Body of Eduard Gurtskaia, 19, murdered in Moscow, has been taken to Georgia. The young man`s family members, relatives and the Georgian Minister for Refugees and Accommodation met the airplane in the Tbilisi International Airport on Saturday.

The ministry will cover all the expenses for burial of the Eduard Gurtskaia, who was displaced from Georgia`s breakaway region of Abkhazia. His body was taken to his parents` home in town of Tskneti, close to Tbilisi.

Eduard Gurtskaia was killed by beating by Russian militiamen in Moscow on November 23. The body was examined, in consequence of which a suit was filed against the Russian law enforcers. One of the three detained militiamen, who killed Gurtskaia, has been sent to the pre-trial detention.

I was looking through a photo essay on EnglishRussia.com about homeless children when one picture caught my eye.  Two children were sleeping with bare feet.  Their feet reminded me of the feet I had seen on a post by Tim Ferriss of the Four Hour Work Week about using vibrams.

Feet which have been bare their entire life

First are the pictures of bare feet from Tim Ferriss.  Notice that the toes are spread apart and the tough texture of the skin on the soles of the feet.  Look at the size of the little toe.  You can tell that it has been used and is not atrophied like most modern feet.  Also notice that the profile of the top of the feet is different.  I am not sure whether this is from the feet being spread further apart or from more developed musculature.

Feet of homeless children in Russia

Next we will examine the feet of barefoot children in Russia.  If you look at the other pictures on the page you will see that these children wear shoes most of the time, but they sometimes wear flip flops.  You can tell that they don’t wear shoes nearly as much as us from two signs:  the feet are very dirty and the children are sleeping with their feet uncovered.  It is very difficult to sleep with cold feet, yet these children have not bothered to cover their feet.  It must mean that their feet have been desensitized to the temperature by being bare fairly often.

The toes of the children are not spread as widely as the feet shown by Tim Ferriss, but there is a big gap between the big toe and the index toe on the foot we can see clearly.  The big toe generally seems to follow the line of the edge of the foot instead of twisting inwards.  My guess is that these children have very healthy feet, great posture, and are fast runners.

I have included some more bare foot photographs of the Russians below, but I could not see their feet in much detail other than noticing their comfort while bare.

Shadow boxing with bar feet

Wearing flip flops

A bunch of boys with bare feet

It’s been a busy but boring few days in the life of Jen, and I’ve taken the liberty of sparing anyone reading an account of my errands and printing mishaps. So, I’ll skip right to the good stuff. Ok, it’s not that good but humor me.

I was lucky enough to dogsit for the cutest dog ever (aka McGreggor) this weekend, and after walking him Saturday night post-Coney Island venture, I began walking downtown to Union Square to meet Eugene. But I was sidetracked a bit by the thought of the northern outpost of Vanessa’s Dumplings. A quick left turn on 14th ensued, and Eugene was forced to watch me eat 8 pork and chive dumplings before we could continue our walk to the Brooklyn Bridge.

If you’ve never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge on a crisp fall night, you’re missing out on one of New York’s finest free pleasures. I hope to repeat it again soon. And what visit to the finest borough would be complete without a stop at the infamous Harry Boland’s?

On this particular trip I was dared to brave a dive bar dirty martini, which could quite possibly give new meaning to the name. I courageously ordered two, and they were delicious and dangerous.

Sunday saw me pretending to work while watching movies on Stephanie’s cable, but I did eventually get my work done and delivered just in time to pack up the car with my bags and a seriously pissed off kitten to go to Queens.

Some awesome Astoria Mexican food and one ridiculously early flight later, and I was ready to eat again! Dad obliged by taking me to Cracker Barrel, where there’s still a non-smoking section and you can order an entire breakfast without a hint of green. They do serve the most amazing biscuits I’ve ever eaten, and I suspect Crisco without care. Woo North Carolina!

The South: The Home of White Food

ryan

i feel ya, dog.

rena

cash for the angry russians

Today was designated as official Coney Island Day, mostly because Lana wasn’t busy and it stopped raining. After a minor scheduling issue involving evil technology and subway blackouts, Dylan (the designated photographer), Lana, and I made it to Coney Island and headed straight for Nathan’s.

