Chess is cool

Chess is cool is the tag line used by a Russian Chess Grandmaster on her website. According the Telegraph, she's also a part time model and has recently won the Women's World Chess Championship.




This may explain my 10 year old son's recent interest in chess...

The Rosenbergs, A follow-up

I posted about the Rosenbergs and their co-conspirator earlier. Via Power Line, a recommendation for a piece by Ronald Radosh called Case closed: The Rosenbergs were Soviet spies.

As a learned history professor, Radosh did a far better job then my wretched piece. A sample:

With these latest events, the end has arrived for the legions of the American left wing that have argued relentlessly for more than half a century that the Rosenbergs were victims, framed by a hostile, fear-mongering U.S. government. Since the couple's trial, the left has portrayed them as martyrs for civil liberties, righteous dissenters whose chief crime was to express their constitutionally protected political beliefs.

As they say, RTWT.

Confession of a co-conspirator

The Rosenbergs' rear their head... from beyond the grave. From the New York Times

Figure in Rosenberg Case Admits to Soviet Spying

In 1951, Morton Sobell was tried and convicted with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on espionage charges. He served more than 18 years in Alcatraz and other federal prisons, traveled to Cuba and Vietnam after his release in 1969 and became an advocate for progressive causes.

Through it all, he maintained his innocence.

But on Thursday, Mr. Sobell, 91, dramatically reversed himself, shedding new light on a case that still fans smoldering political passions. In an interview, he admitted for the first time that he had been a Soviet spy.

And he implicated his fellow defendant Julius Rosenberg, in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information and what the American government described as the secret to the atomic bomb.

Of course, The Rosenberg's son get quoted:

The Rosenbergs’ younger son, Robert Meeropol, described Mr. Sobell’s confession Thursday as “powerful,” but said he wanted to hear it firsthand. “I’ve always said that was a possibility,” Mr. Meeropol said, referring to the question of his father’s guilt. “This is certainly evidence that would corroborate that possibility as a reality.”

And to this day this commie tool says what he did wasn't so bad. Surprisingly, the NYT puts the lie to his statement:

In the interview, Mr. Sobell drew a distinction between atomic espionage and the details of radar and artillery devices that he said he stole for the Russians. “What I did was simply defensive, an aircraft gun,” he said. “This was defensive. You cannot plead that what you did was only defensive stuff, but there’s a big difference between giving that and stuff that could be used to attack our country.”

(One device mentioned specifically by Mr. Sobell, however, the SCR 584 radar, is believed by military experts to have been used against American aircraft in Korea and Vietnam.)

(Emphasis mine)

We've known for sure about the Rosenbergs since the VENONA intercepts were made public. Little known fact: Julius Rosenberg's cover name was changed from ANTENNA to LIBERAL. I kid thee not.

As we learn more about the Rosenbergs, the "controversy" takes on a new narrative: Julius was the spy, but only a low level spy... And the atomic bomb secrets he communicated to the Soviet Union were nearly useless. But Ethel was railroaded by aggressive prosecutors. VENONA makes clear that Ethel was an active partner, helping with recruiting other American Communists to spy for the Soviet Union. It does not matter how or even IF the secrets passed by the Rosenbergs helped the Soviets... it's the fact that they passed secrets of any kind.


The Rosenberg's son gets the last word... and he uses it to say its not the last word:

Robert Meeropol, the Rosenbergs’ son, said that even if he were to accept Mr. Sobell’s verdict, “It’s not the end of what happened to my mother and it’s not the end of understanding what happened to due process.”

I'm going to type this slowly so he can understand this: Your daddy was a commie spy, your momma was a commie spy; they were executed for their crimes. It is sad to me that you grew up without your biological parents, but that was due to their decisions.

But there's probably no point in asking Mr. Meeropol to move on... He is firmly ensconced in the far left. I stumbled upon this reference to him ... on a poetry website:

In August 1995, Mumia came within ten days of being executed by lethal injection. He is seeking a new trial. Robert Meeropol, the younger son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, says: "Mumia is the first political prisoner in the U.S. to face execution since my parents."

And, surprise, both Robert and his older brother Michael are part of a 501(c)(3) organization - the Rosenberg Fund for Children, Inc. So if you are a political prisoner, your kids can get a Wii, or something.

Russo-Georgian War

Map from the BBC

It appears that the slip-sliding is over, and it's now war.

Georgia states that they have withdrawn from South Ossetia and that Russian troops control the capital.

Drudge is linking to this story in the Daily Mail calling this The Pipeline War. Just as Not a sheep postulated in a post I linked to earlier.

Numerous outlets report that the Russians have bombed the Georgian capital of Tblisi, a pipeline, and a military airfield and/or the civilian airport in Tblisi. And the Russian navy is deploying to interdict military supplies going into Georgia.

France holds the presidency of the EU. While even the UN could rouse itself for a meeting on the weekend, the EU will wait:

France, which holds the EU presidency, announced that it would host a meeting of European foreign ministers early next week and an emergency EU summit could be held.

The European Union "strongly states its commitment to the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Georgia and its internationally recognised borders and urges Russia to respect them," said a statement released by France.

The EU "underscores that the military actions (against Georgia) could affect EU-Russian relations," it added.

This war has been warming up for a long time. Here's a video of a Russian fighter shooting down a Georgian UAV:

Not quite "Some damned fool thing in the Balkans"...

But this could be close. Russian tanks have been sent in to South Ossetia… which is actually a northern part of Georgia.

The Georgians have been fighting “separatists” with ties to Russia for years. It appears that Putin and his meat-puppet are becoming even more transparent:

Russian tanks have entered Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia, says Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.

Georgia has been fighting separatists with ties to Russia in order to regain control of the province, which has had de facto independence since the 1990s.

Georgia is reported to have said any involvement of Russian forces in the conflict will result in a state of war.

Amid international calls for restraint, Russia's president promised to defend Russian citizens in South Ossetia.

Moscow's defence ministry said more than 10 of its peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia had been killed and 30 wounded in the Georgian offensive. At least 15 civilians are also reported dead.

Sounds too much like protecting ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland to me.

Medvedev believes the presence of a Russian is all the authority he needs:

Amid reports of Russian deaths, President Dmitry Medvedev said: "I must protect the life and dignity of Russian citizens wherever they are," Interfax news agency reported.

In a word: “Uh, oh.”