15 posts tagged “russia”

Just to show that Brits remake American shows, too, and do just as lousy job of it as Americans do when UK shows cross the Atlantic. Anyone old enough to remember The Fosters, co-starring Lenny Henry as Sonny Foster?
   Click here to see a clip at TV Ark.
   It’s British Good Times, and Henry was in the J. J. Evans equivalent role played by Jimmy Walker, but it was less gritty.
   Equally forgettable were The Upper Hand (British Who’s the Boss?) and Married for Life (British Married with Children). The former I have featured on this blog because it did have its fans (Pussy Galore was in it); the latter is so bad that I could only find a single clip on YouTube:

Yep, bad.
   If you are going to remake shows, maybe the Russians do it a bit better:

Things are looking down for the Russian auto industry, but then, the writing has been on the wall for years. This al-Jazeera report looks at UAZ and VAZ (the latter makes the Shigulis, Okas, Ladas and other models). I would guess that even the price-conscious these days are more likely to buy Indian-built models such as the Hyundai i10 than a Lada.

   At least government departments still buy them, unlike the UK where it’s no longer uncommon to see Lexus and Subaru police cars.
   But most of the Russian brands need new models if they are to keep up with Korea, India, Turkey, the Czech Republic and even Uzbekistan. Newer cars like the Siber are still out of reach of many Russians. And there are only so many Shigulis and Volgas you can sell before people ask, ‘Wasn’t that the same shape you sold during Brezhnev?’

At the Desire party on Wednesday was my old acquaintance, Max:

As you can see, like me, Max is Asian.
   He’s from eastern Russia, near the border with China. So how is he not Asian?
   Which means, of course, Max should be able to queue up under this sign at the National Bank, just as I had tried to:

Do you think the Vox splog problem has been solved or am I speaking too soon? None in ‘Recent posts’ and ‘Explore Vox’ just now.

Today, I decided to join Vkontakte.ru, the Russian rival to Facebook. Facebook is changing its design and some folks pointed out that Vkontakte resembles an old Facebook, so I thought I would give it a try. If anyone wants to friend me there, I am under my real name. It is still not quite as polished as Facebook but it has a familiar interface. It is currently the world’s 30th ranked site (Facebook is 5th), according to Alexa Internet, which helped convince me it wasn’t a spam harvester.

My friend Andrea sent me the following image as a ‘How cute’ animal email, but the first thing I noticed was: darn, these Russians are rich. Check out what’s in the parking lot.
   A far cry from the days of Shigulis and Volgas.
   But, at the same time, sad for the Russian motor industry that all of those vehicles are imports.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died aged 89, according to the Associated Press.
   Not only was he a great author (admission: I have only ever read passages of his books), he was one of Russia’s straight-shooters.
   I like to think Solzhenitsyn was largely fair, pointing out the faults of Russia and the west.
   These excerpts from the AP report in the International Herald–Tribune interested me most, because they continue to hold lessons for us today:

He attacked the complicity of millions of Russians in the horrors of Stalin’s reign. “Suddenly all the professors and engineers turned out to be saboteurs—and they believed it? … Or all of Lenin’s old guard were vile renegades—and they believed it? Suddenly all their friends and acquaintances were enemies of the people—and they believed it?”
   The Stalinist era, he wrote, quoting from a poem by Alexander Pushkin, forced Soviet citizens to choose one of three roles: tyrant, traitor, prisoner.

and:

While avoiding a partisan political role, Solzhenitsyn vowed to speak “the whole truth about Russia, until they shut my mouth like before.”

   The first quote is an important reminder that we need to always be vigilant, and remember—rather than rely on others to tell us what we should remember.
   The second reminds us of our own duties.
   And Solzhenitsyn’s life—staying firm despite being sent to the gulag—is an inspiration to us to remain firm in our truest beliefs. It is a romantic notion to say ‘[His accounts] inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person’s courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire,’ but one that finds instant appeal for me.