There we braved the line and the natives for delicious hotdogs (for those of us staying true to he legend). Afterward we stopped for ice cream and I had a life-altering cup of the most amazing flavor I’ve ever had–yellow cake with chocolate icing. I’m thinking of unhorsing the grape juice for top addiction.

While we ate our dessert we walked along the boardwalk dodging dogs and old people all the way to Brighton Beach to sample a little Russian culture and broaden Lana’s horizons.

But eventually we’d seen all the discount fur we could stand and headed back, but not before introducing Lana to the best park in NY and subsequently the best kitten in the borough of Brooklyn.

THIS IS CERTAINLY WORTH READING AND PLEASE, SEND IT AROUND THE WORLD.

This is one of the best explanations of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.

A German’s View on Islam

A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. ‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories…’

We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ’silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts — the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on – before it’s too late.

Emanuel Tanay, M.D.

2980 Provincial St.

Ann Arbor, MI 48104

The most dangerous aspect of having elected  a bombastic antecedent President is that he believes his self-imposed, ridiculous, unenlightened and radical doctrines. He blissfully ignores the fact that his ideology has been tried, and tested , on the backs of 60 million people ,whose  untimely deaths served only to prove this ideology of redistribution to be a total failure.

As the Germans and the rest of the free world  celebrates the anniversary of  the fall of the Berlin Wall, our  President continues  building brick-by-brick,  another wall around the American people.  Europeans, Koreans and even Russians will tell you that walls choke freedom, stifles free expression and leads to a huge “Have” and “Have not” gaps in society.  The bricklayers become the masters and the new plan unfolds on the back of the unsuspecting American citizens. Our freedoms are  being taken from us ensuring us to choke on our individual rights from here on end.  Obama’s vision is to redistribute the wealth not just among Americans but the world over. It is a real fact.

The problem comes from those many kool-aiders that walk the walk of the sheep. Those are people that blindly follow others losing self in the process. They are great at parroting the wisdom and stupidities of others, yet never searching answers for themselves. They follow a P.C. ideology because that is what they are told to do. There is no independent kool-aider thinking. `

Today the kool-aiders are the Obamites.They represent half of the nation including most of the media for the exception of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and certain conservative magazines and talk radio shows.

As The President’s administration continues to infringe on our liberties, those conservative voices are the only line left open for people to get their facts straight. I was under the impression that America was no longer allowed to dictate how other countries should rule. How does Obama explain this new concept to Americans and the world over that it is time to redistribute the wealth to all that have none? Does he see himself as Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor? Maybe he should start wearing green tights and walk the streets with his new friend the Jolly Green Giant who will  protect him when the hungry sheep realize their grass was stolen from under their feet.

Andrea

‘Rivers of medieval ink, not to mention blood, have been squandered over the ‘mystery’ of the Trinity, and in suppressing deviations such as the Arian heresy. Arius [...] denied that Jesus was consubstantial (i.e. of the same substance or essence) with God. What on earth could that possibly mean, you are probably asking? Substance? What ’substance’? What exactly do you mean by ‘essence’? ‘Very little’ seems the only reasonable reply.’

- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 54.

‘Either the Triune Christian God or the dying in insanity…Pay attention: I do not exaggerate. That is precisely the way things are. I lack the words to express myself even more drastically. Between eternal life inside the Trinity and the eternal second death, there is no clearance, not even a hair’s breadth. Either/or. Rationality in its constitutive logical norms is either completely absurd, insane down to its microscopic structure, composed of unprovable and therefore wholly random elements; or its ground is the supralogical.’

Having set before us the problem of doubt, Florensky discusses the way in which the Trinitarian doctrine is the prime battleground for resolving doubt and ‘epoche’.

“Trinity unisubstantial and indivisible, unity trihypostatic and consubstantial” – that is the only scheme that promises to resolve epoche, if the doubt of skepticism is at all resolvable. Only this scheme would not be melted down by Pyrrhonism if the latter were to encounter it realized in experience. If Truth can exist at all, this is the path to it, the only path. But do we actually take this path?’

