YEAH, GIMME’ SOME…

I’ve made no illusion about my intense, almost irrational hatred of Syrian President Bashar Assad. It’s a point I’ve made time and time and time again. And as tempted as I am to make it yet again I thought I would try to talk about another aspect to the ongoing Syrian Civil War. This week President Obama, Russian President Vladimir “Westworld” Putin and a host of other world leaders are at the annual G8 Summit in Ireland. I’m actually kind of ashamed to admit that I don’t completely understand what the G8 Summit really is. Up until recently I thought it had something to do with internet connection speed. Or that it was a meeting where world leaders compare private planes. In which case America wins.

But, seeing as how it’s really a global forum aimed at increasing economic cooperation, well, not so much. Oh, we’re players. Don’t get me wrong. But in many ways America having the biggest goddamn Presidential aircraft in the world is like your out-of-work aunt or uncle still tooling around in a fucking Escalade. Thankfully, math and money don’t seem to be the main topic this year.

“Mr Putin and Mr Obama met for about two hours on the sidelines of the summit.

Correspondents say that both leaders looked tense as they addressed journalists afterwards, with the Russian president regularly looking at the floor.

Mr Putin said: “Our positions do not fully coincide, but we are united by the common intention to end the violence, to stop the number of victims increasing in Syria, to resolve the problems by peaceful means, including the Geneva talks.”

Mr Obama said the two leaders had instructed their teams to press ahead with trying to organise the peace conference in Switzerland.” – BBC NEWS

What the hell does this even mean? My Fruit Loops Born Again aunt and I have positions that “do not fully coincide”. And, sure, we’re united by the “common intention” to breathe oxygen and drink water. And I can tell you that relationship ain’t going anywhere. Likewise I think it’s pretty clear that Obama and Putin would rather drink their own urine than cooperate on anything. And considering that Assad’s regime has been a pretty reliable meal ticket for old Puters I don’t see him turning his back on him anytime soon.

“Neither the rebels nor the Syrian government have yet fully committed to the proposed Geneva talks, which would seek to end more than two years of unrest that has left an estimated 93,000 people dead.

Mr Obama and Mr Putin did say that they had agreed to meet in Moscow in September.

The White House also announced that Mr Obama would tell the other G8 leaders that the US would provide another $300m (£190m) in aid for refugees inside and outside Syria.” – BBC NEWS

Yeah. Sure. Just get out the goddamn checkbook. Don’t worry about what $300 million dollars could do in America. And I admit it’s probably not much but scratch is still scratch in my book. And it’s a pretty awesome book. I’m constantly amazed by how our government gets its obese child underpants in a twist every time it comes to social spending. But, shit, when it comes to forking over obscene amounts of money to other countries who don’t even like us we don’t bat a fucking eyelash.

I may not understand economics but I do understand basic math. We could spend $300 million to give the Syrian people a band aid or we could spend like $2 million to just blow Bashar Assad off the face of the earth with a cruise missile. And if the world got all upset with us we could just shrug and pretend not to know what they’re talking about. Like I do when the words “SISTER FUCKING HILLBILLY” somehow get spray painted onto my neighbor’s pickup truck.

And agreeing to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow is like 007 going to spend a weekend at Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s condo. This fucking guy used to kill people and make them disappear for a living. Obama could just stay at the White House and have the Secret Service put poison in his food and bombs under his limo all weekend. Shit, man, it would be cheaper and I’m fairly certain the end result would be the same.

VLADIMIR PUTIN DOES NOT FEEL PITY OR REMORSE

I was watching the original TERMINATOR the other night and when it came time for my favorite scene I found myself thinking of old P-Vlad up there. Future guerilla Kyle Reese is trying to explain to a young and rather fertile Sarah Connor exactly what a “terminator” is and says “That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!” Why did that make me think of Putin? Fuck if I know. I’m not a goddamn psychiatrist.

Putin was once again inaugurated as Russia’s President on Monday, a post he held prior to his four years as Prime Minister. It has been a highly controversial election fraught with charges of corruption and fraud as well as spectacular protests against the 59-year-old former KGB agent. Interestingly, none of the Russian news sources I went to were even running it as a story yesterday except for the occasional photo piece. Nobody seemed particularly excited or concerned. Not even the Putinator himself as his HAL-9000-esque delivery demonstrated.

“Mr Putin took the presidential oath at the Grand Kremlin Palace, in a hall that was once the throne room of the Russian tsars.

In a short speech he said Russia was “entering a new phase of national development”.

“We will have to decide tasks of a new level, a new quality and scale. The coming years will be decisive for Russia’s fate for decades to come.”

He said Mr Medvedev had given a new impulse to modernisation, and the “transformation” of Russia must continue.

He also spoke of the need to strengthen Russian democracy and constitutional rights.

“I consider it to be the meaning of my whole life and my obligation to serve my fatherland and our people,” Mr Putin said.

“We will achieve our goals if we are a single, united people – if we hold our fatherland dear, strengthen Russian democracy, constitutional rights and freedoms.”

The Kremlin audience included former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the widow of Russia’s first president, Naina Yeltsin, and the four losing presidential candidates.”  – BBC NEWS

Forgetting for a moment how unnerving it is to hear words like “our fatherland” and “national development” and “decisive” used in the guy’s speech (and it is pretty fucking unnerving) this is a guy who was still ranked as the 4^th most powerful man in the world when he wasn’t even the president of his country. Which makes you wonder why he’s even bothering. Then again, Russian politics has always seemed kind of strange to me.

I’m also a little confused as to why the four losing candidates had to show up for this shindig. It’s not like they were ever going to win anyway. Anyone who poses any actual threat to this guy ends up missing. And his relatives end up dead. Then their house burns down. Then their favorite TV show gets cancelled.

Of course P-Vliddy learned the political game of chess from one Boris Yeltsin who didn’t so much play chess as Spin the Bottle. Or was it Quarters? Vodka Pong? Not sure but it most likely involved him getting shitfaced and having people killed. Puss n’ Puts pretty much does his own killing which, I have to say, is pretty impressive. Am I being unfair to the guy? Maybe. But, hey man, when you take pictures like that you’re pretty much asking for it. And if I had a nickel for every time I’ve been forced to say that in court, well, let’s just say I’d have enough money to pay my legal bills.