Image source

Switzerland is about the size of New Jersey and split into 26 cantons or states that have more independence from federal government than do the individual states of the United States. That there are so many states in this small country has historical origins which I'll cover later. First look at the map.

You see Switzerland surrounded by countries which form part of the European Union. There is one exception to the east of Switzerland: The Principality of Liechtenstein which is sandwiched between Switzerland and Austria.

Oddity treaties: Since 1921, Switzerland and Liechtenstein form together an economic and customs union both using the Swiss Franc as common currency. The borders between the two countries are completely open and never even patrolled. Both countries don't belong to the European Union. But Switzerland is a signatory partner to the treaties of Schengen, which means that the borders of Switzerland and the European Union are completely open, but Liechtenstein doesn't but can't close its borders because they are manned and run by Swiss customs. On the other hand, Liechtenstein is a signatory partner of the European Free Market, while Switzerland isn't. Makes everybody's head hurt, I suppose.

The 26 states of Switzerland conform roughly to the original countries that merged to become Switzerland in 1848. Before that, they had formed a loose confederation of independent countries. As Berne was at that time not only the largest of these countries but also the most powerful, the seat of the federal government was voted on to e in Berne. Were you looking for the word capital city?

Oddity capital: Switzerland is probably the only country in the world that has no capital. The constitution allocates the seat of government to Bern, but there is no mention of a capital.

Image source: freefoto.com

The Bundeshaus is the parliament of Switzerland, or as it officially styles itself, the Confoederatio Helvetica (hence the CH). There are two chambers of representatives, the national assembly Nationalrat and the assembly of states Ständerat. Together they form the general assembly Gesamtrat.

Oddity head of state: National assembly and state assembly choose a president of the assembly each. The president of the national assembly becomes automatically head of state of Switzerland with the president of the state assembly as his replacement. Both are replaced every year by somebody else, usually one of the vice presidents.

Oddity general: The general assembly is convened when choosing a five star general of the forces. A general is only chosen in times of war, during peacetime there may be no general in Switzerland. To make it really confusing, Switzerland has a general all the same. He is a four star general stationed on the border between the Koreas. As nobody understands the ranks in the Swiss army, this post was created to satisfy foreigners. The general in Korea is chosen by the Defence Minister and deputed into the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office then sends the chap as Attached Military Aid to the embassy in Seoul. Upon his arrival there he is promoted to Ambassador in the rank of a general four star. He is demoted again before returning.

Image source

Oddity government: The general assembly is also convened when choosing the government Bundesrat. The government consists of seven ministers voted on in general assembly whereby the assembly has no restrictions. It can vote any Swiss national into the post of minister. It also chooses the chancellor Bundeskanzler who is a sort of general secretary to the government. This explanation is just to explain the oddity of eight people on the picture. Out of these seven ministers, the assembly then chooses a president of the ministers Bundespräsident. To the rest of the world Switzerland pretends that the Bundespräsident is head of state because protocol would just go nuts otherwise.

Was this all confusing enough? I'll give you one more.

Oddity opposition: The government ministers are chosen from all major parties represented in the two assemblies. It is called the magic formula Zauberformel. As only small parties remain, there is no opposition in parliament. The official opposition is the people. But that oddity is for another time.

The start of the current line can be found before the war even began, at a Los Angeles celebrity teach-in in 2002 organised by documentary filmmaker and activist Robert Greenwald (Outfoxed, Iraq For Sale). Some 200 filmmakers prepared arguments against war and launched their own organisation, Artists United. Former Screen Actor's Guild president Ed Asner described the movement that followed as “the most diverse and inspiring of my lifetime”.

A significant minority of Hollywood A-listers participated through protest, public speeches and media activism, reaching a peak when trying to oust George Bush at the 2004 elections. Then came the movies. First with documentaries, then art-house and analogous pictures like Good Night, And Good Luck, and finally intelligent A-list dramas, the movement slowly crept into the American Cineplex.

The peak of the trend came late last year during the annual post-summer scuttle for Oscar nominations. In the Valley of Elah earned Tommy Lee Jones a Best Actor nomination. Then came Rendition starring Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal, Brian De Palma's Redacted, Robert Redford's Lions For Lambs starring Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep, and Grace Is Gone with John Cusack.

It would be foolish, however, to treat the current trend without a little caution. In The Valley Of Elah only deals with the politics of Iraq obliquely. Grace Is Gone forgoes the big political canvas for a personal story. Rendition deals with terrorism, but is sentimental with a traditional white American heroine and happy ending. The only film that critically attacks Iraq head on is Redacted. The result was catastrophic; and even though the other films broached the sticky subject cautiously they still paid a price at the box office.