Why would the doctrine of the Trinity be the path to resolving epistemological problems? Very few people can actually understand the Trinity in an intellectual sense, it seems to be a mass of contradiction and mystery. And for Florensky that is precisely the issue. The significance of the Nicene insistence on ‘homoousios’, the one God in three persons, is that it is an inconceivable unity, beyond rationalisation. It denies the power of the ‘given’ or the ‘undeniable’ logical laws that we saw in the previous letter, which can only lead to slavery or epoche. ‘The single word homoousios expressed not only a christological dogma but also a spiritual evaluation of the rational laws of thought. Here rationality was given a death blow.’

The great figure here in Christian history is Athanasius, who stood up for homoousios against the Arians and the concept of homoiousios. Homoiousios (of ‘like’ substance) is a fatal rationalisation of the Trinitarian mystery. It gives up the fight against skepticism.

‘Let us return to the problem of skepticism. In order that the law of identity be given not only as a blind principle of rationality, in order to liberate onself from the empiricism of rationality, which is no better than the empiricism of sensuousness, it was necessary to go beyond rationality, to enter into the domain where rationality with all its norms is rooted. This means that it was necessary to achieve in experience a synthesis of the nonrelative and relation, of the primary and the derived, of rest and motion, of unit and infinity, etc. Rationality does not accept these combinations. Where every A is A and only A, the sought for synthesis is absolutely impossible. If it is possible at all, it is possible only beyond rationality.’

Arianism is a rational form of Christianity. It is easy to understand how the Son can be like the Father, yet separate. There is no mystery there. But it destroys the hope of salvation, as the church determined at Nicaea. Florensky sees this choice, between Arian rationalism and Orthodoxy, as a difference between whether one is willing to suffer the ‘ascesis of faith’, the necessary struggle to go beyond mere rationality in order to approach the Truth. ‘Accomplishing the ascesis of faith, the Orthodox sought what is needful, higher, whereas the Arians, inwardly protecting themselves, asked in a calculating way: “Will the Truth not demand a sacrifice from us”? And, seeing the Garden of Gethsemane, the Arians retreated. Both made a free choice. But the Arians used their freedom to enslave themselves, while the Orthodox used it to free themselves from the bondage of fleshly limitation.’

The Trinity stands before us as a challenge, an offer of the Truth that can be directly known and which justifies itself, but only when we are able to be purified by faith, to make the leap into this unknown which promises to be the Truth. Faith cannot be the object of the kind of certainty that sinful humanity desires, a self-evident certainty without risk. ‘There are many kinds of atheism, but the worst is the so-called rational faith. It is the worst, for, besides the rejection of the object of faith (“things not seen [Heb 11:1]), it is hypocritical, accepts God but rejects His very essence, His “invisibility”, i.e., His suprarationality. I ask myself, What is “rational faith”? I answer: “Rational faith’ is foulness and abomination before God. You will not believe until you reject your own self, your own law. But “rational faith” does not desire to reject selfhood. It even asserts that it knows the Truth. But if it has not rejected itself, “rational faith” can only have itself. The truth is known through itself, in no other way. In order to know the Truth, it is necessary to have it, and for this it is necessary to stop being only oneself and participate in the Truth itself.’

So, is it worthwhile to make the leap of faith, to abandon epoche and strike out for something which promises to be there but may be an illusion? What else is there, though? We are stuck between either agonising doubt or an arduous journey of faith. This is the inner force of ‘Pascal’s Wager’. Will we abandon a certain meaninglessness for an uncertain infinity of meaning? What do we have to lose by such a risk?

