

Mr. Saakashvili’s remarks were translated into English by EuroNews television.

“Georgia is here, and here it will stay,”said Mikheil Saakashvili. “Those people who wish we would disappear will be defeated in the end. We must come together and continue our struggle because it is just.”

Yet the recent war with Russia and continuing violence have fueled protests against President Saakashvili.

Earlier Sunday, Nino Burjanadze, who helped launch the Rose Revolution, announced the formation of a new political party to challenge Mr. Saakashvili’s leadership.

A novel, from the perspective of the oppressed Vietnamese

Finally, our people have risen! I am a part of the Viet Minh, the first all-Vietnamese government in almost one hundred years. I, along with my friends, family, and nation, have recently joined together to fight against oppression, and to spread liberty and independence! The French, our tormentors, are described the same way by all of my people: ugly bastards. They claim their colonization of our country brought civilization to us, but we all know they bring nothing but misery.

The French put taxes on our important and much needed products, driving us nearly poor. This forced us to find new jobs, but those Frenchies own all of the railroads, mines, and plantations. We have no choice but to work for them. Through this aspect they control our lives, and it brings us much pain.

But now we rise as the Viet Minh, with our independent leader, Ho Chi Ming. Together our forces will spread communism and send our evil French influences out of our country.

At last, we have defeated our enemies: The French, and now the Japanese, who also tried to invade our land. Now, for the first time in our history, we’ve held national elections and we stand independent in our new country. Our enemies seem angry with our freedom, but my people and I will fight to the death to defend our nation’s new-found liberty.

America’s Favorite Addiction As Told By Spencer Tweedy

We the people… is what separates the United States of America from all others. Our constitution, in unison with the Bill of Rights, protects our freedom as not only American citizens, but as humans. And this is what makes our country unique. Other nations have suffered from years or even decades of oppression, and others are not even lucky enough to have the privilege of democracy. Thus, their leaders are appointed utmost power, and rule with the norm of fear and destitution.

Our country’s constitution is the greatest form of law. It creates all high offices of our government, such as the Presidency, Supreme Court, and Congress. The constitution also acts as a safety device, ensuring that our leaders do not become dictators, and our democracy is secure. It was created in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the year 1787. The men who created it were named ‘The Framers’. It took the creators four months of debates and arguing to complete. Finally, after numerous compromises, the Constitution was adopted by the United States of America. But before this could happen, nine of the thirteen states were needed to approve the new plan. One of the most famous Framers, Ben Franklin, is said to have thought the Constitution is as perfect as it can be. Negotiations were made common during the ratification period of the Constitution. The Bill of Rights was actually added as a leverage tool to help it pass. And finally, history was made and our future was secured.

The Constitution can be modified by amendments. These amendments must pass Congress in order to be ratified. Once passed, the new law becomes part of our federal constitution, or in some cases, the state’s constitution. The amendment I will be studying is the 18th Amendment.

Alcohol prohibition was a defining time of our history. It was enacted by the 18th Amendment in the year 1917, but did not take full effect till early 1919 and 1920. The proposition of this amendment was influenced by an organization known as the Anti-Saloon League. Though not the majority, but a good number of people were against alcohol use because it caused a lot of bad behavior throughout the country. Nonetheless, the 18th Amendment was extremely unpopular, and conflict arose. Controversy was extremely predictable in this situation. Anything that interferes with an addictive substance, in this case, alcohol, is bound to create dispute.

Here is a copy of the amendment’s text:

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Theoretically, the Anti-Saloon act and the 18thAmendment together would decrease nation-wide violence tremendously. But because of its lack of popularity, it didn’t last long. And furthermore, the result of this newly imposed alcohol prohibition, there was a surge in organized crime and illegal establishments. Once again, these things were easily predictable, considering that alcohol is known to induce rowdy or wild behavior.

Here’s an article written by John R. Vile, taken from Answers.com. It describes what happened during the case of Dillon v. Gloss, in which Dillon is convicted for violating the 18th Amendment’s law. This article is slightly confusing, so what it exactly tells is unclear.

“256 U.S. 368 (1921), argued 22 Mar. 1921, decided 16 May 1921 by vote of 9 to 0; Van Devanter for the Court. This case involved a conviction for transporting intoxicating liquors in violation of the Volstead Act. Dillon raised two issues. First, he challenged the provision requiring ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment within seven years. Second, he argued that the law under which he was charged was not effective until one year after the Eighteenth Amendment was proclaimed by the secretary of state (and hence after his arrest) rather than one year after its ratification. On the first issue, Justice Willis Van Devanter decided that Congress could set a reasonable deadline so that ratification was “sufficiently contemporaneous … to reflect the will of the people in all sections at relatively the same time period” (p. 375). On the second issue, the Court ruled that the amendment’s date of consummation, not its proclamation, was controlling. 