Redacted received a five minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, and despite a huge wave of publicity De Palma's film took in just $25,628 in its opening weekend in 15 theaters, which means roughly 3,000 people saw it in the entire country. 94% of its profits came from abroad. The public's appetite for self-criticism isn't as wetted as De Palma had presumed.

The closer to the bone a movie is, it seems, the less people are willing to face it. The old adage that people look to Hollywood for escapism is truer than ever. The War On Terror-related movie to have grossed the most profits is Harold And Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, a crude frat-boy comedy with plenty of boobs and bongs. Hollywood seems to have got the message. This year's latest anti-war offering, War Inc. starring John Cusack, was touted as a "political cartoon", and is a dumbed-down satire on the war in Iraq. If you can't beat them, join them.

Although War Inc. still performed poorly at the box office, 48% of the profit was made in the US, a far higher percentage than any of the others managed. An interesting tally of a film's controversy is its domestic takings versus those made abroad. Even the most financially successful of the films, Lions For Lambs ($15 million profit - still only half its budget), relied on 76% of its takings from the foreign market.

Hollywood now makes many films through semi-independent companies such as United Artists, where celebrities decide which films to make. Corporations dictate distribution deals but are reluctant to turn down a potential profit maker. Provided there is an audience of paying cinemagoers for anti-war films, at least some will be released. But if the best the celebrities can offer is to recoup half the film's budget, the movement may be over before it really began.

This month saw the first return salvo from Hollywood's pro-war contingent. The backlash to the backlash. An American Carol, directed by Airplane! writer-director David Zucker takes aim at liberalism in the United States, seeking to reform a Michael Moore-inspired filmmaker who wants to abolish the Fourth of July holiday. It's a painfully self-righteous spoof that appeals to the worst in slapstick gross-out humour. Although the film took more in its opening weekend than most of the anti-war movies, it's still considered a huge flop. Rather than take it on the chin, the producers claimed last Tuesday that they had received reports of "ticket fraud", and suggested that it could be the reason why the film's weekend box-office figures were so low - anything but the film's politics.

An interesting comparison has to be made against the opening weekend of Bill Maher's film Religulous. Up against Zucker's film - one of the most deliberately conservative movies in memory - was Maher's, one of the most liberal. The film takes square aim at middle-America's holiest of holies, religion itself. The per-screen average takings of Religulous was three times that of An American Carol. Three times as many people showed up in each theater to see it. It's tempting to see this as a liberal victory in the culture war. Perhaps it's not so much a win for the message, as the delivery. Maher made Borat and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and his film is one of the funniest of the year.

Entertainment value is still the central factor to a film's success. Audiences like their politics kept to TV and documentary, and won't pay $11 to be preached to or challenged. Hollywood may be finding ways to sneak those politics into comedy, but it has to be funny. The key is in juggling relevance with entertainment. Released in the US this week, Oliver Stone's Bush biopic W. is hyped as both. No stranger to controversy, Stone is adamant that America needs to understand the faults of the past eight years if it's to move forward. Whether the Cineplex is the place to do it depends on how ready America is to laugh in the face of the man most responsible, and how funny that man's story really is.

France

How far is Canada from France? 7,000 miles, 5000, miles or 10,000 miles?

Well none of the above is correct. France and Canada are in fact only 17 miles apart, and that's official. A mere 17 miles south of Newfoundland lie a group of islands collectively known as St Pierre et Miquelon, and they don't just belong to France, they are France.

The French first got there centuries ago, and since then there has been a bit of a chequered history with tempers flaring between France, USA, Britain and Canada. When the dust settled these little dots in the ocean were flying the French flag as they do to this day.

Although Canada is next door, the inhabitants of St Pierre et Miquelon send a deputy not to Ottawa, but to the Assemblée Nationale (Parliament) in Paris, and one to the French upper house. Letters to and from the islands from mainland France are treated as domestic mail, and charged at the domestic rate. The currency of France, the Euro, is the currency of the islands and the Head of State is Nicholas Sarkozy, the President of France.

During the 1930s the islands became important in the liquor smuggling trade to the USA with the advent of prohibition, but it was the rich fishing stocks in the area that the economy has always relied on. In these days of reduced fish numbers the French government are trying to diversify, particularly into tourism.

