Давным давно я поспорил с Алтынай что у нас есть район Восток 4. Вы не знали? Алтынай тоже не поверила и мы поспорили. Если окажется что Восток 4 нету то я должен буду написать про Алтынй, но если есть то она напишем про меня.

Вы наверное уже догадались итог этого спора так как Я пишу этот блог. Да, я проиграл. Оказывается такого райнона нету. То что я имел в виду это был Восток 6, который, кажется находится не доежая до моста если ехать по Чуй.

Что меня написать про Алтынай? Сперва она очень терпелива потому что спор был в начале октября. А я не мог написать потому что не мог вспомнить свой логин. Когда запрашивал новый логин писалась это страница не существует. Это была странно. Думал наверное живой журнал глючит. Но потом догадался что наверное что он блокируется. И пользуюсь Ninjaproxy.com я смог вернуть себе пароль. Поетому у меня сейчас есть доступ чтобы написать эту запись.
Так что Алтынай долго ждала. Спасибо  Наверное думала что я не сдержал свое слово.
Алтынай очень мне нравится что она доверяет мне свой жизнью, почти. Я вел ее вечером по улице Тыныстанова когда у ней глаза были закрыты. Мы прошлись так примерно 100 метров. Она шла и шла. Мы даже вместе дорогу прошли так. Алтынай бы больше прошла но мне надо было идти на работу.
Вы когдато были введены за ручку с закрытымы глазами? Не так легко. Алтынай вела меня но хотя я ей верил после 10 метров больше не мог идти быстрым ходом. Воздух передомной прощупивал и точно дорогу не смогбы перейти!

Я решил что буду писать на русском языка как можно больше. У меня он на много отстает от английского. Я пытался улучшить свой русский тем что я ходил на уроки два месяца но это не помогло потому что не было интересно изучать падежи и другие вещи которые я даже не помню сейчас.

Так что буду тут писать каждый день, по крайней мере чтоб практиковать свой русский. Если вы заметите ошибки пожалуйста советуйте как смогу исправить. Я думал что русский язык мне не очень понадобится потому что моя работа в основном на английском языке. Но все больше я нуждаюсь в русском языке. Поетому я буду писать про интересные вещи и по пути улучшать русский.

Тем что я буду писать я заодно научусь кратко и эффективно выражаться.

Tomorrow, July 19th, one of the world's greatest freedom fighters will turn 90. This is a great opportunity not only to celebrate the long life, health and achievements of this legendary South African but also to remember the seemingly endless and impossible struggle he endured against the apartheid regime of South Africa and the iron will that kept him going, day after day in the prison, to a total of twenty seven years.

In the world today we have many honorable freedom fighters: Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma and Gary Kasparov in Russia are two that I am know of (please be free to add more names in the comments section). But one must be careful differentiate them from skin-deep-freedom fighters such as the FARC in Colombia, who are basically drug dealers and the Hezbollah in Lebanon, who terrorize Israel and the Christian population in Lebanon. They taint the name of freedom and don't deserve an iota of sympathy and support.

An insightful article in the BBC about India's Finance Minister's criticism of the use of food crops for biofuels. It delves into one of the causes of the rising food prices around the  world that are devastating the poor in all corners of the world.  In the interest of cutting CO2 emissions, many developed countries, particularly the US are using corn (20% of all corn production), soybeans and sugar cane for biofuels production. This has significantly increased demand for these staples and consequently increased their worldwide prices, impoverishing the world's poor by taking up a larger share of their budget.

Indian Finance Minister P Chidambaram, rightly calls this "lopsided priorities." If the Western politicians were policemen, they would be more worried about the theft of parking meters then the rising murder rates. Clearly, the theft of parking meters, I don't know if it is but I think it could be if there are many people like in the movie Trailer Park Boys, is a problem but given the limited nature of resources, the problems must be tackled in terms of priorities. The basic postulate in economics, another reason why every single politician must have a basic understanding of economics.

The current environmental policies of the developed countries are undoing some of the gains in the standard of living of the past few years, and could cause an increase in the spread of diseases such as AIDS, TB and the curtailment in the education of children because more and more money has to be put aside just to survive.

The policies rich countries should be following is cutting or outright eliminating the production of biofuels until more pressing problems are solved. The oil rich countries should increase their production so that oil prices can decline and will not hamper world economic growth. One person who has a record of accomplishingl this is Khodorkovsky. If Russia frees him (please Medvedev do so) and he gets back in charge of YUKOS, he can resume the yearly growth of 15-20% growth of oil ouput.

