Haven’t checked in on Georgia for a while. What a mess.

• Georgia says foils rebellion, accuses Russia
• GEORGIA: TBILISI PROTESTS PRODUCE A MOBILE PARLIAMENT
• Georgian opposition extends protests to Tbilisi City Hall
• Russia Digs In Alongside Breakaway Territories

The European Union has finally decided that it can’t accomplish anything in the Middle East, so maybe it should pay some attention to, y’know, Europe:

• European Union to Reach Out to 6 Former Soviet States in Meeting

“There are new priorities on the agenda which were not so obvious last year, including the need to stabilize these countries, which are moving from one crisis to another,” said Nicu Popescu, a research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “The focus is less on structural adjustments or institution-building and more on crisis management.”

And file this one under “what could possibly go wrong?”

• Russia Plans to Power Arctic Oil Drilling With Floating Nuclear Plants

• Tensions Grow in Georgia Over Accusations of a Plot
• 8 Georgian opposition members to remain in custody
• Russia to help defend Abkhazia, S. Ossetia borders

• Liquid War: Postcard from Pipelineistan

Global financial crisis or not, oil and natural gas are the long-term keys to an inexorable transfer of economic power from the West to Asia. Those who control Pipelineistan — and despite all the dreaming and planning that’s gone on there, it’s unlikely to be Washington — will have the upper hand in whatever’s to come, and there’s not a terrorist in the world, or even a long war, that can change that.

And this:

• Russian subs ‘to back Arctic claims’

• Georgia says two OSCE monitors detained by separatists
• OSCE observers arrive illegally in South Ossetia.
• South Ossetia says Georgian shells hit capital
• Russian Troops Present In Georgian-controlled Area – Tbilisi

And Russia’s got trouble of its own just across the Caucasus:

• 4 police, 3 insurgents killed in Russia clash

Doesn’t stop the Russians from looking north, though:

• Russia sending more ships, scientists to Arctic
• NATO cannot boost presence in Arctic – Russian president’s envoy

Since I’m doing world politics tonight, I’ll take up my sadly neglected duty of telling you everything that happened with pirates. Did I even mention last week that the MV Faina was released? That’s the ship that was carrying tanks and other weapons to Kenya, although the arms are widely thought to have been intended for a Sudanese faction.

• Ukraine Welcomes Release of Captive MV Faina
• Kenya denies paying ransom to free MV Faina

According to David Musila, Assistant Minister for Defense, the military equipment will be off-loaded from the ship starting on Friday.

The military equipment, he said, will be delivered by rail to the Kahawa Garrison before transportation to the Armor Brigade in Isiolo in northern Kenya.

“We shall invite the media to witness this process,” Musila said, adding that this will convince those people that have doubted that the cargo was meant for Kenya.

• Fighting pirates in the Gulf of Aden

The U.S. and Russian navies joined forces today in the Gulf of Aden in an extraordinary and spontaneous display of counter-piracy cooperation and high-seas diplomacy. The U.S.-guided missile cruiser Vella Gulf and the Russian destroyer Admiral Vinogradov launched a coordinated military response to a distress call from a Panamanian cargo ship, which reported it was about to be attacked by pirates.

• Danish navy hands over pirates to Dutch authorities
• US Navy seizes 7 suspected pirates off Somalia
• U.S. Navy captures more suspected pirates off Somalia

But before anyone gets too excited about their antipiracy patrols:

• Somalia: U.S. Policy Aided Rise in Piracy

Among the litany of booby traps left by the Bush administration for the Obama team, Somalia could be one of the most complicated and bizarre.

The crisis there is also an opportunity, however, as one of the main obstacles to all-party peace talks was the Bush administration’s cynical and unrealistic refusal to talk to the most powerful insurgent groups in Somalia because of their alleged association with terrorism. The Obama administration, if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearing is any indication, also views the Horn of Africa in the context of terrorism.

Nevertheless, Obama has also talked of his preference for diplomatic solutions. Somalia would be an ideal place to test his diplomacy.

• Challenges loom as Obama seeks space weapons ban

“There’s still a lot of wiggle room” in the administration’s statement on military space, said analyst Victoria Samson with the private Center for Defense Information. “But just the sheer fact that they are discussing it represents a real shift from the Bush administration.”