And St Pierre et Miquelon aren't France's only contribution to the fascinating world of geopolitical farce. French Guyana in South America is not really a country; it is a départment of France, again sending elected representatives to Paris. Like the islands it uses French currency, and enjoys Nicholas Sarkozy as Head of State, and in several referendums the people have overwhelmingly voted to stay with France. The Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe fall into the same category.

Azerbaijan

Poor little Azerbaijan. Not many can find it on the map, not many can spell its name correctly, and not many care. Part of the USSR for decades, it emerged as a nation state on the 1990s only to be plunged into bloody battles along ethnic lines. A large Armenian population wasn't so happy, and Armenia drives a physical wedge through the small nation cutting off an even smaller exclave called Nakchivan from the main territory.

But Azerbaijan has oil, so some have learnt how to spell its name, some have sought it out on the map, but few still care about it apart from the petrodollars that can be earned from it. A pipeline links the oil reserves in deep water fields in the Caspian Sea to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, giving the West access to huge quantities of oil and gas. Russia's not best pleased.

Nakchivan, although an integral entity of Azerbaijan, has an autonomous government, but remains geographically isolated from the rest of the country and more or less from the rest of the world.

Cabinda

The southern African country of Angola throws up our next strange border arrangement. On the Atlantic coast and to the north of the country, the province of Cabinda has become estranged from the mother ship, with a finger of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo Kinshasa or Zaire to those of a certain age) insinuating itself towards the sea.

The other Congo (Brazzaville) lies to the north, and there seems to be a continued struggle by those who live in the province to achieve independence. Attempts to declare the Republic of Cabinda have met with failure but you can't fault people for trying.

Lesotho

We stay in southern Africa for this next peculiarity as we focus in on the world's only sovereign state to be completely surrounded by one other state, namely South Africa. But how much sovereignty or independence can a country have when it finds itself having to tow the line to guarantee trade links with the outside world?

Another of Lesotho's claims to fame is that it is the only independent state to lie more than 1000 metres above sea level in its entirety, and there can be sufficient snow on the higher mountains to attract skiers from South Africa!

The political history is a mess of coups and intrigues and the Kingdom is now described as a constitutional monarchy with a king as figurehead.

Kaliningrad

And so to northern Europe. Kaliningrad is an integral part of Russia, cut off from the huge bulk of the rest of the country by Poland and Lithuania. Russia was (is) especially keen to hold onto this little bit of land because it offers a port on the Baltic, indeed the only port on the Baltic that remains ice-free all year round, a handy place to park your fleet of war ships.

Things went Moscow's way without a hitch when it controlled the Baltic states, but with the break-up of the USSR Kaliningrad became isolated. Now travellers, civilian and military, have to pass through NATO territory if they wish to get from Kaliningrad to the rest of Russia by land, and special travel arrangements have to be made for locals.

It used to be a Prussian town, did Kaliningrad, and there are moves to restore its pre-Soviet name of Kőnigsberg. One of its claims to fame is that Immanuel Kant was born there, though pure reason would suggest that there might be more to the city than that. It was hoped that Kaliningrad would become the “Hong Kong of the Baltic” for Russia, but crime and corruption have deterred trade and investment so it remains very much a dark, isolated oblast some 200 miles from Russia proper.

Others???

Well there are others a-plenty. Spain enjoys sovereign sway over the cities of Ceuta and Melilla which sit on Moroccan soil, and Britain owns Gibraltar in Spain, but perhaps the strangest of all this geopolitical nonsense is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Why would one island own half of a neighbouring island as well? Why would people as sane and sensible as the British want to govern the Irish? Why indeed?

I know. I know. You're thinking this is just going to be another article about the upcoming election. About the candidates. About the voting systems. About the dirt on one of the candidates. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Wrong. I'm not going to bore you with all that. Maybe in another article. But this article is written with you in mind. It's written so you and I can get through this election cycle and emerge ahead of the game, ready to take action, ready to make positive change. So, below you'll find five simple tips for getting through this election cycle and coming out on November 5th with a plan, a plan to change your life regardless of who the next U.S. president is.

1. Ignore All Political Campaigns.

   That's right. Simply turn off the TV. Turn off the radio. Stop going to the campaign websites. Stop googling for campaign news. Stop talking to people about the campaigns. Once you've managed to successfully stop focusing your attention on this issue, you'll be free to move on to something else BEFORE the mainstream media tells you it's ok to move on.

