Clearly, I’m moving up in the world

If you want to know why I've been relatively sanguine about the aftereffects of the Russian-Georgian war, I urge you to click here.  This is very cool -- I didn't even know I was part of a great conspiracy, and yet, here I am, smack dab in the middle of one!  On the upside, it's good to know that I can write a lot about China from here on in.  Meanwhile, Russia's central bank is defending the ruble, an estimated $21 billion left Russia last month ,and the RTS Index has declined by more than seven percent this week.  According to Bloomberg, Russian equities have lost a third of their value in the past two months.  Russia has more than enough spare change lying around to defend the ruble, so no one should be under any illusion that the regime is about to collapse or anything.  And, as I said before, it's not like Georgia has done well for itself during this interlude.  Still, when added to the geopolitical costs, this is a pretty high price to Russia to pay for creating two unrecognized buffer states.  UPDATE:  Reuters reports that, "the defence ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (ODKB) did not follow Russia's lead and recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, leaving Moscow in almost complete international isolation."  Bloomberg has more.  ANOTHER UPDATE:  Now there's photo evidence of the conspiracy.  That would be consistent with this analysis in the Moscow Times:  "we shouldn't blame Medvedev for this, because the fundamental reasons for the global crisis can be found in the inherent confrontational nature of capitalism."