This guy was on our wall a few days ago. It was a 10-12 cm long insect and was enjoying the autumn sun. I took some pictures (in this one it is staring at me) but he hung around for a while and terrorized my wife when she came home. She called me from her car so that I could chase it away... Why are people, usually women, scared of insects? I will never understand.
Haven't had a vacation in a year and a half... Hopefully will be able to take a couple of weeks off next August. Fortunately, I make good gimlet help me survive till then.
The Georgian authorities have arrested Irakli Okruashvili. Mr. Okruashvili, the former defense minister of Georgia, recently criticized President Sahakashvili and accused him of plotting the assassination of a Georgian businessman. The charges brought against Mr. Okruashvili?
Money laundering!
This blog has informed the readers about the arrest and detention of Aleksandr Arzumanian, the former foreign minister of Armenia. The charges leveled against him were money laundering as well. Only recently he was let out of jail - the prosecutors could not establish any of the charges and are still "investigating" (i.e. leaving the door open for future detentions).
Sahakashvili, very much like Kocharian, claim to be democratic presidents. They never arrest anyone on political charges (as democratic countries, they have very few authoritarian laws). They find some criminal offense and arrest opponents like that. So, legally there are no political prisoners in these countries. Only criminals. Same goes for the closure of media outlets with dissenting views. They are not closed for their reports but legally lose their privilege to operate.
Unzipped has also posted on this.
Last night, while channel surfing, I came across the Charlie Rose show on PBS. The alternative was to watch a re-run of "Reno 911" which I wanted but my better half did not want (if you have watched Reno 911, you know that it has a limited appeal to females).
The guest was Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan. So Charlie Rose was asking mild questions and one of them was about Ahmedinejad's denial of Holocaust and Erdogan's opinion of it. Erdogan got somewhat upset and started avoiding the question. He probably thought that Charlie Rose was preparing a trap, especially when he asked a second time seeking an answer (which he didn't get that time either).
But, since the objective was not to stake Erdogan, no controversial questions were asked and you could see Erdogan's relief when the question, that should have followed the Holocaust question, was not asked.
In the end, when Mr. Rose thanked Erdogan for the interview, Erdogan asked to speak about one more issue. It was about our Genocide. The basic meaning of it was that the "so called Armenian Genocide" did not happen but they are ready to sit down with Armenians and discuss it even though it did not happen. Turkey has offered to open its archives to historians to study the issue even though it did not happen. And it is not a political issue because it did not happen.
Every second sentence of his was a statement of denial. He also stated that Turkey wants to resolve the issue and move on. Of course, the resolution to him means a denial. At one point he even mentioned the Armenian citizens living in Turkey (he did not openly threaten to expell them but it was somewhat implied). His trump card was the opening of the Akhtamar church! He tried to show tolerance, and if the interviewer had a different agenda, he could have asked a couple of tough questions.
But the overall impression was that Erdogan's main agenda for the interview were that last point about the Genocide together with the Kurdish state in Northern Iraq. I don't know how successful he is going to be in changing people's minds but it's obvious that we have made quite a progress in the recognition task. All the efforts now have to be directed towards the recognition by the Senate. Without tremendous pressure Turkey is never going to accept their past.
If they want to move on and be part of the civilized world, they have to confess their sins rather than deny them. But they don't get it.
I was going through Youtube, and came across this short video. In May of this year the special ops police rounded up a demonstration rally by the Aylntrank movement who were protesting the political prisoners in front the the KGB building in Yerevan. They started beating the demonstrators some of whom were badly hurt. A few protesters were detained as well. Fortunately, this time the beating was not as bad as when the special ops attacked an opposition sit-in after the falsified presidential elections in 2004 which Rob "won".
There is a new mom and pop place in the town called "Fish 'n Wingz". They advertised chicken gizzards, chicken wings and fried catfish so I was curious to see what kind of food it was. I thought it was a black owned place since these are foods from the South. Yesterday we went there to get some food for lunch. Well, it's owned by a Chinese couple and the cook was a young Chinese man. I found it very funny that you will get Southern food in Indy prepared by a Chinese cook.
One of the menu items was frog legs. I've never had it and always wanted to try it. I think they make it in Louisiana but I've never been South of Alabama or Tennessee so had never seen it on a menu.