he Eighteenth Amendment was the first to specify a deadline within its text. When the Equal Rights Amendment was proposed, the deadline was placed in an accompanying authorizing resolution that, in a debated move, Congress later extended. Deadlines within the texts of amendments are presumably self‐enforcing. Without distinguishing internal from external deadlines, Dillon v. Gloss ruled that ratifications must be contemporaneous and left to the judgment of Congress. Coleman v. Miller (1939) reinforced and widened Dillon in declaring that the ratification issue was a political question for congressional resolution. Congress exercised its political power in 1992 by certifying as the Twenty‐seventh Amendment a limitation on the timing of congressional pay raises that was originally proposed as part of the Bill of Rights in 1789.” (http://www.answers.com/topic/dillon-v-gloss – John R. Vile)

On December 5, 1933, the 18th Amendment was repealed. In order for it to be repealed, another amendment was put in place to sort of “counter balance” the ever-so unpopular alcohol prohibition. This new counterbalancing amendment was called the 21st Amendment. It was the first amendment ever to repeal another. It took an astonishing thirteen and a half years for it to happen. Alcohol was allowed! I wasn’t there to experience it, but I’m sure that beer-lovers abroad were ecstatic at the announcement.

The drug wars of today are almost an exact parallel of the situation in 1920. The illegality of these substances in both situations created a massive and rich new industry and another problem for the government to fight. I think that this phenomenon could be what is holding the government back from banning other things, such as cigarettes.

My uncle’s home in Los Angeles, California, was featured on the show If Walls Could Talk because of its historical value. The west coast home’s basement was once an illegal bar during the times of alcohol prohibition, and is just one of the many fragments of history we discover every day. Maybe someday meth labs and marijuana dealers’ homes might be featured on television. Or not.

Our past–and future–would be very different without the 18thAmendment. That little stint of alcohol prohibition could very well be what gives millions of children today that one extra social studies lecture. I’d say anything that affects us in such a large scale is definitely worthy of “history made” status. Funny, though, that the same event that caused uprisings in crime nearly ninety years ago is viewed as a study topic today. But now, we end this study of the 18th Amendment with the notion that we the people love beer.

I’ve posted before about the sheer awesome (yes, that’s a noun) that engulfs me every time I visit BarackObama.com. It is definitely one of the best websites of all time, regardless of your political views. But unfortunately, now when I visit it, I have a sort of eerie feeling. I don’t know entirely why, but obviously it has something to do with the election being over.

Not long ago, the Obama camp launched Change.gov, office of the president-elect. Its much more official looking, with a less vibrant color scheme and not as many cool features. Overall its just less exciting. Don’t get me wrong; Its still great, just a sad comparison. One woman I interviewed says, “I think its supposed to be more informational and less flashy.” I happen to agree. The new site serves a different purpose. Let me know what you think.

Here are some screenshots. Click to enlarge.

Joseph Stalin was born on December 18, 1878, and died (er.. thankfully) on March 5, 1953. He was the General Secretary of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. After his initial power-power-gainings, he eventually became the dictator of the Soviet Union. He also established a regime now know as Stalinism.

After Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin and Leon Trotsky, his rival, began a power struggle, which resulted in the deportation of Trotsky. Stalin promoted a new economic system, which replaced the New Economic Policy of the 1920’s. Around the same time, he forced rapid industrialization of rural areas by confiscating farmers’ land. He transformed the Soviet Union into an industrial powerhouse in a short amount of time. Many people died, however, from the hardships that occurred because of the new party policies and economic upheaval. Factories were a much harder environment to work in. The industrial confinements were rarely cleaned, let-alone ever in a livable condition.

The Great Purge was launched by Stalin at the end of the 1930’s. It was an event of major repression, and killed millions of people who were considered to be ‘a threat to Soviet politics’. Others were either exiled and/or sent to labor camps in Siberia and Central Asia, where they later died of various causes such as malnutrition and disease. Stalin committed these crimes through the security apparatus known as NKVD. I don’t know what that stands for, but its probably something cool like ‘Nickolaog Kilionduous Villainous Division’ or something. Luckily, in the 1950’s, Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s eventual successor, denounced Stalin’s views and began the process of “de-Stalinization.”

During WWII, Joseph Stalin owned tha Nazis, meaning he kicked their big bigoted butts, and as a result the Soviet Union was viewed as one-out-of-two of the world’s supernations. This victory could have possibly been used as a sort-of leverage tool, because anything with morale-boosting power can be manipulated to take advantage of people.

Joseph Stalin was (is) one of the world’s craziest leaders and I hope I never face a dictator like him. Actually, it makes me really grateful that I live in America, with the Bill of Rights and such. But that said, LET’S KEEP IT THAT WAY!