Whether you support the war in Iraq or you don’t—and here in New Zealand we have the luxury to criticize the United States—David Horowitz’s recollection (video found originally on Humbled Infidel’s blog) of why the US went in certainly correlates with my own. It’s why I have always held back attacking President George W. Bush, because faced with what he had in front of him, I cannot honestly say I would not have done the same thing. As Horowitz reveals, neither would Al Gore, who supported Bush’s ‘axis of evil’ speech in 2002.
   The end of this video (cut short) goes into the rationale for war surrounding UN Security Council resolution 1441, which PM Tony Blair managed to sell to Parliament—but which, I always felt, the US was less successful at doing. There are legal arguments there based on the UN Charter but it was always about 1441. 
   This is one of the problems I tend to have with the US Democratic Party, for all my own left-leaning tendencies. Right now, for example, constituents are begging the super-delegates that they should not select who will best beat Sen. John McCain and the Republicans, but who represents their position. The fact this question has even arisen is disturbing: as representatives of the people of course one should represent the citizens. The minute you do not, you do not have a democracy: it is a quest for power among élites ignoring the citizenry, the sort of thing people were getting away from when the US was founded. 
   I am not saying that the GOP wouldn’t look after its own, but given that they have fielded men like Sen. Bob Dole—who from a marketing perspective was a tough sell against President Clinton—it seems that it might be more willing to represent its base than look at seizing power. The 42nd president gifted them the Monica Lewinsky situation, which hurt the Democrats. I would say that they never forgave the GOP or Kenneth Starr who were steadfast in their condemnation and investigation. That power-hungriness from the Democrats is very apparent in the way the Bush administration has been undermined in the last eight years.

   I say if one opposes the war, then there are ways to do it without resorting to revisionism. I might not agree with our PM, Helen Clark, on her courses of action, but at least she took a position based on the facts before her and said ‘No’ to going in to Iraq. She has never gone and revised history, and simply held firm on her principles. She has good support for it because most New Zealanders opposed the war and carried out her job (on that occasion) as a servant and representative of the people.
   The consequences of Resolution 1441 were always clear but the means of acting upon them were less so because of the way the UN Charter is written, and that ambiguity effectively gave some countries a chance of opting out. Our PM took it, as did the leaders of many other nations. It is respectful, even if she later made a gaffe about how she did not think a Gore presidency would have gone to war. (As Horowitz reminds us, that is probably an incorrect position.) They believed that an extra resolution was needed before war; the US, UK, Australia and others did not.
   The Democratic Party and the anti-war movement probably think that this is all too tough to sell to the public, so they engage in other tactics, shaming US troops or the administration and pressuring those who have short memories to join their cause. I am not saying that what they have uncovered is all untrue—of course I accept there are dodgy dealings surrounding the war and I even accept some misconduct—but they’d earn my respect if they didn’t flip-flop or cover up the truth. Sen. Clinton, who voted for the war, who voted for the increase in expenditure alongside Sen. John Kerry, is one of those very high-profile politicians who has changed depending on the trade winds of public opinion.
   Of course a senator or a future president must be representative but she must also stand on truth. ‘I was wrong to have supported the war because …’ would have been a good start. ‘Now the American people are telling me that it is time to withdraw our troops.
   ‘My support was founded on the belief that resolution 1441 was inviolable. It was not, and we have carried out the due punishment needed on Saddam Hussein’s régime.’
   There are millions of ways to spin it, especially ways to do it without demoralizing the young men and women serving in Iraq—and I am not even a politician.
   This would also mean she’d have to go against her husband’s attacks on Kosovo, which also did not have that additional Security Council resolution but was a preemptive strike by the US. George W. Bush is not alone, just that the media give him more grief over it.
   But a mea culpa is not flip-flopping and it is not pandering. It is being honest, something the Beltway sees very rarely.
   What concerns me, however, is that the road to war is a serious matter. It should not be so easily bent because the decision should be founded on principle—and if those principles existed after resolution 1441 was broken then they exist today. Congress voted for the war, with bipartisan support. There needs to be a far bigger shift for any US representative to say no to the war now—so what is it?
   A poor entry strategy, a poor exit strategy, the belief that the US’s only task was to oust Saddam Hussein, the belief that the parameters of the original declaration of war have been fulfilled—what? Certainly Sen. Clinton needs to tell us.
   She has said that she would not have voted for the war if she knew there were no WMDs. But as Horowitz points out, the existence of WMDs was not the basis for war. Did Sen. Clinton “misspeak” again?
   There is a popular notion that that was what resolution 1441 was all about and we all remember Sec. Powell’s Powerpoint presentations to the UN.
   But unless Sen. Clinton has misremembered this incident as well, resolution 1441 on November 8, 2002 was about Iraq’s non-compliance with conditions laid down by the international community over disarmament, which included WMDs, but they were not the core issue.
   When Iraq lied about what it did with its WMDs, which the international community confirmed it had as late as 1998, the US took a hard line.
   Iraq itself never offered an explanation on the discrepancy between its claims and tests by the inspectors.
   That was one legal justification for the US and the UK, and, skipping over a few issues, the war began.
   I sure wish the US politicians would just tell the truth about the vote at that time because they should have a better understanding of it, having been there—rather than let people like me catch them out.
   This is another reason to not dislike Bush: he said he would stay the course, so he did. The majority of Americans voted for him in 2004 (regardless of whether one is counting the electoral college or the popular vote) and knew this full well. And while I think some of his spending has sent that US deficit soaring, he has stayed firm on his belief in his tax cuts. He seems content because he thinks he is protecting the Constitution and that he needs to continue his strategy. Maybe that is the Bush world-view. (He saw how his Dad got burned on the ‘No new taxes’ and learned from it. He saw how his Dad lost the support of the right wing of the GOP and learned from it. And he saw how he was criticized for being too smart when he ran for Congress—which is where the folksy public image comes from. Welcome to Bushland.)
   Had the war successfully concluded people would praise him on his steadfastness.
   For if a leader bends based on the trade winds, then will she bend based on pressure from other sovereign nations? If Saudi Arabia put pressure to bear on the US, would Sen. Clinton cave in? If a communist nation put pressure on Sen. Obama, would he? Or, for that matter, how far will Sen. McCain bend to foreign pressure? 
   We cannot turn back the clock now and see how the message could have been better communicated to the US. We should know, from the Horowitz video, why the US went in and understand who is now lying to the American public: that is important. For all his failings in everything from the Patriot Act (which I am no fan of, and it has restricted the movement of people who could benefit the US) to the Alberto González judicial appointments, I do not think it was President Bush. I have never called him a bare-faced liar.
   The next presidential election is a chance to address those failings. The economy can be fixed but what is in dire need of repair are the values to which not only Americans want moral leadership, but most of us in the western world. Get the values right, get the truth right, and the rest will follow.
   At the end of the day I care not if the president is a Democrat or a Republican, and I have no say in it anyway, as long as our common values are restored and preserved, and the leader is truthful. And that the decision for staying the course or withdrawing is also founded on truth.