‘What is better: to die eternally, in sight perhaps of the promised land, to freeze in the icy cold of absolute nothing and to burn in the eternal fire of pyrrhonian epoche; or to exhaust one’s last strength, perhaps for a chimera, a mirage that moves further away as the traveler makes an effort to come closer? I remain, I remain here. But excruciating sorrow and sudden hope do not permit me to die peacefully. Then I leap up and run headlong. But the cold of a despair just as sudden cuts my legs out from under me; and infinite fear possesses my soul. I run back headlong. To go and not to go, to seek and not to seek, to hope and to despair, to be afraid of expending one’s last strength and, because of this fear, to expend much more of this strength running back and forth. Where is the way out? Where is the refuge? To whom, to what can one rush for help? “Lord, Lord, if Thou existeth, help my insane soul. Come Thyself, Thou Thyself, lead me to Thyself! Whether I want it or not, save me. As Thou canst and as Thou knowst, allow me to see Thee. Forcibly and through suffering, draw me to Thyself.” This cry of ultimate despair is the beginning of a new stage of philosophizing, the beginning of a living faith. I do not know if the Truth exists or not. But I feel with my whole being that I cannot be without it. And I know that if the Truth exists, it is everything for me: reason, goodness, strength, life and happiness. Perhaps it does not exist, but I love it. I love it more than anything that exists.’

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

It’s been a long time between updates here on the blog, but it’s not for lack of action (well maybe partially). Yesterday was a very exciting day a long time coming, because yesterday the bars on my windows were installed! At long last, I don’t have to worry about coming home and finding all of my things missing or someone in my apartment. I am officially a caged bird, and I’ll sing if I want to!

It was a pretty stressful morning for me (trying to hide Lola from my landlord) and for Lola (trying to make sure the strange men clomping through the apartment with their equipment weren’t actually there to kill her). I was also worried about what my landlord would do if he found out the bars didn’t open.

I called Eugene for moral support when it was over, and he took me out for some breakfast therapy at Tom’s down the block. After drinking tons of coffee and playing with our food, we set off on eugene’s errands so that I wouldn’t have to face my landlord.

But, after working a bit this morning, I called the landlord and he proved himself not as crappy as I’d feared. He agreed to pay half, and I’ll just sell the rest to him when I leave. Deal done, and just in time to go home for Thanksgiving.

Today I unexpectedly got a reminder invite to the Tarheels game at the Garden tonight. Exciting after a day of printing. I feel like I’ve just gotten recess at the asylum. Go heels!

It would be hard to say it much better than this.  This guy wrote this piece 4 months ago, 6 months into the Obama usurpation.  It’s as accurate as if it were written yesterday.

The part that he is the most correct about is that the idiot masses that elected this fool will NEVER admit that they made a mistake.  Obama may be the destructive force taking apart America, but those who voted for him are the ones who enabled him to start his campaign of destruction.

I Told You So – Yes I Did Barack Obama

Thursday, July 23, 2009
By Howard Galganov

When Obama won the Presidency with the help of the LEFTIST Media, Hollywood and Entertainment Liberals, Ethnic Socialists (ACORN), Stupid Non-Business Professionals and Bush Haters, I wrote:

It won’t take 6 months until the people figure this guy out and realize how horrible a mistake they’ve made. And when they come to that realization, the damage to the United States of America will be so great, that it will take a generation or more to repair – IF EVER.

The IDIOTS who not only voted for the Messiah, but also worked their sorry asses-off to promote his Lordship, are now left holding the bag.

Here are two things they will NEVER do:

1 – They will NEVER admit to making a blunder out of all proportion by electing a snake-oil salesman with no positive social history or management experience of any kind.

2 – They will NEVER take responsibility for the curse they’ve imposed upon the immediate and long-term future of their country.

In essence, the people responsible for putting this horror-show in power are in themselves responsible for every cataclysmic decision he makes and the consequences thereof.  (Also, those who stayed home and did not vote as a real citizen must gave Obama his slim margin of victory.)

In just 6 (SIX) months, the Messiah’s polls are showing the following:

On Healthcare Reform – He’s going under for the third time with polling well under 50%, even within his own Party.

Even though he might be able to muscle a Healthcare Reform Bill by using Chicago BULLY tactics against his fellow Democrats, it will just make things worse.

On Cap And Trade (Cap & Tax) – The Fat-Lady is already singing.

On the Stimulus Package (Tax and Spend) – His popularity is in FREE-FALL.

On the TARP package he took and ran with from President Bush – It’s all but Good-Night Irene.

On the closing of GITMO and “HIS” war on what he no longer wants called the War On Terrorism – He’s standing in quicksand with his head just about to go under.

