Georgia beatings

It's disappointing to see that the last vestiges of Georgia's democratic government credentials have now crumbled as well. In events that mirrored those in Yerevan 3 years ago quite closely, peaceful opposition demonstrators had the crap beat out of them for blocking traffic in front of the parliament building. I watched the footage on a few channels with CNN showing very minor stuff, BBC showing more, and EuroNews showing some very serious ass-whooping with batons and boots, clearly targeting perfectly peaceful people. The national ombudsman, observing the events was also given a good beating which he says only got worse when he told them who he was.

The differences are also interesting. Saakashvili declared a state of emergency first in the capital, then the whole country. And now he has announced early presidential elections (in 2 months). And though I am uneducated on this topic, I tend to feel that Georgia's opposition has more legitimacy and support than the opposition in Armenia. There is also talk of earlier Parliamentary elections, but anyway we'll see how things turn out there. Certainly the largely corrupt batch of opportunists here in Armenia which we call our opposition is watching these events closely, as their last major protest (which ended in the aforementioned beatings) were themselves inspired by the Rose Revolution in Georgia a year before that!

I read a totally unrelated article about a nicotine vaccine that's been developed. It stops the affects of nicotine on the brain. Quitting rates shot up from a pathetic 6% to a slightly less pathetic 16% - but those who didn't quit did manage to halve the number of cigarettes they smoke as well. If we could just manage to vaccinate every single smoker in Armenia, restaurants would be only 40% as smoky! :-)