• Lunar Camera More Sensitive Than Expected
• Russia: No more space tourists after 2009

This might actually be good news for the law and order crowd, although supporters of human rights won’t be so happy:

• Ethiopia withdraws last troops from Somalia
• Islamists seize Somali MPs’ base

The usual post-soviet geekery:

• Nato has ‘no will’ to admit Georgia or Ukraine
• Russia plans base in Georgia rebel region:report
• (Kosovo) B92: Situation in northern Mitrovica calm after blasts

And finally, you know I can’t resist a good crime story, especially when it makes the police look like idiots:

• 14-year-old boy impersonates cop, police say

The boy, who has been charged as a juvenile for impersonating an officer, walked into the Grand Crossing District station, 7040 S. Cottage Grove Ave., dressed in a Chicago police uniform, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said. The boy, who reported for duty about 1:30 p.m., partnered with another police officer for about five hours.

The boy identified himself as an officer from another district but was detailed for the day to Grand Crossing and also was savvy enough to sign out a police radio and a ticket book, according to a source. The source also said the boy went on traffic stops with the officer he went on the street with.

• NC campus cops arrest student in snowball melee

Junior Brandon Davis said “it all started in good nature, but then people were throwing them as hard as they could at each other.” Junior Matt Lunchick said an officer chased and arrested a student after being hit in the back with a snowball.

• Nigerian police detain goat over armed robbery

“The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car. They pursued them. However one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat,” Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed told Reuters by telephone.

“We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat,” he said.

• Baby’s phone call from indoor marijuana farm lands dad in jail

• ‘Virgin Mary’ Underpass Stain Defaced With Devil Graffiti

And on to News of the Grim:

• One last chance to save mankind

I’m an optimistic pessimist. I think it’s wrong to assume we’ll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It’s happening again.

And now this:

• Faced with rising piracy problem, Navy is taking fight to Africa
• US admiral: Pact near for Somali pirate trials
• Somalia piracy hits tuna fishing in Indian Ocean
• Call for ship riders to arrest Somali pirates
• Pirate fighters back home from Somali waters, relive drama

Nine pirates armed with rocket launchers and heavy machine guns boarded the ship at 12:43 pm (Beijing time) on Dec 17. The 30 sailors locked themselves in the cabins, using fire hydrants and self-made firebombs to keep the attackers at bay.

The beer bottles worked as real weapons, flying like missiles and exploding on impact. And the shards of broken glass made walking on the deck difficult for the pirates because most of them were barefoot.

A couple of these:

• Grenade blast in Kosovo day after new army formed
• Georgia Blocks Russian Inspection of Its Military Facilities

And bad news in space, too:

• Failed Telecommunications Satellite Drifts Out of Control

There’s been a lot of buzz about this story lately:

• Mexico at risk of ‘rapid collapse’

But this article provides some context that’s missing everywhere else:

• Mexico: The Coming Collapse

The report appeared in November 2008, and was intended for use in “long range planning guidance.” It was not meant to predict anything. Media sensationalists latched on to the comments about “rapid collapse” scenarios in the JFCOM speculative study and totally missed the point that this was a “what if?” scenario for planning purposes, not a prediction. JFCOM’s long-range planners thought Pakistan and Mexico were “worst cases” of rapid collapse. Okay, this is fodder for wargaming and long-range planning excursions. No doubt a Mexican collapse would have huge effects on the US. However, the direct comparison to Pakistan was a huge stretch.

Read the report yourself, if you want. The Mexican collapse scenario appears in exactly one paragraph out of 56 pages:

• Joint Operating Environment 2008

Been a long time since we visited the former Soviet periphery. Here’s a quick look around:

• Kosovo’s new armed forces take control of security
• Saatchi & Saatchi to spice up Kosovo’s image
• Russia Ready For Talks On OSCE Georgia Mandate
• Ukraine proclaims victory after Russia gas war

I’m sure this is nothing to worry about:

• Russia says old nuclear satellite poses no threat

If there’s any water on the moon, this is the place to look. Too bad we have to hitch a ride from India to find out.

• NASA Radar Provides First Look Inside Moon’s Shadowed Craters

Here’s some early evidence that Obama won’t do what you want without you making a stink about it (and maybe not even then- time will tell.) This is a draft of a plan that has lots of process ahead of it, but he didn’t have to move it forward at all:

• Offshore Drilling Proposal Moves Forward

And finally, here’s what you’ve been waiting for: PIRATES!

