On Power of Words

Many words are strong. They move our thoughts. They raise our emotions. Such words are love, freedom, family, God.

Many words are beautiful. They involve our imagination. Such words are flowers, rain, sun, dream.

Other words are mysterious. They make us wonder, reason, and look for explanations. Such words are religion, fate, infinity, death.

Sometimes strong, beautiful and mysterious words are put together into poetry, and it refreshes our appetite for life like delicious food nicely laid out on a table.

But often these words are used by demagogues and populists to attract our attention and to confuse our objectiveness. Don't fall into a trap of words!

On Libya, Democracy, and Peacekeeping

- Hm, they're having a civil war with a tyrant pledging no merci for the rabels? Hm, not good... No fly zone? Or may be let's just bomb them as usually, and then transfer the initiative to someone else?

- What about deploying UN peacekeeping troops in the conflict zones like in old times?

- No, no, our voters won't support risking lives of our soldiers!

On Democracy

In recent years I've got a strong interest in political and economical systems and models (PESM). Research and practice in strengthening the role of computers in improving PESM seems a dream job to me. But as I am still far away from this target, I am left to criticize the existing PESM.

So, here it goes. The majority of democracies confirm to this definition:

Democracy is when there are good oligarchs and bad oligarchs and you can choose for whom to vote. In underdeveloped countries the oligarchs candidate themselves, in more developed countries they promote their deputies.

On Communism

- Where are you from?
- Latvia.
- I don't know such country!
- It is an ex-republic of the USSR. Do you know USSR?
- Yes, it was a communist country like North Korea. I hope you are not communist, are you?
- No-no!

Reachmen's World

It is a well-known fact that money makes politics and in some countries lobbying is a common practice. In Latvia it is still done behind the scene, but hopefully soon all these deal will become transparent for the public. At least now there are some articles like this one(in Latvian) which bring some of the deals into the light.

On Nationalism and Politics in Latvia

October 2, 2010 is the day when the new parliament is going to be elected in Latvia. As you might know, only 60% of Latvia's population are ethnic Latvians. The other part is composed of ethnic Russians (27%), Belorussians, Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians, Jewish, etc. I have very international ancestry that defines me as non-Latvian (even though my grandmother comes from Mitava/Jelgava), and I am very upset to see the internet full of nationalistic calls from ethnic Latvians.

Dear Latvian nationalists, please acknowledge that there are 40% of non-Latvians living in Latvia. If you really want "Latvia for Latvians", please do something about them, because trying to ignore them proved to be an ineffective approach. Yes, I know the history. Independent Latvia was forced to self-annex to the USSR under the threat of war in 1940, and most of these 40% of non-Latvians came from other USSR territories after 1940. Some of these 40% have now even the right to vote, and they vote for their "Russian" parties who promise them more rights, such as making Russian a 2nd state language.