I have finished my exams. Next week, probably Monday, May 5th, I am planning to make my move to Washington DC and new post-university life. I can't wait at all. My previous experience in DC has been extremely pleasant because I got to learn a great deal about libertarianism, make decent money working in the evenings as a waiter and meeting a great number of awesome people.

This time the demands are much higher of me because I have to find a real job as an accountant, not just as a waiter or a salesman at Jo's A. Bank, which I enjoyed. I have found an apartment so far, which makes me very happy because this has been a major point of headache for me before. This apartment is within metro distance of DC so I won't have to buy a car.

If anyone is looking for a competent, dilligent accountant I am here, at your services :-)

2 superb slide show by Vadim Novikov that explore basic topics like "Freedom and Justice" and "Law and Justice". It is very pleasant to listen to the whole presentation because the ideas are laid so simply without the mask of fancy words. It also uses graphics very effectively.

I liked their argument that a lot of times the stealing by a petty criminal is little different then the government taking our money for illegitimate purposes, the only difference being the scale of it. It also, looks into other basic questions that we hear a lot such as, "if we don't vote do we have the right to complain about the elected officials and their legislation?"

I am looking forward to more such presentation by Cato.Ru and Vadim Novikov.

"What is up guys", in Magyar. This is how Ben Dunlap started his talk about two extraordinary Hungarian. He tells the tale about their generosity, passion and persistence. The Hungarian that takes most of the spotlight is Sandor Teszler, an industrialist in Hungary who was a survivor of Holocaust and rebuilt his textile empire in South Carolina. The speaker gets into trance like mode and moves the listener with his passion and tender voice. Very inspiring indeed.

On this day in 1968 Yuri Gagarin died in a test flight. He was as much of a child hero for me as Manas. Both seemed larger then life. I loved thinking about them and knowing that Soviet Union (we were still part of the Soviet Union at the time) had Gagarin and the Kyrgyz people had Manas. I was proud. I still recall being sad that such a hero of ours could have died in an unfortunate accident. I had the same thoughts about Manas, wishing he had survived until old age so that we, the Kyrgyz, can benefit from his skills and knowledge.

Looking back now I realize that Gagarin is not really a hero. Although, he made history by being the first to fly into space in 1961 on Vostok 1 but the entire space program brought no benefit to the Soviet people except a few brownie points to boast of. Although, the Soviet Union had perhaps the most advanced rocket technology our cars, tv's, apartments and other basic things were crummy. Most people just survived from paycheck to paycheck and only with the help of food supplies they received from relatives in the countryside. If anyone thinks the mighty USSR had to develop the high end space technology, would you live in the Soviet Union who put first man in space or Hong Kong whose only business is to do business?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SrW7KTQ3PVY&feature=related

If you look at these tyrants of Africa, each one of them has received foreign aid at one time or another, I challenge for anyone to come up with counter-examples Taxpayers hard earned money vanishing into coffers of dictators to pay for their 200yr old champagnes, reality.

Tomorrow, at 12.30 at Trinity College. If we can have 50 people show up it would be a smashing success. The material is certainly worth it for anyone who comes. The theme of the talk is, " Can Foreign Aid Save the Developing World?" On the pro side we have Julian Murray, corporate secretary at Canadian International Development Agency. His antagonist is Andrew Reed, a former consultant at the World Bank and other international agencies. He has done work primarily in the former Soviet countries, including a two year stint in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan.  Our moderator for the event will be none other then Pierre Desrochers, assistant professor at UofT Mississauga.

Julian has a wealth of experience from working in many parts of Africa, Afghanistan and South East Asia. I hope he has many good reasons to explain why countries give out billions in aid with negligible results. Readers probably know that I as a libertarian am very skeptical of these grand projects like the Millenium Development Goals. William Easterly, the skeptic-in-chief, argues that many times these projects pour money into governments that  are corrupt and tyrranical which does not care about the people a bit. For example, US had given over a billion dollar in aide to the vicious dictator of Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko. Can you imagine this? A dictator who enriched himself to billions and dozens of palaces was given foreign aid to help his people. Who would think that Mobutu would use the money to help his people and even if he did is that will help the people given that the president nearly took away all their rights.

I hope Andrew will do well. I have met him once over lunch and really enjoyed hearing his stories from travels in Kyrgyzstan. He knows a lot about the country, its customs and the people. I was astounded and took out my notebook to jot down some of the things he said about Kyrgyzstan.