• Gunmen attack ship in Nigeria, kidnap worker
• Japanese taskforce approves naval mission to Somalia
• Warships and weather hamper Somali pirates

• Russia says U.S. mercenaries, others fought for Georgia
• The Return of ‘White Tights’: Mythical Female Snipers Stalk Russians
• Alleged Shooting Fuels Tensions Between Moscow And Tbilisi

• Three Germans detained related to attack on EU office in Kosovo
• Kosovo ‘to work’ with EU mission
• Kosovo again opposes EULEX plan; Albania airs doubts

• UN Extends EU Peacekeeping Mandate in Bosnia
• Bosnia Defence and Security Report 2008

• Moldova’s Territorial Integrity Key Principle for Transdniestrian Settlement – U.S. Ambassador

• Ingushetia in ‘state of civil war’

• NATO eyes face-saver for Ukraine, Georgia

• Ukraine to prospect for gas on Black Sea shelf – PM Tymoshenko

• A court blocks an Arctic Ocean drilling plan by Shell

It is as thick as your arm, gungy and smells disgusting – and it has just been caught on camera for what is thought to be the first time.

Whalers slip out of Japanese port

Lunar Images From Chandrayaan-1
Controllers Cheer as Data Arrive from NASA’s Spirit Rover
What to Get Space Station on 10th Anniversary — a Name
Physicist admits sending US space know-how to China

Pirates capture Saudi oil tanker
Somali pirates release cargo ship
US Admiral ‘stunned’ by pirates’ reach

Georgia: Russian drone explodes, killing 2 soldiers and wounding 8 near S. Ossetian border
South Ossetian gunmen withdraw from disputed village: Sarkozy
Macedonia Takes Greece to World Court
Protests against UN, EU in Kosovo planned

Ancient Greeks pre-empted Dead Parrot sketch

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. It’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it.”

For those who believe the ancient Greeks thought of everything first, proof has been found in a 4th century AD joke book featuring an ancestor of Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch where a man returns a parrot to a shop, complaining it is dead.

The 1,600-year-old work entitled “Philogelos: The Laugh Addict,” one of the world’s oldest joke books, features a joke in which a man complains that a slave he has just bought has died, its publisher said Friday.

“By the gods,” answers the slave’s seller, “when he was with me, he never did any such thing!”

The Alternate History Theme Park Where Dinosaurs Fought in the Civil War

Hubble snaps planet orbiting distant star: First visible-light image of gravitationally-bound world

The Hubble space telescope has captured the first visible-light image of an exoplanet orbiting a star – a body no greater than three Jupiter masses, gravitationally-bound to Fomalhaut in the constellation Piscis Australis.

Mission Accomplished: India fifth in world to reach moon
High-Performance Ares Rocket Engine Passes Review
Shuttle Endeavour links with space station

Policeman Killed Near Abkhazia
EU monitors in Georgia ‘come under fire near Abkhazia’
U.S. studies another path for Georgia to join NATO

Explosive charge thrown at EU mission in Kosovo
EU’s Kosovo Mission In Doubt After Rejection Of UN Proposal
Aiming to partition Kosovo, Tadic reveals his Janus-like face

Putin holds talks on Transdniester

I have to admit- I would never stay on top of this story without the Fortean Times:
Sixth severed foot washes up on B.C. shore

Not as cool as the Ganesha that grew up through the sidewalk, but it’ll do:
Monks see Buddha in wasp nest

Judge clears nude bicyclist in Portland
Seattle Parks seeking to ban nudity
Resort plans nude “anything goes” party

The usual post-Soviet stuff, starting in the Balkans:
Postwar Bosnia’s surprising export: peacekeepers
Kosovo rejects deal on deployment of EU mission
EULEX: UN appeals to Kosovo for flexibility

Tag reform! I used to tag stories about South Ossetia and Abkhazia with “Georgia,” just to keep the tags under control. But that’s kind of old school by now, so from this point forward, there’s a new tag called “Ossetia.” Not like you care, but I do.

Police attack raises tension in South Ossetia
S.Ossetia to report EU monitoring failure

The first two Ukraine headlines describe basically the same event, and yet their spin is almost totally opposite:
NATO reaffirms close ties with Ukraine
NATO Raises Concerns About Ukraine Reforms, Alliance Membership
Ukraine MPs sack presidential associate as speaker