The world united in sympathy for the US in the wake of 9-11, but found that sympathy abused by the Cheney administration.

My memory of the Russain-georgian "war" was of the lock-step dishonesty of the Western press as they peddled the neoliberal lie of poor little georgia being oppressed by the big bad russian bear. A view that was plainly contradicted by the stories on the ground.

One of the more interesting media stories of that time is how the BBC got it absolutely right for the first 48 hours or so and then, under pressure from a tidal wave of contradicting views elsewhere, changed their story to the pro-georgia one.

As for copenhagen. If there's anybody who's aware of how these things work and still thought something good would come of it, then I want some of what they're smoking. There may well be a groundswell of people who want changes in global energy policy as we face climate change, but there was never any chance that major industrial economies were going to permit their own policies to be inconvenienced.

So maybe for the tsunami, but otehrwise, not so much

keep to the Fen Causeway