(no subject)

Lee Kuan Yew used two main reasons for postponing competitive electoral democracy in Singapore:

- electoral democracy is too expensive and we can't afford it;
- to make high quality electoral decisions, we need sophisticated voters, which (as a young society) we don't have.

Today, Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world and and its population is one of the better educated. The old excuses against democracy no longer apply. When Lee Kuan Yew was alive people wouldn't challenge his authority because of the economic wonders he performed in Singapore. It's different now and I have a feeling that something is going to change.

How do the Japanese decide who's gay and who's not?

http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s19e06-tweek-x-craig

Imperial ambitions of Russians (Kasamara & Sorokina, 2012)

* The full article is below. I'm really impressed how well the Russian sociologists identified the problem.


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967067X12000487
Abstract

This article is based on the findings of the Political Ideas of Russian Society project realized by the Laboratory for Political Studies since 2008. The Laboratory has already conducted about 1000 in-depth interviews with respondents of various age cohorts and various social–economic statuses. All respondents demonstrated the Great Power pathos formed by two basic components — Russia is a great power and/or nostalgia of the lost Soviet might — serves the leitmotiv of authoritarian sentiments.
Keywords

Post-Soviet nostalgia; The Great Power; Russian political views; The authoritarian syndrome

Twenty years ago the Soviet Union disappeared from the maps of the world together with its political and economic institutions to be replaced with newly independent states of a radically different political and economic makeup. Today, the citizens of the Russian Federation have a much wider range of self-realization potentials than 20 years ago; there is no longer an iron curtain to prevent them from traveling all over the world and studying abroad; the market economy filled the shops' empty shelves, while harsh censorship was lifted to open gates to flows of alternative information. This, however, did not quench nostalgia for the collapsed empire and its grandeur; on the whole, the Russians are still devoted to the memories of the past. According to the public opinion poll the Yuri Levada Analytical Center (Levada-Center) carried out in March 2011, 58% of the Russians still lament the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.1

Political science calls this “post-imperial nostalgia” or “post-imperial syndrome”, its key element being the desire to see the great power restored; this alleviates an acute feeling of inferiority and an awareness of humiliations. Egor Gaidar wrote that the country's leaders found it expedient to exploit the imperial complex to improve their ratings. Indeed, people tend to believe that the rapidly collapsed empire can be as promptly restored (Gaidar E., 2007).
( Read more... )

Gun Control and Hollywood

I don't see how Democrats in DC can argue for gun control legislation, while Democrats in Hollywood argue with their movies that good Americans should arm themselves and stand up against evil Governments and ruthless criminals.

Watch on YouTube

Can Global Warming hurt Siberia? Niet!

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/10/29/world/europe/29reuters-climatechange-summit-russia-media.html

While Western media have examined the role of rising temperatures and drought in this year's record wildfires in North America, Russian media continue to pay little attention to an issue that animates so much of the world.

Russia's official view appears to have changed little since 2003, when Putin told an international climate conference that warmer temperatures would mean Russians "spend less on fur coats" while "agricultural specialists say our grain production will increase, and thank God for that".

Талоны на сахар в США, 1945

Watch on YouTube