Thursday, September 29, 2011

The Homecoming of EU chickens

The most recent rounds of EU expansion- or the better medically-sounding term for this condition, the “enlargment”, is far more appropriate, were purely political undertakings ( actually perhaps not the most recents ones but all the new “acquistions” since 1990 except perhaps for EU’s Anschlüß with Austria). These acquisitions did not benefit the cause of the long term European unity. Some ethnofascist states were “adopted” as long as they were rabidly Russophobe and equally rabidly pro-American (apparently the only criteria that mattered at the time) like the tiny Nazi statelet of Estonia. Many long term political issues were unresolved, grievances and historic injustices (like the Benesch decrees in the Czech Republic) were not addressed. It was done because the EU really wanted the new members and little dwarfs that run it from behind the curtains thought that this is the historic moment and they are the collective Charlemagne or the Charlemagne collective. This whole thing was just hastily pushed through as if it were a land grab which I guess it was. It seems the best option for the present day EU would be to suffer a major catastrophe and die hopefully a not too painful death. A reform from within is something I wouldn’t expect though I do passionately believe in Easter bunny.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Being smoke free, no triumphant feelings

 Today is my third day without cigarettes.  It feels awful. I quit twice in the past. The longest I stayed smoke-free was for about a year. I also did not drink anything (anything worth drinking that is ) during that miserable year and yes stimulant-wise this period of self-induced ascetism was most abysmal. 

Why did I not drink? For me alcohol in any form is the most powerful smoking trigger I can think of. No drink, no smoke. On the other hand I enjoy drinking. There is no particular reason I quit this time. So why did I quit this time? My father does it perpetually. Now in his 60s, he quits intermittently, every second month or so he goes off the hook, then stays tobacco-free for a month or two and then lights up again. 


A few observations.

Smoking cessation guides of which there is a legion out on the Internet all claim that physical withdrawal symptoms disappear after 72 hours.  In reality, those symptoms got much worse.  Actually the first 24 hours were tolerable, the next 24 barely tolerable and the craving for a cigarette after 72 hours became almost unbearable.

I’ve got vast quantities of wine, whiskey, brandy stashed in the house and cigarette packs lay around all over.  

Lack of concentration -  it is next to impossible to concentrate on anything,. Even writing this sentence requires an enormous effort. I can’t see how I can do any kind of work in the next few days. Screw that. Perhaps doing menial tasks like laying bricks or driving one of my Fiats around, pointlessly while listening to something upbeat and inspiring might be the only sort of thing I can do now. Talking of upbeat and inspiring - just got a fabulous CD with a recording of Le Triomphe de la République, the 1792 work by François-Joseph Gossec, with Swiss Radio Choir, good stuff,  so beautifully French, so alien, so remote, so upbeat, so inspiring. On the CD cover there is a reproduction of a painting depicting some proud common man, un citoyen, someone who stood up in defense of the republic no doubt. The man is smoking a pipe.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

A poll of the failed 1991 Soviet Union "coup"

Interesting opinion poll of the so-called coup of 1991 in Russia:
http://www.5-tv.ru/video/506466/

if time could be reversed, in 1991 would you:
1) man the barricades (support "democracy")
2) support the coup (support elemination of Gobrachev, Eltsin /Yeltsin and forcible if necessary restoration of the Soviet Union)
3) just stand aside - I don't care

1) 10%
2) 82%
3) 8%

Russian junta's love for all things German and the Little Nasty Dwarf to run a show race for anti-Russian statelet's presidency


The opinion poll (Levada center, 2011), use translate.google.com
http://www.levada.ru/press/2011060103.html

(http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.levada.ru%2Fpress%2F2011060103.html)

The results are clearly schizophrenic.

Out of five top "allies" the top  three - Kazakhstan, Belorussia and Ukraine - are parts of Russia, historic territories of the Russian state, separated as artificially created "national republics" during the long night of the Bolshevik captivity.

The fourth state is... Germany.

Something that I find hardly comprehensible or rather totally incomprehensible.

