Medvedev in California

[Visitor]

http://kp.ru/online/news/690329/
Someone once said that Steve Jobs has the qualities and confidence of "king of France". Although I do know that Apple has some scandals with their Asian production facilities (violations of labour laws, also one of eastern developers comitted a suicide). Look at their faces. Medvedev is too naive for a politician. That's bad. However, what else would you expect when there was no _real_ competition!

http://tema.livejournal.com/677645.html
This photoshot already provoked many jokes. Current governor of California is kind of "dreaded" man.. :-)

[Visitor]

He's trying to learn from Silicon Valley. Does anybody believes in future Russian hi-tech area development in Skolkovo? The Moscow's district, where the land is so expensive. I don't think that it can compete to China in any way. Also, I am in huge doubt that American corporation will share some of their key technologies. Really.
Jobs again.
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3280250.html
Russians in Silicon Valley.
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3280878.html
Everything has the touch of very high level of life. Makes no wonder, why Americans "love" so much their country.

[elaine]

It seems we follow some of the same LJ's. 
Did you see this?

http://adolfych.livejournal.com/1729993.html

(comments below it, not great but I like this clip)

And do you follow Navalny? Here is his.

http://navalny.livejournal.com/478961.html

[Visitor]

Of course everyone who are interested in politics knows Navalny.

This is a little bit offtopic, but there are some of local Russian billionaire palaces:
http://fima-psuchopadt.livejournal.com/2924383.html
http://fima-psuchopadt.livejournal.com/2786509.html

Here's on pension foundation:
http://tebedam.livejournal.com/14395.html

They will buy Boeings again, instead of investing into own aircrafts.
http://forum-msk.org/material/lenty/3468576.html

As I've predicted many years ago, any non-freedom and corruption is fine from western point of view, until the country is following USA interests and does not try to remove capitalistic system. The system of hidden powerful control.

[elaine]

And by the way, did you know Navalny is now in USA?

http://www.yale.edu/worldfellows/
Alexey Navalny (Russia)
Founder, Minority Shareholders Association
Navalny spearheads legal challenges on behalf of minority shareholders in large Russian companies. He is also co-founder of the Democratic Alternative movement.

I think it is sweet, that he is suprised at the number of squirrels living in the area! There will be many more animals he will see, even in the city.

[Visitor]

Are you sure Navalny is in USA? It seems that he is just participating in Yale's international program. Anyway, he is a bit naive man - hefty bonuses of top managers are common thing not just to Russia. And America also becomes more and more monopolistic - look at such huge beasts like Microsoft. Slashdot.org has been supporting dividing Microsoft to smaller companies for ages, but no results (guess why - top management has strong lobby in Washington).

In "world market" they consider that corporations has to be huge. Let's say cosmetics and health. Since 80's there's been huge trend towards acquisitions of smaller companies around the world. Corporations and banks become larger and their influence on governments becomes heavier. In management magazines they openly write that "democracy is not optimal approach to corporation's internal management". I think they are hiddenly spreading it outside, too.

Under formal western freedom there is hiding huge real non-freedom.

[Visitor]

Results of visit:
http://www.utro.ru/articles/2010/06/28/904058.shtml

Russia is trying to build friendly relationships to the west because it feels southern (Caucasus) and eastern (China) deals are more endangered every year, but the west is not friendly and will happily use Russian weakness in it's own interests.

Hmm.. interesting, will the West ever realize that too weak Russia is not a good thing? How much "grand schism" propagated through the centuries of alienization of churches will continue to poison the relationships? Extremly Weak Russia == Muslim way. I believe that western civilization is not so well compatible to Muslim way of development. History will show.

[elaine]

Going to work now but yes, that is what I meant, Navalny is in US for 6 months for Yale Program.

[elaine]

And as (ex) wife of Unix man, I don't care if Micro$oft implodes! Gates is the devil 
(Sorry Carol!!) 

[Carol]

nooooooooooooooo!   not Microsoft! (LOL)

[Visitor]

I wasn't saying that Microsoft should be killed. It should be prohibited from using non-competitive practices (like pre-installing operating systems, enforcing formats, such as MS Office formats instead of open documents formats and so on). Also, core operating system / compilers crew doesn't necessarily have to work in the same company as DB crew or desktop software crew. They even hare hardware division! All of these should be separate companies.

Also, it should be denied to buy new smaller companies. There was enough of them. Instead of making product themselves, they buy a company, like was with Visio and other cases.

[Visitor]

Medvedev took the speech at the Russian foreign department saying that Germany, France, Italy and USA should be strategic partners of Russia. Southern Asia countries going second, ex-Soviet republics only third. Realistic, but really creepy feeling. First of all, it seems that Russia is going to become "Poland #2" or even a worse marionette of the west. Second, it seems they're already scared by China, yet cannot realize that west hardly will provide any sufficient support in case of future problems.

Russia is dying. America has achieved their true goals (not just destroying communism, but also killing unique Russian spirit and culture).

[Carol]

Ah Pshaw.  Sorry to break this to you,but the US doesn't really think of Russia that much, even in the Soviet days, the USSR existed only in terms of how it could be leveraged to influence internal politics. What you are saying is that Russian culture can't exist only if forced.  The US didn't really want the USSR to go away, it was very very useful to it. 

It does feel weird that we no longer live in a world where you can go somewhere and be reminded that it is possible to exist without the same stores, the same ads, the same music even, there are some spots, but no large areas.  But humans are all the same species, we are all a big huge organism, it isn't that surprising that we end up acting like it more and more. Fast communication/transportation means there is no area isolated from another, and we end up emerging into each other.  It's probably been inevitable since the plane, or maybe even before, the first railroad.

[Visitor]

According to Bilderberg group reports, western elite did cared about ex-FSU a lot, in contrary to your words. Speaking of ordinary citizens, well, yes, I know that among ordinary citizens there are lots of shallow-minded. Statements that USA didn't want USSR to go away are also false. Although USSR has it's own set of problems of course. It was far from being ideal. But open market is worse, not better.

We are not a single organism. We are multiple anthills, but some anthills have decided they are more important than another ones.

I wish these planes / communications / internet worked in both ways, not just from USA to the rest of the world, not vice versa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Frisian_language#Status

In 1951 Frisian language activists, protesting the exclusive use of Dutch in the courts, caused a riot in Leeuwarden[6]. The resulting inquiry led to the establishment of a committee of inquiry. This committee recommended that the Frisian language would receive a legal basis as minority language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breton_language#Official_status

Breton is not an official language of France, despite pleas from autonomists and others for official recognition and for the language to be guaranteed a place in schools, the media, and other aspects of public life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturian_language#Status

Much effort has been made since 1974 to protect and promote Asturian[5]. In 1994, there were 100,000 first language speakers, and 450,000 second language speakers able to speak or understand Asturian[6]. However, the situation of Asturian is critical, with a large decline in the number of speakers in the last 100 years.

Have you read Robert Phillipson works in PDF format I've posted here? He says that in 20 years English will be the absolutely dominating language in Europe and that is inevitable.

[Visitor]

But the language is only part of problem. Enforcing other's culture so I have to behave "open market sell yourself" like Jew or Anglo-Saxon, while I don't always want so, is a bigger problem.