Russia

DEFIANCE–Brief Review

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Went to see Defiance a couple of days ago. This is the story (based on real events) of a group of Jews in Nazi-occupied Byelorussia who obtained weapons, moved deep into the forest, and established a community there, sometimes joining with Russian partisans for raids on German troops and on local collaborators.

This post (via a comment by Eric at Bookworm) indicates that many “official” reviewers did not like this movie very much, and cites an absolutely bizarre passage in a review published by CNN:

It’s a remarkable story, one that should have inspired a more exciting and original movie than this sluggish compendium of earnest debates and hackneyed battle scenes.

The timing is unfortunate. For a story that has gone neglected for the best part of 60 years, this is hardly the ideal week to be extolling heroic Jewish resistance fighters. Ari Folman’s angst-laden nonfiction animated film, “Waltz With Bashir,” is altogether more relevant.

Zwick’s Hollywood liberal credentials are not in doubt, but his films have a surprisingly gung-ho undercurrent (they include such martial adventures as “The Last Samurai,” “Glory,” “The Siege,” “Legends of the Fall” and “Courage Under Fire”).

So, films are now supposed to be assessed based on the “Hollywood liberal credentials” of their directors? And the past heroism of Jews fighting their would-be murderers must only be portrayed and celebrated when Jews are not currently fighting other would be murderers?

Americans must no longer allow their opinions on movies, or on anything else, to be mediated by the court scribes of the old media. For movies as for books, reviews by “nonprofessionals” posted on blogs and on sites like Amazon are generally much more enlightening than those by the “professionals.”

Defiance will not go down as one of the great movies of all time, but it holds your interest and it tells a story that ought to be better known. Go and see it if you have a chance.

Freon?

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The Russian Navy has had another horrible accident aboard a submarine.   Some 20 sailors have died  and many others were “poisoned”.   It is very difficult from the article to tell why.   From the article:

The deaths were caused by a Freon gas leak that occurred when the fire-control system was activated yesterday, according to a preliminary investigation by the Russian Prosecutor’s Office, Vesti reported, citing Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the Prosecutor’s investigative committee.

Huh?   I don’t know a lot about submarine construction, but I do know a lot about “Freon”.   Freon is a trade name used by the DuPont corporation for refrigerants.   There are many different types of refrigerants, and “Freon” doesn’t describe which one.   Most refrigerants that are commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioning  applications are non flammable and very low in toxicity.   I can see how people in the sub would suffer greatly if a large refrigerant leak occurred, as there is only so far refrigerant can go in such a small space.   But you would think a modern sub would have some sort of way to replace their air with stored oxygen.

Lastly, modern refrigerants operate under pressure, and are closed systems.   How did a faulty fire control system rupture a refrigerant line?  

It may be a poor translation of an article originally in Russian (too bad I don’t have it or Tatyana or John Jay could take a look at it) or just the Russian news service providing scarce details provided them by the Russian Navy.   Any way you slice it, the article makes little to  no sense.

I feel for the families of the Russian sailors and wish them the best.   I also hope that the Russian navy starts to maintain their sub fleet a little better so I don’t have to keep reading about their sailors losing their lives.

If Chavez Sweats, Then So Does Putin

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Instapundit links to this article on Hugo Chavez’s  financial  woes  exacerbated  by  rapidly  falling oil prices. I think it important to remember that Russia remains just as dependent on oil revenues as Chavez’s  regime and while Chavez’s is merely annoying, Russia has nukes.  

The great oil bust of ’83 triggered the fall of the Soviet Union. We should keep an eye things over there.  

Russia and Georgia – An Economic Mistake

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Economic Impact of Georgia Invasion

A recent Wall Street Journal article titled “Borrowing Costs Increase Sharply for Russian Firms” lays out the economic toll that Russia will begin to feel from their invasion of Georgia. Per the article:

“the Georgian conflict has sparked prohibitively funding costs… conditions have deteriorated significantly for Russian borrowers, as reflected by sovereign and corporate-credit spreads, which have widened sharply, substantially increasing the cost of borrowing… but even then, an attractive premium may not be enough to entice investors to participate in deals… the majority of investors won’t want to participate right now. They will prefer to wait for signs of improvement, and right now there are no clear signs.”

For Russian companies seeking debt financing, this war comes at a bad time. The world debt markets are already being roiled by a lack of liquidity and losses, making even solid companies with low credit risk scramble for funding. Now add to this the fact that Russia seems to be actively repelling the West, this makes Russian instruments an even bigger risk.

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Quote of the Day

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While America has a legitimate concern in encouraging former Soviet states to develop into market democracies, there is no intrinsic economic or strategic American vital interest in Georgia per se and even less in South Ossetia. Georgia is our ally for only two reasons: Tblisi was enthusiastic to send troops to help in Iraq in return for military aid and it occupies a strategic location for oil and gas pipelines that will meet future European energy needs. In other words, Georgia’s role is of a primary strategic interest to the EU, not the United States. Which is why European and British companies have such a large shareholder stake in the BTC pipeline and why European FDI in Georgia exceeds ours. Yet it will be American troops in Georgia handing out bottled water and MREs, not the Bundeswehr or the French Foreign Legion. Something does not compute here.

Mark Safranski, a/k/a Zenpundit.

Mark has an excellent post on Pajamas Media entitled Let’s Not Rush into Cold War II, which the quote above comes from. RTWT.

See also a post on his site with additional comments and links.

And congratulations to Mark on the Pajamas Media gig. Nice.