That entity - because the Federal Republic of Germany is the direct legal heir to the Prussian state, to the German empire and to the Nazi Third Reich (unlike the GDR which had explicitly nothing to do with those criminal entities) has a peculiar track record - it  destroyed Russian state in 1917 - something that was never restored, unleashed Communism on the Russian people, invaded Russia twice in the space of 40 years, unleashed Nazism, murdered more Russians than were otherwise killed or died from epidemics in the course of the world's entire history, destroyed vast number of cultural objects and landmarks, at a junction in time the criminal state of Germany was partitioned but  most tragically it was again re-united unconditionally by Gorbachev-Eltsin gang and as the ultimate gesture of ingratitude German leadership did everything to enlarge the EU with new anti-Russian statelets (especially the ethno-Nazi statelets in the Baltics), expand NATO (which was a German initiative), and support Islamist militancies in the Balkans and Caucasus: Germany has the largest Chechen population now, thanks to particularly receptive and openly anti-Russian asylum policies. German visas are among the most difficult to get for the Russian nationals - far worse than Spanish, French or Finnish Schengen visas. I would rank Germany as the most anti-Russian state in (old) Europe, after Britain and Sweden. Germany in today's form is however a new state (unlike say Austria), so I am unsure about placing it entirely with the old Europe (with Russia and France), perhaps its personality is split as it has a lot in common, spiritually at least, with the ethnostate which emerged on Europe's periphery in the course of the 20th century.

Although it was nominally democratic Czech(-oslovak with Slovak part being pretty much a nobody, not even the second fiddle) state committed horrific crimes against its German speaking citizens and indirectly against Germany, in Russia it was all the other way around as the number of Russian victims is disproportionate to German and Nazi ones. This said I find that Czech attitudes toward Germany today are far more reserved than what one sees in Russia, where jubilant and slavish Germanophilia is the norm especially when it comes to monstrous merchandise churned out by Teutonic industries.  An example would be the extraordinarily overpriced German Siemens   fast speed trains that run now on preposterous (from economic and societal perspective) Moscow to St. Petersburg route. Although the French built TGV and Italian  faster versions of FIAT Pendolino (the train unit is also owned by Alstom) offered to do the same for a fraction of the price and although unlike Siemens Alstom has experience of fast trains in Arctic (in Finland), the junta chose German because it was German. Likewise the junta created a cult of German car - both government and mafia (both are essentially the same in Russia) drive Mercedeses and BMWs - I can't see French president drive or rather be driven in a piece of German junk). Since Germany is a biological enemy of everything Russian, the choice to me is both puzzling and  revealing.

Name five countries which you might call the closest friends and  allies of  Russia ...? * (Responses ranged from last measurement)


2005 2006
2007 2009 2010 2011

V V
VIII III V V
Belorussia 46
47 38 50 49 35
Kazakhstan
20 33 39 38 32 33
Ukraine 17 10 11 3 20 21

Germany 23 22 24 17 24 20
China 12 24 19 18
16 18
India 16 15 14 12 14 16
Cuba - - -
8 10 13
Armenia 9 14 15 15 15 11
France 13 8 9 9 11 9
Azerbaijan 5
7 5 10 8 9
Bulgaria 11 10 9 9 8 9
Italy
6 7 8 5 8 6
Venezuela
- - 2 8 10 6
Kyrgyzstan
5 7 7 9 4 6
USA
11 5 6 2 7 5
Tajikistan
3 3 7 9 4 5
Egypt
2 1 2 2 2 5
No such 10 13 10 13 11 11
Difficult to answer 14 15
18 14 12 15

* Contains the first twenty countries in descending order


Here is how Belarussians view the world (2007, though I don't believe much changed since then), use translate.google.com
http://www.eurasianhome.org/xml/t/socials.xml?lang=ru/&nic=socials&pid=38



Despite massive propaganda campaign unseen since Stalin era and unprecedented monopolization of media attention, the "rating" of Russia's appointed   tyrant, Medvedev, is at humble 44% while Putin's inflated approval is at 49%, a figure I find myself difficult to believe in as it should hover somewhere in the low 10s.  I haven't met anyone who voted or would vote for the cockroach.

On top of that comes the news that two-bit tyrant Putin decided to put his phony candidacy up for mock elections.