2. Become the Media.

   Start thinking about the issues that are most meaningful to you and start writing them down. Get yourself an account at Triond.com and begin writing commentary on the issues that are most meaningful to you. Share your Triond.com link with as many people as you can. Start increasing your connections in order to demonstrate that you are capable of being proactive.

3. Eat, Drink, Sleep, Breathe, and Exercise Well.

   Use the extra free time you have because you're not watching and reading about the debates to focus on your health. Give your breathing attention as often as possible. Eat slower and healthier food. Sleep for as long as you can. And continue to do those healthy exercises to keep your body in great physical shape. Drink as much clean water as you can so that your body has the chance to flush out as many toxins as it can. Do all of this and on November 5th, you'll be ready for anything.

4. Read Fiction.

   Reading fiction books or magazines tends to be better than watching TV. Rather than allowing your body and mind to zone out to programmed messages, read and critically think about a good fiction story. Let your mind get lost in the story. Imagine yourself in the main character's shoes. Imagine what life would be like in that fictional world. This is helpful for strengthening your creativity.

5. Learn About Other Nations.

   This one applies mostly to those living in the U.S., but others as well. Paying close attention to the details of other nation's political systems can shed some really strange light on one's own political system. Try to find websites where you can learn directly from people living within the particular system you're learning about. Imagine how it might feel to live within that system. Imagine how your political system might look to someone living in that other political system. Keeping an open mind about other nations and learning about them in order to figure out what works and what doesn't will help you understand the kinds of changes that need to take place in your own political system.

Following the five tips above will help you get through this election in a critically educated, healthy manner. And then, on November 5, 2008, instead of being disappointed or falsely secure, you'll be ready to help make the necessary changes to our world.

Down in Latin America, there was a Communist terrorist known as Ernesto [Che] Guevara, who had fun executing his victims. By the way, Che INTENDED to kill innocent people, basically those who did nothing wrong but were killed because the Castro regime disliked them. Not only were not all of them connected to Batista, but some fought in Castro's July 26th movement to help bring Batista down and were executed for calling for democracy. Well, looking at these facts, you would expect the political left to be in the front lines attacking Che Guevara. Because, as seen by the quote above, Che and the Castro regime decided who was executed based on "revolutionary conviction." The tribunals they got were a sham. But no, you see the opposite.

Liberals have decided to rewrite the history of Che Guevara to make him look like a freedom fighter who fought for the poor and oppressed. While denouncing the death penalty on suspected criminals, who unlike Che's victims got an actual fair trial,  and worried they could kill the wrong person accidentally, liberals whitewash Che's executions, saying they were connected to Batista. So I guess they oppose the death penalty when the American government does it, but not when Che did it.

Che had fun executing his victims. If any executor of the American government had as much fun executing their victims [that is those who got an actual fair trial], then we'd see liberals making the biggest fuss about it there is.

Che was incompetent at everything except for executing people. So logically, it would be expected of liberals to denounce this man and the fact that there are T-shirts of this so-called heroic guerrilla warrior.  

So I guess in the liberal morality rate, if you're a Latin American Communist who opposed the "yankee imperialists,'' I guess it's okay to break some rules. I guess it's okay to execute people, giving them sham  "tribunals'' and killing those who the regime knew did nothing wrong. It just so happens that we "evil'' and "greedy" Conservatives oppose this Latin American Communist terrorist and his executions of innocent men, women and children. 

Liberals portray themselves as these guys who care about human rights while whitewashing and idolizing a guy who had no concept for human rights, a guy who executed thousands of innocent men, women and children and also started labor camps for the Communist regime in Cuba. 

 Next time you liberals see a guy wear a Che Guevara t-shirt, remember, the guy on this fellow's T-shirt executed innocent men, women and children and gave them no trial. Remember that's the guy who these guys are wearing a T-shirt of. That's right, the same guy who is everything liberals claim to oppose when coming to the death penalty.

Not all liberals will idolize Che Guevara. Still, at least many liberals, along with Communists and other extreme leftists, are twisting the history of Che to portray him as a heroic guerilla who was fighting for the poor and oppressed people of Latin America, while the truth is the opposite. In reality, Che was one of the most brutal oppressors for the totalitarian Communist ideology.

Liberals are bashing Cuban-Americans for speaking up against the Castro regime and for giving documentation about Che's atrocities. They're giving more documentation of the executions  by Che Guevara of innocent men, women and children.