I have to say that I had the strangest feeling when I started eating it. The meat tastes like a cross between fish and chicken and it is chewy. The bones have rounded ends unlike any other leg bones I have seen. But, overall, it was an OK tasting meat.
Uzogh raised an interesting question in a comment to the entry below. The ARF Dashnakcutyun party is a National Socialist party. The term Nazi comes from the abbreviation of NAZIonal Socialist party.
Can ARF be called a Nazi party and its members Nazis? I do not like the sound of it but I am sure there are diverging views on this. I myself consider them a nationalists but not Nazis - I haven't seen them claim racial superiority.
It did not take long for the propaganda arm of the current Armenian regime to stage a dirty attack against Levon Ter-Petrosian after his speech on the Independence Day. The method of this State TV propaganda piece does not differ much from previous tricks that the administration has pulled; we all remember the administration accusing the opposition of not doing their job when they blamed the opposition parties of allowing the ruling coalition falsify election results!
In this piece they accuse LTP of allowing corruption become even worse, political assassinations, economic misdeeds, etc. Obviously, they did not forget to sing the old tired song about the cold and dark years either. It's a powerful piece indeed; Goebbels would be proud of it.
But when you try to analyze the situation a little, you realize that this piece tells a lot more about the misdeeds of the current regime than LTP. Corruption now is much worse than during the LTP years as the amount of bribes has grown together with the number of areas where you need to grease palms to get business done.
The biggest political assassination occurred on Serzh Sargsian's watch when the PM and Speaker of Parliament, together with ministers and MP-s, were murdered. Add to that a number of officials killed such as the Prosecutor General a few years ago and people who were officials during the HHSh rule (Artsrun Margarian, et.al.).
The polarization of the economy in the hands of a few people again occurred during the Kocharian/Sargsian years.
I am still undecided about the condition of democracy during LTP vs. the current administration. LTP banned the Dashnak Party in 1994. The Kocharian regime allowed it back into business but has been suppressing any dissent with carrots like government posts or sticks such as jailing and/or beating the crap out of the oppositionists.
Anyway, not to bore you with well known facts, here is the Haylour propaganda piece, or as they call it - "analysis". Enjoy.
Update (09252007): the video was originally posted at Uzogh's blog - he is also the author of the Youtube video. Here is where it was posted: uzogh.livejournal.com/96917.html.
A grassroots website has sprung up in support for Levon Ter-Petrosian as a presidential candidate next year. http://www.levonforpresident.com/
LTP was present at a ceremony at Mariott celebrating the 16-th anniversary of the Independence. He had a speech and the site has videos from A1Plus and Yerkir Media. I was amazed that the Yerkir Media did not include many smug comments. Maybe the smear campaign is in other reports but this snippet is professional.
I came across a bizarre site; a large and nicely done Armenophobe site in Armenian! It is strange to read that the Armenians are bad people, deserve to be wiped out of the face of the Earth and the Azerbaijanis will do it soon. They also have articles allegedly written by Georgians badmouthing the Armenians. Lately such anti-Georgian propaganda has become the new passion of the Azerbaijani intelligence agencies.
When you read stuff like that in English or Russian, you expect it from the authors. But this site is an Azerbaijani propaganda site and is clearly written by Armenians in Eastern Armenian.
I wonder how much these Armenians are being paid to work for the Azerbaijani security services. I also wonder about the impact of such propaganda aimed at us and how many people will take this seriously.
Here is the link if you want to check it out.
Here is an excerpt from the article in Zerkalo.az describing it:
...Ботев уступил в первой же схватке кубинцу Михаилу Лопесу, но в дальнейшем посланник острова Свободы дошел до финала, победив по дороге натурализованного армянина Юрия Патрикеева. Зал радовался, кричал, чуть ли не бесновался. Кто же тогда мог предположить, что эта победа, за которой последовал выход кубинца в финал, принесет гораздо больше негативных эмоций, чем позитивных.
Никто не мог этого предполагать и после того, как в первой утешительной схватке Ботев расправился с "узбеком" Давидом Салдадзе. Казалось, что он сможет победить Патрикеева и не дать возможности подняться в Баку армянскому флагу. Однако Ботев проиграл. Патрикеев вышел на "белоруса" Иосифа Чугошвили и не оставил ему шансов. Армянский флаг поднялся под сводами СКК на третий день соревнований.