On a comparison between himself and George W. Bush at the same 6 months into their respective first term Presidencies – Bush is ahead of him in the Polls.

On a comparison between He Who Walks On Water and the 12 preceding Presidents between WW II and now – Obama ranks 10th.

On a Poll just conducted, that asks who would you vote for today between Obama and Mitt Romney – It’s a dead heat.

Between Obama and Palin – Obama’s ONLY ahead by 8 points and she hasn’t even begun to campaign.

It seems to me that Obama wants to be everywhere where he shouldn’t be.

He’s personally invested in screwing-over America’s ONLY REAL Middle Eastern ally (Israel) in favor of Palestinian Despots and Murderers.

He’s traveling the world apologizing for the USA while lecturing others on how to do it right, when in fact and truth, he has no experience at doing anything other than getting elected.

He went to the Moslem world in Egypt to declare that America IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION while he heaped praises on Islam, where he compared the “plight” of the Palestinians to the Holocaust.

The Russians think he’s a Putz. The French think he’s rude. The Germans want him to stop spending. The Indians want him to mix his nose out of their environmental business. The North Koreans think he’s a joke. The Iranians won’t acknowledge his calls. And the British can’t even come up with a comprehensive opinion of him.  (None of these views have changed or improved in the 4 months since this article was written.)

As for the Chinese, he’s too frightened to even glance their way.  (At the time of this writing, Obama is over in China cuddling up to the Chinese, doing everything he can to show subservience to them.  He is bargaining from a position of weakness, and the rest of the world knows it.)

Maybe, if America’s first Emperor would stay home more and travel less, and work a little bit instead of being on television just about everyday, or forget about his Wednesday Date Nights with his Amazon Wife, or stop running to “papered” Town Hall Meetings, perhaps he would have a little bit of time to do the work of the nation.  (Sadly, if he were to take Mr. Galganov’s advice he would have more time and energy to devote to actively destroying the America he hates in order to build his totalitarian utopia.  Catch-22.)

In all fairness, it wasn’t HARD to be RIGHT in my prediction concerning Obama’s Presidency, even in its first 6 months, so I’m going to make yet another prediction:

OBAMA WILL PROBABLY NOT FINISH HIS 4-YEAR TERM, at least not in a conventional way.  (We can only hope for change, and pray that it happens soon.)

He is such a political HORROR-SHOW, and so detrimental to the USA and his own Democratic Party, that the Democrats themselves will either FORCE him to resign or figure out a way to have him thrown out.  (Again, we can only hope.)

Who knows, maybe he really isn’t a BORN US Citizen and that’s a way the Democrats will be able to get rid of him.  (They don’t have the guts for that approach.)

Or – MORE LIKELY THAN NOT, the Democrats will make Obama THEIR OWN LAME DUCK PRESIDENT.

I don’t believe the Democrats have nearly as much love for their country as they do for their own political fortunes. And with Obama, their fortunes are rapidly becoming toast.

The Democrats can keep on blaming Bush for EVERYTHING. But, that game’s already begun to wear real thin.

Their mantra was “WE DON’T WANT 4 MORE YEARS”, which the STUPID people bought, since McCain was nothing at all like George W Bush.

The new mantra will soon become: WE DON’T WANT 6 MORE MONTHS.  (Or 6 more days, or 6 more hours, or 6 more minutes, or…)

Best Regards . . . Howard Galganov

9. The Freeing of Twentyland

Now at last Twentyland seemed to stand on the shores of a sea of freedom and happiness, but instead a grey era began. Elections were held, but on the Soviet model: although there were in theory three parties – the Communist Party, the Peasants’ Party, and the Dubitanian Social Democrats – there was only one list of candidates. My father found himself prevented from standing or campaigning in his own interest. Tretchin the puppet was instead made Prime Minster, under the close supervision of the Russians. My father was offered a largely honorary post as the President of the Council of Twenty, the largely decorative body which in principle advised on matters of constitutional or national import – it consisted of survivors of the original Twenty with some new nominees to make up the score. He bore this for a while with good patience, and then one day he called all the leading officials and party members together and had a quiet conversation.

