I like the bridge story better.
Ever had somebody say, "Well if you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you!" Well be careful if you happen to be in Russia at the time, because there's a certain chance that the dude just might have a bridge out back he's trying to move.
It may, in fact, be this bridge that was stolen in Khabarovsk, Russia. And the thieves stole it overnight! That's right, a 38-foot long steel bridge designed for automotive traffic was stolen overnight, without anybody noticing.
In what has got to be the most incredible "guess what I did while I was drunk last night" story ever, the local police theorize that a group of thieves dismantled the bridge to sell the metal for scrap. You know, because it's Russia.
The worst part, is that these are probably serial bridge thieves. According to the article, two other bridges were completely stolen earlier in that same year, and police suspect the crimes are connected (though obviously not by a bridge). But of course the saddest part of this is what it suggests about Russia. One, that (unlike the bell thieves) the perpetrators were apparently able to find a taker for the scrap metal who'd turn a blind eye to the clearly bridge-shaped nature of many of the pieces ("I, uh, found it. In the river.").
Yet, today, America's leaders are reenacting every folly that brought these great powers [Russia, Germany, and Japan] to ruin -- from arrogance and hubris, to assertions of global hegemony, to imperial overstretch, to trumpeting new 'crusades,' to handing out war guarantees to regions and countries where Americans have never fought before. We are piling up the kind of commitments that produced the greatest disasters of the twentieth century.
— Pat Buchanan – A Republic, Not an Empire
