(no subject)

A couple of quotes from "The Vladimir Putin School of Leadership", by Leonid Bershidsky:

The leaders of some of the biggest developing nations -- China, India, Turkey, South Africa -- are increasingly acting like Russian President Vladimir Putin. It may be that democracy as the West understands it will have to compete with a new strain of authoritarianism, much as it did with communism in Soviet times.

It's not that Putin himself is inherently evil or contagious. The crucial similarities are not really among the leaders themselves but among all authoritarian regimes regardless of the continents on which they operate.

The US no longer offers a role model for modernizing a country. The recent financial crisis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the failure to support Hosni Mubarak (one of the few long-term US allies in the Middle East), the NSA scandal, etc. put a serious dent into other countries' desire to follow the American democracy model in their modernization efforts.

On the other hand, over the last 20 years China has been growing like crazy and Russia managed to climb back from the abyss. If the west retreats in the current confrontation with Putin it will send a message to the rest of the world that belligerence, not cooperation, is the best way to assert oneself internationally. The biggest danger is that China might decide to follow the Russian example and flex its economic muscle in Asia.

The present King of Хуйло is bald

- I don't believe in conspiracy theories because modern philosophy teaches us that a sentence that makes perfect sense can be totally wrong if it's not grounded in reality. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definite_description#Russell.27s_analysis).

- The present situation in Russia would be best analyzed under an assumption that the country is occupied by aliens from planet Хуйло. By contrast with conspiracy theories, my approach is grounded in hard facts. That is, Russian leaders not only talk like a typical Хуйло, they also act consistently as one. Moreover, the Хуйло mentality is currently being adopted by the majority of the country's population. Although Хуйло is highly aggressive, it is — lucky for us! — not contagious.

Containing Хуйло can be difficult because it puts little value on [the quality of] human life, both inside and outside the country it occupies. As the result, the common methods of preventing wars between humans by cooperation agreements and exchange of hostages may not work.

Unlike modern humans, the Хуйло civilization doesn't believe in aligning mutual and self-interests through the process of negotiations and exchange. Instead, a typical Хуйло believes that peace can only be attained through a balance of power. Therefore, Хуйло usually attempts to grab as much power (and resources that support it) as possible. Unfortunately for Russia, the country has a lot of resources that can sustain Хуйло for a long time.

(no subject)

Project on New Frameworks for Addressing Global Challenges
in International Finance, Energy Security and Climate Change:
Cooperation among the United States, Russia, China and India.

First report of the group is here:


http://fsvc.org/sites/default/files/2014-08%20Carnegie%20Hong%20Kong%20Symposium%20Rapporteur%20Report.pdf