After that, the Russians found that they were being politely ignored. Everyone listened to them with great, perhaps even exaggerated respect, but took no notice at all of anything they said. There was no defiance, and no outward rebellion; but everything the Russians initiated or sponsored seemed to run into difficulty and delay. This might have been the result of chaotic incompetence and mismanagement – there was plenty of that – but at the same time a number of policies the Russians actively opposed seemed to be in the process of effective implementation. There was a de facto deregulation of trade in food: the introduction of Russian into the school curriculum stalled and went into reverse After a while, Colonel Ostrovsky raised the matter with my father.

“You know,” said my father, “These matters are really outside my remit, Comrade: I have no executive powers. It seems to me you are concerned with the implementation of policy here, not a matter of national ideology. You should address your concerns to Comrade Tretchin – I should not like him to get the impression I was going behind his back.”

“Of course, of course,” said Ostrovsky, “But you see, Comrade Larvartin, I feel that this is not simply a matter of implementation: on the contrary, it seems as if a different set of policies is in effect being promulgated. Don’t you feel that there is a gap between the line we discussed in the Council of Twenty and what is actually happening in Twentyland? Do you feel that the country is actually responding to the advice it is being given?”

“I should be very sorry if you felt in any way that your advice was not valued, Comrade Ostrovsky,” he said, smiling, “But you must appreciate that the citizens and administrators of Twentyland have to take account of local conditions in a way which our valiant allies may not always understand.”

Ostrovsky pursed his lips for a moment.

“Let me be clear about this, comrade,” he said, “I am being advised that there is an orchestrated policy at work here, a policy, not of non-co-operation, not of national deviation exactly, I cannot say that, but let us say of incomplete realisation of the practical consequences of our joint commitment to the international brotherhood of socialist states. I don’t say that is in fact the case, but it’s suggested by the advice I am receiving. Now you must remember that your country was greatly helped to establish itself in freedom and democracy by the friendly support which Comrade Stalin gave to the heroes of Twentyland. If it should appear that certain elements – perhaps even certain high-ranking elements – did not altogether reciprocate that friendly support, well, then it might become necessary for us to consider whether the Twentyland regime would benefit from certain changes. You know, comrade, that certain countries, when liberated from Nazi tyranny, proved to need more direct help than others. If it were thought that Twentyland needed it, there can be no doubt that my superiors would be ready to provide very direct help. Very direct indeed, let there be no doubt of that., It can scarcely be thought that we should allow ourselves to be held back by lack of support from any group or individual, however popular.”

“You seem so tense, Ostrovsky,” my father replied, “I think you need a break. You should spend some time with your family. At home.”

Under my father’s guidance the Council of Twenty remained loyal supporters of Soviet foreign policy, of Cominform and the other institutions, and generally did nothing that the Russians could take real exception to. But Twentyland continued to steer its own course which quietly diverged in small ways from the prescribed model. Red Army soldiers began to receive small gifts from Twentylanders, always accompanied by a card which thanked them for their fraternal assistance, and wished them well on their return to their homeland.

My mother, in relating her stories, always represented my father’s handling of these matters as uniquely skilful, but for once I don’t agree. I hardly think his policy could have succeeded if Twentyland had been of strategic importance, or otherwise of special value to the Soviet authorities. Our armed forces were still far too weak to offer the slightest deterrent to the Russians had direct intervention been undertaken. I’m afraid the plain truth is that we simply weren’t important enough for the Russians to bother too much about us. My father, if my mother is to be believed, also played an extremely dangerous game of counter-espionage, trying to arouse Stalin’s suspicions of the leading Russian officers. I could never get any details of this, but it seems to me an uncharacteristically devious strategy; one which could very easily have backfired, or perhaps on the other hand have caused the disgrace or death of essentially blameless men like Ostrovsky, who were basically well-disposed towards my father and went along with him to some degree.

It goes without saying that in Mischkoff’s account there was never the slightest divergence of view between my father and the Russian authorities; indeed, in his biography my father appears almost servile in his closeness to Comrade Stalin. Mischkoff relates an entirely fictitious episode in which my father is supposed to have reminded Tretchin of the fine example of resolution shown by the Russian leader and thereby persuaded him to continue with a programme of agricultural reform and collectivisation.

