The Russians could not have known what Obama would or wouldn't eventually do.

You mean, you don't think Obama tipped his hand like this?

http://www.reuters.com/article...

"President Barack Obama was caught on camera on Monday assuring outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he will have "more flexibility" to deal with contentious issues like missile defense after the U.S. presidential election.

Obama, during talks in Seoul, urged Moscow to give him "space" until after the November ballot, and Medvedev said he would relay the message to incoming Russian president Vladimir Putin."

Bush was seen on the international stage as crazy. Obama is seen as weak. As Obama's weakness has unfolded over the past 6 years, it's obvious we would've been better off with Sad Grandpa McCain than "we don't have a strategy yet" Obama :)

Obama blames Bush for all kinds of things, even after six years :)

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

He hasn't quite blamed Ukraine on him yet, but give him time :)

As for whether or not the situation would be better, you mentioned Chechnya and Georgia, of which the Chechnyan wars started under Clinton, and Georgia was undermined by Obama's *removal* of sanctions in 2010 despite continued military occupation.

The simple fact of the matter is that the world *was* better with Bush in charge. Obama, not so much :)

Russia pulled out of Georgia, so the sanctions against them should have been lifted, as they were.

Check your facts again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...

"Occupied territories of Georgia (also known as Russian-occupied territories) are the territories occupied by Russia after the Russo-Georgian War in 2008. They consist of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Twenty percent of Georgia's internationally recognized territory is under Russian military occupation."

And continued, unopposed, for many years under Bush.

So Obama can blame Bush, but Bush can't blame Clinton? :)

I smell a double standard here :)

Why must any culture suit other cohorts in proportion to their percentage of population? Should sewing culture be modified to increase male participation to 50%? Should strip club culture be modified to increase female audiences to 50%?

Explicit sexual exclusion, like say the kind practiced in islam or judaism or christianity with the clergy, is wrong. But if those religions were to open up the ranks of imams, rabbis and priests to women, and there wasn't a 50% female participation rate, not only would I not be surprised, but I wouldn't be sussed.

Georgia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

"US sanctions against Russia imposed by the Bush administration were lifted by the Obama administration in May 2010."

I didn't mention Chechnya, but since you bring it up, the Chechen wars both started under Clinton:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

If I'm in a boxing match, and my opponent collapses, I win :)

I understand that isn't as dramatic as some nuclear knock out game, but that's the reality :)

Or is your assertion that the USSR, had it won the cold war, would've eventually collapsed on its own, then later on changed its mind and re-invaded and acquired its lost territories? :)

My biggest problem with architects - they don't get to enjoy the fruits of their labors by doing production support :)

If every architect was required to be 24/7 on call support for the first 6 months after their design was released to production, they'd be a shitload more careful in what kinds of things they dream up. Sure, that black box back end with all that data sure looks pretty, but thanks to that decision to query it 1000 times per API call, means that you're going to blow through timeouts up and down the stack, backup threads, and bring the whole mess down. Thanks Mr. Architect!

I believe thug culture exists, and that people make the poor choice to engage in it.

I believe intellectual culture exists, and people make the good choice to engage in it.

You seem to think that people are objects, and that some invisible culture monster comes up to them, and forces them to comply.

Think rather that people are *actors*, who pick and choose what cultures to engage in.

Personal responsibility, think about it :)

Options:

1) cold war where US wins;
2) cold war where USSR wins;
3) no cold war where USSR just gets to keep doing whatever the hell it wants, including the murder of millions.

Given those choices, what do you think Stalin's victims would've vied for?

The problem here is that what is desired ins't some greater understanding of why someone makes a personal choice, the problem is that what is desired is some prescriptive solution to what is *assumed* to be a problem.

If you go into the "why" question, assuming the answer, you're eventually going to find it what you're looking for, but that's *not* going to be the truth.

The primal mistaken assumption here is that men and women are not different. They are. Physically, mentally, emotionally, biologically, they are significantly different from each other. Hell, even *within* the sexes there are all kinds of differences of spectrum!

If anything, what we should be doing is the opposite - find areas where there are even splits between men and women, and find out *why*. Because *that* is the unnatural state, *that* is something worth understanding.

What's your bet that nobody cares that Pinterest is dominated by women? Or that the Oxygen channel is viewed mostly by women? Or that cooking shows are viewed mostly by women? The attack on male dominated areas is a transparent victimhood ploy, not a quest for understanding.

So, what you're saying is that if men like shit sandwiches, and women don't, we need to work harder on getting women to eat shit?

Why not leave the men alone to their odd tastes, and let women make choices based on their own priorities?

Tell that to Stalin's victims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

As evil as the US has ever been throughout its history, to itself and to others, we've never quite mastered the art of evil like others have.

Faint praise, I know, but true nonetheless.

As mentioned in my comment:

"This differs from gender significantly, though, since there are real, biological and neurological differences between the sexes, whereas race is an arbitrary social construct."

You can argue there are discernible "masculine" and "feminine" cultures in the US, but those are generally driven by the real sex differences.

Black skin, on the other hand, does not create thug culture - the soft and hard bigotry of low expectations does.

Ukraine was part of the USSR during the cold war, and Reagan's work to destroy the Soviet empire helped Ukraine become independent in 1991.

Obama's rampant Bush blaming and lack of backbone essentially undid the hard fought victory of the cold war.

Full quote, for context:

> No doubt, history is filled with all kinds of evil misogyny, racism, and homophobia...and large swaths of the planet still have those problems, especially in the islamic world.

1) sadly, most dark skinned folk in the US are affected by thug culture - this causes all kinds of poor outcomes, including lifespan and prison representation;
2) http://online.wsj.com/news/art...

Freedom to choose thug culture, or non-boardroom careers, or lower wage careers does not mean the rest of the world is imposing these decisions upon others.