Yay, we've got START, yay!!!

M: Dude, seriously, Air Force 1 does mach 3?

O: Yeah, but don't tell anybody...*
*no, I don't know what they were talking about in this picture and no I don't know how fast Air Force 1 really goes so don't ask me. It's called google.com.



At least he didn't look deeply into Medvedev's eyes and proclaim that he could see that they were kindred spirits, although, both of them are lawyers...

This announcement from the presidents left me giddy at first, but then I sat around and thought about it some more and then got serious, dammit! (about getting a blog entry written). What wasn't said in the statement, and it may be too soon for this, but the Russians will demand some form of concession to get this done, what that might be is still in SWAG stage right now. If I did have to take a guess, it will involve at least a reduction or rethinking of our missle defense programs, a slowdown on former Warsaw Pact nations getting admitted to NATO, getting Saakashvili and Georgia tamped down, more control over the arctic, greater influence over the oil market, and help with their southern border to slow the Islamic creep through the southern stans. I suspect we'll have our own concessions of Russia, probably over getting pressure on Iran to come clean on their nuclear program and help with Afghanistan.

The other concern is the proposed time line. Between now and December seems like a lot of time, but between all the little working groups that will actually hammer this out, legislative issues (the Senate has got to ratify the damn thing) doesn't really leave alot time to fine comb what promises to be a pretty comprehensive document to make sure we've identified all the loopholes that the Russians will put in. I'm not saying their sneaky, that's just the nature of the way they do deals. I would think we would hopefully push the deadline back to give our negotiators enough time to work that document inside and out and up and down.

I'd slow this one down alot.


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