...[Anton] Botev lost in the first match to Cuban Michael Lopez, but later the representative of the Liberty Island reached the finals, in the process defeating the naturalized Armenian Yuri Patrikeev. The audience got excited, shouted, almost went nuts. Who, then, could predict that this victory, which allowed the Cuban to get to the final, would evoke a lot more negative emotions than positive. No one could suggest that even after the first battle reassuring Botev crushed Uzbek David Saldadze. It seemed that he could win Patrikeev and not to allow the Armenian flag rise in Baku . However, Botev lost. Patrikeev wrestled with Belorussian Joseph Chugoshvili and left him no chances. The Armenian flag was raised according to CCM points on the third day of the competition.
The Haykakan Jamanak (Armenian Times) newspaper now has a blog with comments enabled. But for some reason it's in Russian. I can only speculate why an Armenian paper has a Russian language blog; they are one of the few pro-Armenian papers. The Armenian Russophones must be getting really numerous in the country. So much for resurrecting the Armenian language in post-Soviet Armenia.
One of the media outlets in Azerbaijan is the Echo newspaper. Like most of the Azerbaijani media, it periodically publishes Armenophobe articles. Usually it's daily but sometimes they miss a day or two.
So their latest one is a brilliantly titled 'Armenia is again a outpost. This time Iranian'. Check out what they wrote:
Иран готовит свой нефтяной комплекс к функционированию в условиях военных ударов США, для чего переносит часть своих производств на территорию Армении. Это теперь признают и армянские СМИ, в частности, газета "Голос Армении". Как сообщает газета, во второй половине сентября пройдет вторая встреча экспертов из Армении, России и США по проекту строительства нефтеперерабатывающего завода (НПЗ) в Мегри. Она, указывает газета, "пройдет при участии представителей Министерства нефти и газа Ирана".
Iran prepares its oil industry to remain functional in case of military strikes by the United States, and is shifting some of its production to the territory of Armenia. Now Armenian media recognize this, in particular, the newspaper "Golos Armenii". According to the newspaper, there will be the second meeting of experts from Armenia, Russia and the United States during the second half of September about the construction of the refinery project (NHP) in Meghri. The meeting, said the newspaper "will be held with the participation of representatives of the Ministry of Petroleum of Iran."
So, the United States is going to help Iran shift its oil production to preserve them from the bombardment of United States. :}
The mid portion of the article tries to analyze what the production would be like as there are no specific plans about it. it talks about the gasoline shortages in Iran, and if the refinery produces gasoline then it may help alleviate this problem. Again, Iran doesn't produce enough gasoline (actually, most of it imported from abroad) so it is not like shifting its current production to Armenia.
Then it tries to stir up a provocation calling Armenia a danger in the South Caucasus:
Однако комментарий, появившийся в эти дни на сайте PanArmenian, позволяет предположить, какой именно благодарности от Ирана ждут в Армении. Проанализировав нынешнюю фазу кризиса вокруг Ирана, аналитики портала предрекают: "Война с Ираном прямо отразится на странах Южного Кавказа. Во-первых, все три страны будут поставлены перед выбором - поддерживать ли США или оставаться нейтральными. Армения, в отличие от Грузии и Азербайджана, будет придерживаться нейтралитета, а вот две другие страны могут уступить давлению США". Намек слишком прозрачен, чтобы его не понять: Армения, вероятнее всего, рассчитывает заручиться в обмен на лояльность помощью Ирана в своей войне против Азербайджана. Тем более что и для иранцев независимый Азербайджан - все равно что кость в горле. Так или иначе, очевидно, что дружба Ирана и Армении грозит существенно взвинтить напряженность уже и на Южном Кавказе - точно так же, как несколько лет назад, сколачивая разного рода "двойки" и "тройки" с Грецией, Сирией и тем же Ираном в ответ на мнимую "стратегическую ось Азербайджан-Турция-Израиль", едва не втянула регион в ближневосточное противостояние.
