World War III: Electric Boogaloo

I admit it -- I'm cynical. I'm a dyed in the wool cynical bastard. When news came from Russia of a horrific hostage and siege scenario the second thing I thought was, "That sounds way too convenient." The first thing I thought was, "God, how awful." And then, recent "god, that's awful" events made me follow the next logical conclusion, which is: it's all a big plan. It either works deliberately (they paid someone to do something horrible in order to justify their actions) or unintentionally (they were so lax in their efforts and deliberately belligerent in their provocations, that they only had to wait for someone to do something horrific) and suddenly your government can get carte blanche to do pretty much whatever it wants in the guise of "security" or "safety." And, bam, you're living in a totalitarian dictatorship again. Wow, suddenly it's 1939 all over again. Instead of villifying an undeserved ethnic minority, we'll villify a religious one. Sure, whatever works in the service of creating totalitarian dictatorships the world over. And then we get to use our fancy weaponry and kill anyone we don't like without having to explain it and...hmm..sounding all too familiar to a certain country that I'm living in. Now, with Russia on the similar warpath, it's only a matter of time before things get way out of hand. Did anyone else read the Cat in the Hat when they were growing up? I'm always reminded of how thing 1 & thing 2 weren't able to get that stain out and in all of their odd efforts to do so, ended up spreading it even further. Violence begets violence in an endless cycle that then creates poverty (which begets violence). Asimov once wrote that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. At this stage of the game, we're dealing with a lot of people who have violated the Peter Principle (being promoted just beyond one's level of competency -- everyone in positions of power have gone 2 or 3 steps beyond their level of competency). And it doesn't look very good for the rest of the world. I wonder if the Doomsday Clock is milliseconds from midnight yet or not...

Hope this cheered everyone up on this gray Wednesday.