I saw a Peugeot 407 next to a 1980s BMW 5-series today and noted how much bigger, in every dimension, the 407 is. The 407 is regarded as small down the back—which makes you think about the size of, say, the Ford Mondeo CD345, which is about the same size as the outgoing Ford Falcon.
   Here’s a wild prediction: in years to come, the equivalents or descendants of the Ford Focus, Mondeo and Falcon will all be the same size and differ only in body styles and engine sizes.
   At Toyota, Corolla and Camry are approaching similar sizes, and Toyota Australia’s full-size model, the Aurion, is actually the same size as the Camry, right down to wheelbase. In fact, in some markets, the car that Australians call the Aurion is actually called the Camry.
   Roads can only be so wide unless even Toyota gets in to the Hummer H1 game and in future, we wind up with a mega-wide Previa.
   This may sound daft but if you consider that the Peugeot 307 and 407 and Ford Focus and Mondeo have similar engineering roots, then the likely integration in future will happen.
   As niche vehicles develop, the mainstream models will become fewer. For example, Nissan in Europe pretty much retails only specialty cars now. Aside from the supermini, the Micra, every Nissan sold in Europe is either an SUV, minivan or sports car. That’s a far cry from the manufacturer of the Sentra, Altima and Maxima in North America.
   What may likely happen is that mainstream nameplates will wind up on some niche vehicles, or niche vehicles may be marketed as the successor to everyday models—one of the few ways to get sufficient economies of scale.
   We’re unlikely to see a TGV approach to cars: the same width, but differing lengths based on your requirements—though models like the Renault Kangoo and Espace, with their lengthier counterparts, make me wonder.
   We’re also bound to see more manufacture in cheaper countries: Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic for the European market; Russia, Uzbekistan and Ukraine for their regions; and, of course, Red China.
   Whatever the case, at this present rate, the motor industry will have a very different shape in the next decade, assuming we haven’t given up on the internal combustion engine or seen some catastrophe.

Sen. Hillary Clinton frequently stresses her foreign policy credentials over Sen. Obama. Today on al-Jazeera, which covered the Russian presidential election, Sen. Clinton was shown fumbling the pronunciation of Dmitri Medvedev—badly. And added a ‘or whatever’ to the end of that. This is hypocritical of Sen. Clinton and disrespectful to President-elect Medvedev (which is not a very hard word to pronounce for anyone who has had contact with Russians).
   If President George W. Bush did this, it would be all over the news, David Letterman would have it on ‘Great Moments in Presidential Speeches’, and the Democrats would be going on and on about what a dumbass Dubya is.
   I have not seen the American media showing Sen. Clinton’s gaffe, at least not as part of a news bulletin, but a quick Google search did show that it aired there in the US as part of a presidential nominee hopefuls’ debate. One blog commenter, Redmanrt, at Slate wrote this sentiment and I have to agree: