At the village of Savelyevskaya, voters were fewer still. But after a few minutes Russian soldiers arrived with a metal detector to sweep for land mines, and a Rottweiler to sniff for explosives. The soldiers led the dog into the polling station, where it ran its nose along the curtains to the booths, then the two cardboard ballot boxes, and at last the flowerpots.

The workers switched on a cassette, filling the room with Chechen music. Vakha Yunoskanov, a voter, and Maria Magomedova, a poll worker, began to dance, circling each other to the music. They said they were showing their joy.

Only minutes before, when asked if anyone in the village would vote for a candidate other than General Alkhanov, Mr. Yunoskanov had said, "No."

Ms. Magomedova quickly corrected him.

"There are some," she said brightly but firmly, as Mr. Yunoskanov, sensing a shift of message, nodded in agreement. "We have a democratic, free, honest election," she continued, as he nodded some more.
--New York Times, 30 Aug 2004

That's news from Chechnya, the breakaway Russian province where the state military is routinely outgunned by separatist rebels. What do you do when there are no good guys? This is the Chechen Dilemma.

A quick system notice: The 'Fish was down for a while going into the weekend. Last month, while I thought I was renewing our hosting agreement online, I accidentally ordered all services cancelled as of last Thursday. Everything is fine now, and this failure won't happen again, ever, for the next eleven months.

More news as events warrant. For now...

THING OF THE RECENTLY
It's a bit late, but for the last week I've been enjoying the Olympics web site, Dead F'ing Last: Because they're there and you're not.

At four polling places that foreign journalists were allowed to visit, always accompanied by Russian soldiers and Chechen guards, not a single voter could be found expressing support for any of the six other candidates.

"We voted for Alkhanov," said Hanifa Izayeva, 34, speaking for eight women who were presented by the authorities as voters in the village of Alpatovo. "We hope that he will bring peace.''