I  have a question for my readers: Does it make sense to condemn the death penalty for people who got a fair trial with charges of murder, but not to condemn the death penalty on innocent men, women and children who got sham tribunals and are there because the Communist terrorist regime dislikes them?

The death of an innocent person is worse than words can describe, even if it is by accident or mistake. It's far worse to intentionally kill an innocent person.

Bill of Rights*

*Perhaps this document is better described as "Bill of Things Which Used to be Our Rights".

Amendment I:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof unless those exercising it are decided not to be politically correct (or even worse, intolerant); or abridging the freedom of speech unless it is believed to be offensive to [insert random group with a current protected status at the moment], or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances unless the government doesn't want them to.

Amendment II:  A well regulated militia, being completely unnecessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, and you may not protect yourself or your family, even though criminals will find access to any kind of weapon they want.

Amendment III:  No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.  However you will have to pay for a lot of unnecessary warfare, with your unconstitutional income taxes that we use to steal the money that is rightfully yours.

Amendment IV:  The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.  All of this amendment can be ignored after the Patriot Act is passed.

Amendment V:  No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall however private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI:  In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy slow and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII:  In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.  However, the value of 20 dollars will become worthless due to the unsound monetary policy which we will implement.

Amendment VIII:  Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted except when we do it to people in military camps throughout the world.

Amendment IX:  The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people unless you are a Republican or Democrat in the modern sense, in which case, you can pick and choose which rights to keep and which ones to throw away.

Amendment X:  The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people until we have bloated the federal government so much that this will no longer be possible.

He was President of the Republic of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. His greatest achievement, as a president, was in the fields of infrastructure development and international diplomacy. However, his administration was marred by massive government corruption, despotism, nepotism, political repression and human rights violations during the Martial Law era in the country. In 1986 he was ousted from power by the People Power Revolution.

Suharto (June 8, 1921 - January 27, 2008)

He was an Indonesian military leader, and the country's second President holding the office for 32 years.

The legacy of Suharto's presidency included a strong centralized and military-dominated government. An ability to maintain stability over divided Indonesia, and a vehement anti-Communist stance, won him the economic and diplomatic support of the West during the Cold War. During his term, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialization, especially in improving health, and education.

By the 1990s, his government's authoritarianism and widespread corruption were sources of much discontent, and he was referred as one of the world's most corrupt leaders.

He was forced to resign from the presidency in May 1998 following mass demonstrations and violence. Suharto lived his post-presidential years in near seclusion, and died at the age of 86 in Jakarta in 2008.

Joseph Ejercito Estrada or Erap (born April 19, 1937)

He was a film actor in the Philippines and is the 13th President of the Philippines from June 30, 1998 to January 20, 2001. He was overthrown by the Second People Power Revolution (EDSA DOS) after his aborted impeachment trial in the Senate that would supposedly prove acts of political corruption. The trial of Estrada began as Ombudsman Aniano Desierto filed before the Sandiganbayan, a PHP 4-billion plunder suit and a minor perjury charge for falsely declaring his assets and illegally using the Jose Velarde alias. He was convicted of a crime after the Sandiganbayan found him guilty of plunder, which is punishable by reclusion perpetua.President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo pardoned him on October 25, 2007.

Richard Nixon (January 9, 1913 - April 22, 1994)

He was the thirty-seventh President of the United States (1969-1974). Under his presidency, the United States followed a foreign policy marked by détente with the Soviet Union and by the opening of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. Nixon negotiated effectively a ceasefire with North Vietnam, ending the longest war in American history.

In the face of impeachment by the United States House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate for the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974.He was the only American president to resign from office. He suffered a stroke on April 18, 1994 and died at the age of 81 four days later.

Lucio Edwin Gutiérrez Borbúa (born March 23, 1957)

He served as President of Ecuador from January 15, 2003 to April 20, 2005.He ran for President in 2002 as the candidate of the January 21 Patriotic Society Party (PSP) and the Pachakutik Movement, on a platform of fighting corruption and reversing neoliberal economic reforms. He defeated the wealthiest man in Ecuador Álvaro Noboa in the second round with 55% of the popular vote.

On April 15, 2005, amid a growing political crisis and protests in Quito against the Government, he declared a state of emergency in Quito and revoked the newly appointed Supreme Court of Justice. This controversial move provoked conflicting reactions. It was considered, in fact, as a dictatorial act. The state of emergency was lifted on April 16, as the State of Emergency was disobeyed by citizens and General Aguas of the army refused to enforce it.