However, comments that appeared these days on the site PanArmenian suggest what the gratitude Armenia expects of Iran. Reviewing the current phase of crisis over Iran, the analysts of the portal predict: "The war with Iran will directly affect the countries of the South Caucasus. First, all three countries will have a choice - whether to support the United States or remain neutral. Armenia, unlike Georgia and Azerbaijan, will follow neutrality; the two countries will yield to pressure from the United States ". The hint is too transparent to not understand: Armenia, likely would get in return Iranian support in its war against Azerbaijan. Already, independent Azerbaijan is like a bone in the throat for Iran . Either way, it is clear that Iran and Armenia friendship threatens to ratchet up the current tensions in South Caucasus, just like several years ago, by creating all sorts of "Two" and "Three" [..party agreements...] with Greece, Syria and Iran in response to the alleged "strategic axis Azerbaijan-Turkey-Israel, Armenia nearly plunged the region into the Middle East conflict.
Truly idiotic, isn't it?
They are going to compete with Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid, Prague and a couple more cities.
Funny :)
Blah-blah-blah.
But immediately after that, for the first time, NBC give the podium to a senator with an opposing view (Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed).
Բուշի բանը բուրդ ա:
Yesterday I was watching the NASA channel. An astronaut was in a lab installing some equipment that would enable laptops in different outposts to communicate with each other (whatever that means). At one point he contacted the ground control asking where a particular 'thing' was and said that he had not read the notes for installation. The ground control told him it was in a foam box. When he found it, it was funny to see that the label had handwritten text on it.
Then it struck me. When I'm fixing something, sometimes it takes me a couple of visits to a store to get the right parts. When you are stuck a few hundred miles above the Earth, you can't really go to a store if a part you need is unavailable. When you add the complexity of the ISS equipment to this inconvenience, you have a logistics nightmare.That's when good management and engineering come in handy.
Since my thoughts usually revolve about Armenia, I then started to think about the engineering, operations and supply chain management in Armenia. I could think of two products - the Yeraz vans and the Aragatz refrigerators that were designed and manufactured in Armenia.
Yeraz was an engineering feat - how to build a vehicle with as few parts as possible. The thing always makes me think of a dude sitting in a sweatshop and hammering out the parts for it. The design was not quite as barbaric but was close.
The Aragatz fridges were a different story. They were nicely designed for their time (in the 70-s and 80s), were aesthetically pleasing and worked well. They were made in Armenia and some were actually exported to Russia meaning that they could compete with the fridges made in Russia itself.
What concerns me now is that engineering seems to be dead in the country. The main industries are agriculture and food processing. The only engineering involved in these industries is packaging. This is imported and there is no Armenian input in them.
Are there any fields where products are designed and profitably manufactured in Armenia? Using imported technologies doesn't count since they do not add value to the local manufacturing base.
Yesterday I witnessed my first apprehension of illegal immigrants. It was on I-75 in Tennessee. The police had stopped a van packed with Latin Americans and two white coyotes.
What surprised me were a few pieces of luggage that the cops were going through. One of them was pink. It probably belonged to one of the ladies.
It's been at least two months since I stopped drinking coffee. I had noticed that I was not able to function properly until I had had coffee in my over sized coffee mug. In the evening I would actually look forward to the next morning's coffee.
Last Thursday I had to drive for some 7 hours on a business trip so I prepared a cup of coffee - Mexican instant coffee with half water and half non-homogenized organic milk. It was quite good and kicked ass. I don't know if it was the two month break or the ingredients were actually tasty in that proportion.
Non-homogenized organic milk might not be a big deal for people who live in Armenia. I remember being asked if I wanted to drink some milk that had just been milked and was still as warm as the cow it came from. Having lived in America for a long time, I found it unsettling. I had to have it boiled before I drank. Yes, living in this country makes you paranoid about a lot of things and not only food. But my goal is to have raw milk the next time I'm in Armenia.
Pasteurized and homogenized milk is still OK in my book. The are far worse degraded dairy products in this country. The next step below is 2% milk, then it degrades further to skim and non fat milk. The bottom of the dairy products are the fake stuff. You degrade your food intake to non-dairy creamer and imitation cream.
Why in the world do people buy these things? You should see the ingredients on these things. They are promoted heavily on TV and in magazines and people buy them. Then they make their coffee at home and it tastes like crap. So they buy more expensive coffee to brew at home and it still tastes crap. So they end up buying the overpriced junk from Starbucks.
There is a South Park episode that always comes to my mind when I see Coffee Mate and other fake creamers. The South park kids go on a dodge ball tournament in China. The Chinese commentators start making fun of them and one of the things they comment on was non-dairy creamer.
