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According tp Wikipedia, '"The word medved means "bear" in Russian and the surname "Medvedev" is a patronymic which means "bear's son". Or is that Dr Bear's son?'

Convenient really.

Dr Berezovsky on the other hand changed his name to Platon Elenin (oddly, nobody calls him that). Was that the computational NE? Is this a homage to Mrs Thatcher's reverence for Karl Popper's 'Open Society and its Enemies'?

Blackpool, Brighton, Bournemouth ... when was the last time there were live feeds to NBC, CBS, CNN with the main news anchors sat salivating at the splendour of British politics. Newsnight is difficult to watch sometimes, this boring nonsense means 'watch Family Guy repeats' , now thats entertainment!

#1 JadedJean

No, it is Dr Bean.

It (for some) does it? But no doubt we can all look forward to more savvy voters thanks to our ever rising education standards, liberating Apprenticean ethics and the dynamism of Third World ?

POOR SELF-PERCEPTION, MUST TRY HARDER

"The Foreign Secretary said he was visiting Kiev in a bid to assemble the "widest possible coalition against Russian aggression".

Off to the Pale of Settlement, and Russia's We'll be sending Boris Berezovsky (or should that be Platon Elenin?) as East European envoy next.

I have written many times in various blogs and Daily's that Putin is the biggest threat to World peace and stability since Hitler.

What he has done is no different than what Germany did in invading the territories around its borders.

Kennedy would have faced him down by saying that unless he withdraws his tropps out of Georgia they would place troops in Georgia itself.

What we are getting from the defunct UN and NATO is out and out appeasement or inertia. If NATO was to welcome Georgia into its fold then the consequence was to support it when invaded. Thank God we were rather tardy on this for we would have witnessed an empty promise.

This will run and run until some incident gives Russia the excuse to take over Georgia completely. After all they are protecting their interests and Southern border as well as something to do with oil supplies to the West.

'PAYBACK TIME'

Billbradbury (#6) "I have written many times in various blogs and Daily's that Putin is the biggest threat to World peace and stability since Hitler."

And so have many others of course, especially the Neocons (although the position of 'Hitler' keeps changing).

Surely the basic question one should be asking is whether, al;l things considered, one really believes that the way that we run liberal-democracies today is worth fighting for? Looking at UK, EU and USA demographics and economics today, perhaps many more should be having doubts. Why ARE we so keen to export this predatory system of 'permanent revolution' to others who just want stability?

7 JadedJean

It seems that like myself, you too despair at the way the world is run.
However, in my opinion, democracy whilst far from perfect is the best there is.
JadedJean, you write long and eloquently, so kindly provide here which manifesto you would consider the closest to ideal by which to govern a country, or indeed the world.
I sometimes write light hearted blogs in jest, to combat the sheer misery of the political scene, but let me assure you that this is a genuine request for a sharing of political ideas.

How is fast tracking Ukraine’s application to join NATO helping to solve problems in Abkhazia and South Ossetia? What a hopeless bunch of silly diplomats....

COMMON FACTOR

This post is a reaction to, but not an attack upon, #6.

All round the world it is commonplace for driven, needy individuals (usually men) to rise to the most powerful positions, there to behave badly. (JFK was hardly an example for a young lad to emulate.) To my mind, it follows, that the problem is dysfunction within humankind as a whole, in the world as currently configured.

My best guess is that, in small numbers, before agriculture and settlement, with simple tools and weapons, even with a big brain and language, mankind was at best meta-stable. In some far-off future, it is possible to project the application of all we now know, to re-establish stability. But in these 'middle years' that we currently occupy, we are mad - to the tune of 6 billion and too much everything. Putin is, in terms of this scheme, a symptom of a psychological 'disease' for which no cure yet exists.

Possibly, the wisest on the planet might devise some approach to Putin that would resolve this impasse. But wisdom is not espoused by governance in the 'civilised world, probably because (unlike arms) it cannot be patented or sold and never becomes obsolete.

kosovo was on the back of a history of serbian mass graves. So there is no comparison.

so we come to a new understanding. Of talking through super power armies. Be it for 'democracy' or 'independence'.


the uk has no nation changing global reach so we have to use our wits. Like going full ahead with a two way grid city by city, town by town street by street. If the uk dependency on fossil fuel is under 20% then that is as good as having 10 tank divisions and 1000 aircraft. A 2 way gird is a national security issue.

milliband seems to be on some personal agenda with russia that isn't related to any british national interest. The georgian govt has to be very dumb to get itself in this position. So only have themselves to blame.

Still, as iraq shows, winning the conventional battle is not the same as winning the war.

Phoenixarisen (#8) No doubt it's far from perfect, but , just not as we know it so perhaps we should look at it more objectively? It's worth reading the above in its entirety whilst thinking back to what we once endeavoured to build under Old Labour as The Welfare State and which we have been urged to take apart for nearly 30 years. It meets Barrie's call for 'independent' candidates too. Alas, to some, Democratic-Centralism is National Socialism (or Socialism in one country as Stalin called it). The above is based on 'his' not the later 'revisionist' versions.

MILIBAND PERSONAL AGENDA #11

"So have they all - personal agenda" (as Shakespeare might have written).

Hands up all those who realised just how potty Blair was? Thought so.

Properly qualified psychiatrists have undergone considerable self-discovery before they are allowed to tinker with the lives of others - usually ONE AT A TIME.
Bonkers Bush and Barmy Blair applied their personal agenda to millions, and to hundreds of years of earth's future, YET NEITHER WE NOR THEY KNEW OF THE HIDDEN AGENDA IN THEIR DAMAGED PSYCHES.

If we do not address this general malaise, there will always be another Miliband rising, dross-like, to the surface.

LABOUR, BUT NOT AS WE KNEW IT

bookhimdano (#11) "milliband seems to be on some personal agenda with russia that isn't related to any british national interest."

It's a New Left (allegedly), but one can't say things like that unless one is Russian (and doesn't like Trotskyite 'democracy' much).

13
So most, if not all politicans are mad. How about Stalin and Hitler, would psychiatrists picked up their sickness?

Phoenixarisen (#15) No serious historian or psychiatrist has ever suggested that either Stalin or Hitler were psychotic (Axis I) or psychopathic (Axis II). It's just political spin.

EYES TO SEE

There used to be an advertisement - for one of the mental health charities, if my memory serves.
It showed an attractive man in a suit and tie, alongside another in twisted posture due to cerebral palsy. It invited the viewer to decide which one it was advisable to be wary of.

This is why it is (doubly) important to vote for local independent candidates, rather than a rosette, at election time - preferably ones who have been persuaded to stand, against their inclination but for common good.

The 'devil you don't know' can rise from party-rosette to PM and do untold harm.

THE GREAT GAME

bookhimdano (#11) "Still, as iraq shows, winning the conventional battle is not the same as winning the war."

If 'the coalition' had won the battle in Iraq, they would have had to have withdrawn their troops just as they would if they sorted Afghanistan out. But why were they there in the first place? One might as well ask why Russia went into South Osettia.

In every case the answer appears to be Iran (and Israel).

JadedJean, (7)I read The Times Editorial too (Tuesday). What the Western so called democracies are facing is a new world order of autocracies where the state or one person is all powerful. Giving its citizens personal wealth in return for political subservience. Democracy can go hang. Carefully nurtured nationalism as the Times put it.

Put another way the participants in the Bejing opening ceremony were chosen on looks, height and conformity. Soon, faster than a Jamacan runner, as one commentator said, China will revert to its old totalitarian order.

Russia will do just what Russia wants to do and there is very little the West can do about it apart from posture and huff and puff.
History is indeed back with a vengeance.

16 JadedJean

Oh dear, we must have been reading different books and texts from each other. I hope you are not accepting the views of Holocaust Deniers or extreme old-time Marxists. Second question, you mention "political spin". Whose spin?

Billbradbury (#19) If I reference anything I usually link to it. Democratic-Centralism is a cooperative, people-centred, rather than profit-centred form of democracy which isn't appraised objectively by free-maket, 'de-regulators' for obvious reasons (see Hayek).

Phoenixarisen (#20) Heaven forbid that anyone should doubt the word of the People of the Book/Chosen Ones. If one wants entertaining pop psychology and vilifying/emotive rhetoric read Bullock or Montefiore, if one's interested in the facts, look instead at what these 'tyrants' achieved and not what others assert they allegedly 'thought' (and specifically, what they achieved for their people before they were thwarted by opponents determined to preserve or re-establish the anarcho-capitalist status quo). Look to what they opposed and why (one can look about us today to see it in its full glory).

21 JadedJean
My apologies for reading such low-grade works, by such pop artists as Bullock and Montefiore. Both of whom are favourites of mine.
I should perhaps read The Protocols of The Elders, which I am sure is not, heaven forbid, a creation of the Chosen Ones. It is obvious that your agenda is deliberately so slanted towards your pseudo-political doctrines so as to hide your true beliefs. You are an old fashioned antisemite, although you will deny it. You don't even use the pretence of being anti-Israel or anti-Zionist to hide your hatred.
I could call up the moderators to censor your posting 21, on the grounds of religious hatred, but I am a believer in free speech, and even the most wretched of creatures are entitled, in a democracy, to have this right. The question is whether THIS posting will be allowed!

'YOU SAY GROUP-LEADER, I SAY GRUPPENFUHRER'....

Billbradbury (#19) "Carefully nurtured nationalism as the Times put it."

Pretty much the UK welfare state before 1979 in fact. Or, should governments just take a hands off (laissez-faire) approach to government, i.e. 'devolve' the work to market forces, banks, the Third Sector NGOs etc - de-regulate, de-regulate, de-regulate? That sounds remarkably like Thatherite/Blairite/Trotskyite anarchism to me. But power to which people?

As I see it, so long as there's a PM (or president), there's a leader. Whether he or she is called a Fuhrer or not depends largely upon the language one speaks and whether one has been educated/indoctrinated/shaped to approve of the country's type of government...

Phoenixarisen (#22) The fact is that neither Bullock, Montefiore, or anyone else can read the 'thoughts' of anyone else, they can only make an effort to report what they did, and even that is prone to error. If and when anyone makes out otherwise you one be reasonably sure that they're witttingly or unwittingly indulging in creative writing i.e producing fiction/propaganda, not real history. The same goes for other subjects too.

This also applies to Newsnight blogging. The problematic language is referred to as 'intensional' which is controversial/problematic for entirely LOGICAL reasons

Phoenixarisen (#22) "I should perhaps read The Protocols of The Elders, which I am sure is not, heaven forbid, a creation of the Chosen Ones."

Probably not, but then the Bolshevik revolution and aftermath was (just as Chritianit was created by a Jewish rebel), and the former certainly planned to take over the world via the COMINTERN didn't they? Stalin did his best to stop this in the 1920s and 1030s, Russian socialism being national socialism and not international socialism. This is why they hated him and his Socialism in One Country and anything remotely like it. It's still going on today of course - see neocons, Hamas Charter and Israel, Iran etc.

Note: SOME=NOT(ALL) and ALL=NOT(SOME). It's just a fact that Trotskyite leaders are very often Jewish (cf. Ted Grant of Militant and Tony Cliff of the SWP, same in USA) and who doubts that anarchistic de-regulation is very good for business.

Emoting and pouring scorn on something with lots of invective is often just an egregious political tactic to surreptitiously encourage its anti-thesis is it not?

25 JadedJean

" Russian socialism being national socialism and not international socialism. "

So that makes it alright? You are as incorrect in your facts as you always are. Stalin spread his poisonous tentacles throughout as many previously independent countries as possible. He was determined to have "international socialism " The Czechs and Hungarians are just two examples of independent nations that he swallowed. His fellow dictator Hitler, went in for National Socialism, different name, same aim. Countries taken over and their citizens largely enslaved.
JadedJean, I can see you as an active member of the Hamas, rather like the Mufti of Jerusalem during World War II. You will obviously take this as a compliment, so be it.

Phoenixarisen (#26) See my earlier remarks on the irrationality of invective and rhetoric.

For example, Stalin was not a jellyfish, nor did he swallow nations.

Phoenixarisen (#26) Hayek and his 'Road to Serfdom' clearly has a lot to answer for. Old Labour (with its Clause Four constitutional commitment to nationalisation of the means of production, was national socialist too. It's what a welfare state wit planned economy is essentially all about, i.e public ownership and public services. So yes, nationalising health and transport services, a nation's energy (be it coal, gas, oil, nuclear) is OK with a lot of people. It isn't OK with many free-marketeers, i.e anarcho-capitalists though as it necessitates lots of regulations which make predatory practices like sub-prime mortgage sales to people who can't afford that level of debt, and much else besides, more difficult. So these people invest in the vilification of such 'nazi', freedom depriving practices - and yes, a lot of what those antagonists write is just propaganda.

#28 JadedJean

I no longer wish to read your postings nor have any contact with you.

Phoenixarisen (#29) Was it something I said?

Phoenixarisen #29

Please don't dismiss out of hand everything JJ says. I do agree it can be a little startling at times and there is never any slack cut for personal feelings. Once you get used to the style and can look upon it objectively there is a lot of truth there. JJ does not wrap things up in fine words so as not to offend. JJ instead simply presents (often hard won) evidence. I now believe that 'softening' truth (apart from being impossible) is a major cause of all the confusion we see around us today. It may well be more 'comfortable' to believe certain things, and doing so may make one feel better about one's self but do look deeper and follow the reasoning. Work out the inevitable outcomes. The way things are going now all this equality and political correctness can only result in the destruction of all we hold dear. It has gone so far already I doubt it can be reversed but I am old now so I won't have to witness what will happen.

As far as the holocaust is concerned, I was as shocked by JJ's views as anyone but despite that I did do the sums and recommend you do the same.

NewFazer 31

I appreciate you taking the time and thought to try and smooth troubled waters.
Actually, I am one of the greatest enemies of political correctness, and because of this, have had postings removed. I am against censorship, and believe that that, together with political correctness is destroying all that people of good will hold free.
It is not because JJ isn't politically correct that I no longer wish to debate with her. I am a very senior citizen who has seen many aspects of life and engaged with many people, and I respect that everybody should feel free to express their own views.
Personally, I believe JJ is very politically correct in that following the marxist/fascist doctrines she quotes, she fits in very well with the anti-Israel.anti-America, anti-almost everything pseudo "intellectual" stream. Read back through her postings, as I did, before I decided I didn't want to continue debate with her, and maybe you will see what I find offensive.
She mocks some of the finest writers of our time by demeaning them as "pop" - the sour grapes adjective used by failed would-be writers and scholars.
Anybody who can believe that Stalin and Hitler did anything good for their people, is in my opinion at the worst evil and at the best bonkers.

Phoenixarisen (#32) That's nearly all ad hominem and false. Opinions don't matter and truth isn't a function of how well someone writes. The above popular authors frequently use hyperbole and rhetoric and no serious historian denies that Hitler did great things for Germany or denies that Stalin made the USSR a superpower.

I recommend you do some objective research and learn how to discriminate between factual description/logical analysis on the one hand, vs popular, creative writing, fiction/propaganda on the other.

What one likes and doesn't like is irrelevant to what's true or false.