On April 20, 2005, following a week of massive manifestations, the Congress of Ecuador on the grounds that Gutiérrez had abandoned his constitutional duties, voted 60-2 to remove him from office and appointed Vice President Alfredo Palacio to serve as President. At the same time, the Ecuadorian Comando Conjunto de las Fuerzas Armadas, publicly expressed that they were withdrawing their support for Gutiérrez, who had no option but to leave the Presidential Palace on a helicopter.

Askar Akayevich Akayev (born 10 November 1944)

He served as the President of Kyrgyzstan from 1990 until he was overthrown in March 2005 in the Tulip Revolution.

He rose to prominence in the Kyrgyz Communist Party, as head of its Department of Science and Higher Academic Institutions. He became vice-president and then later president of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences. He became President of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic in 1990. Running unopposed, Akaev won the presidency of independent Kyrgyzstan in 1991 and consolidated power through a presidential referendum in 1994. He was re-elected to his second term in 1995.

Despite a constitutional provision limiting the head of state to two terms in office, Akaev ran for president in 2000. That year the government introduced mandatory Kyrgyz language testing for potential presidential candidates, which served to eliminate twelve of nineteen candidates.

Akaev was victorious with 74 percent of the vote, according to the official tally. However, the exclusion of prominent candidates, the language testing, interference in the electoral process by local and regional authorities, and an "overt" media bias favoring the incumbent stirred controversy.

On 24 March 2005 protesters stormed the presidential compound in Bishkek and seized control of the seat of state power after clashing with riot police during a large opposition rally. Opposition supporters also seized control of key cities and towns in the south to press demands for Akayev to step down.

That day, Akayev fled the country with his family, reportedly escaping first to Kazakhstan and then to Russia. However his formal resignation came April4, 2oo5 when a delegation of members of parliament from Kyrgyzstan met him in Russia.

With America’s present electoral system, it is possible for the popular vote to become useless. For example, in 1824, Andrew Jackson got the most popular votes but still lost. In 1888, Grover Cleveland won more votes, but Harrison was elected as president (Jantzen and others, 1989, 82). Under this system, we can see that the true element of democracy in every election is being bypassed. Why let everybody vote and yet only a small group of electors actually decide the outcome of the election?

The Electoral College might have been appropriate during the time of the Founding Fathers, but it doesn’t look applicable in our time because our population is getting bigger and more people are voting. We cannot afford to let their votes and their voices sink and not be heard just because of a formal technicality in the electoral process. Holding presidential primaries, launching campaigns, and doing the actual elections cost millions of dollars. This huge amount of money would be a big waste if the popular voice of the crowd is not heard, and instead, the election becomes concentrated only on states which have more number of electoral votes to be won. In my opinion, this is quite unfair to the people who voted, and to the candidate who won the popular vote. Under these arguments, my view is that we should amend the electoral process or totally abolish the Electoral College.

Norway and the United States had launched a research rocket (for charting the Arctic) from a Norwegian island. Following standard protocol, Norway had alerted Russia in advance about the firing, but the message never made its way to the right people. In the middle of the night, Russian radar detected what looked like a nuclear missile launched toward Moscow from a US submarine.

The military immediately called President Boris Yeltsin, awakening him with the news that the country appeared to be under attack. The President, for the first time ever, activated the infamous black suitcase that contains the codes for launching nuclear missiles. He had just a few minutes to decide whether to launch any or all of the country's 2,000 hair-trigger nukes at the US. Luckily for the entire world, while Yeltsin was conferring with his highest advisors, Russia's radar showed that the missile was headed out to sea. The red alert was cancelled. The Third World War was averted.

What makes this even more nerve-racking is that Russia's early-warning systems are in much worse shape now than they were in '95. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers explains that while Russia needs 21 satellites to have a complete, fully-redundant network capable of accurately detecting missile launches, as of 1999 they have only three. The number of current Satellites is decreasing, mostly them being out of the functional date.

One more incident happened in 2006, although not this serious. North Korea's launch of ballistic missiles in July 2006 and the reaction of Russian generals - who appeared confused and uninformed about the details of their neighbor's exercise - raised serious concerns about Russia's current early warning system. According to the experts, at least four Russian satellites are needed to constantly watch North Korea.

Russia has none to carry out that task, nor does it have a geo-synchronous satellite that can monitor the Asia-Pacific region 24 hours a day. Fears are worsened! Only one Russian satellite is currently over the continental United States compared to 12 or 13 U.S. spy satellites, which are constantly monitoring Russia.