It is true, however, that before too long Stalin withdrew his troops from Twentyland. It seems that Ostrovsky complained of my father’s uncooperative behaviour: Stalin, however, remembered my father as a hero of patriotic resistance during the war, and reacted badly. He suspected that my father was, as he felt himself to be, surrounded by potential traitors: instead of supplying the additional authority Ostrovsky was seeking, he summarily ordered him to withdraw. When Stalin died and Khrushchev took power, Twentylanders feared for a while that the Russians might return, but they never did, and if anything Khrushchev seemed even more well-disposed towards my father than Stalin had been . At last, at last, we were masters of our own destiny.

26,273 words.

After learning that Eugene had waited 10 long years for someone else to take enough interest in the Met to walk around it with him, Jen and I agreed to accompany him, because seriously, there’s not much more on the agenda these days. Plus, there were some cool special exhibits going on.

But, as with most of our outings, it took longer than anticipated to actually reach our intended goal. First, Eugene needed a drink, which we later had to smuggle into the museum. This segues nicely into the other snaffoo, in which a militant museum worker challenged Jen over a banana, and Jen refused to back down. She wasn’t hungry for a banana right then! So, naturally, she went outside and took it through the other security line and ate it inside the museum (beside the shark we weren’t supposed to take pictures of) out of spite.

Actually, thinking back, it seems that we were veritable miscreants at the museum today. I, of course, blame my cohorts who have reputations for that sort of thing. Whole Foods, nudge, nudge. Anyway, in the first special exhibit of black and white photographs from Robert Frank’s book The Americans, I managed to take a photo of one I liked before a very nice man with a subdued sense of authority suggested I not do that. How was I supposed to know that no photography was allowed? The sign beside me totally looked like you could take photos with no flash. Here, witness my shame/victory.

Next we hit the Samurai weapons exhibit, which got all of us pretty much sworded out. Wish there had been a bit more explanation about the samurai history along with all of the descriptions of blade-making and dynasties, but it was still pretty cool. We actually managed to get through that one without a single indiscretion, which I attribute to the glazed look hundreds of sword blades gives to a person…or maybe it was magical latent samurai power. We’ll never know.

On to the mischief, Eugene and I lost Jen for a while and moved on to the giant Great White shark suspended in a vat of formaldehyde in modern art. We used our special selective vision to obliviously take photos of the shark beside the No Photos sign, and I sincerely regret not taking the opportunity to stand in front of its gaping mouth. I sense a photoshop opportunity here. Over the course of the next few minutes I got called out for using my phone, and Jen ate the illicit fruit beside the shark. Shame.

The best thing about the Met is that you really don’t have to worry about seeing it all, because it’s impossible. It’s especially great if you live in NY, and you can in good conscience give a tiny donation at the door knowing that you’ll be back again soon. We wandered in the sculpture hall before stopping for a little tea and coffee in the new American Wing.

Later, sensing that it was 5:00 somewhere (namely the midwest), we conveniently classed it up before leaving by having drinks next to the orchestra playing in the mezzanine, which is a great reason to stay at the Met late on a weekend.

On the time spiral headed for 2012

As great calculators, theirs is one of the few remaining World Calendars that still makes some degree of sense. The Celts had a sophisticated calculation based on lunar months which lasted well into the medieval period. Julius Caesar’s great innovation was originally also lunar, but not versatile enough to include more than ten months and, by the end of Roman rule, was already out of date. The extra two ‘moons’ which had to be added in medieval monasteries to balance out the solar year made a mockery of his calculations.

Have you ever noticed that the last four months which we call September, October, November and December are in fact names based on the Latin numbers septem, octo, novem, decem, seven, eight, nine and ten; Caesar’s original ten? The months added to make twelve, before the Gregorian calendar redressed the balance, were June and July (and July was, of course, named for its caesarean creator).

The Julian calendar was superceded by the Gregorian in most European nations, when Julian calculations went wildly out of synch with the solar year and whole cultures realized they were missing large chunks of time. The Russians refused to catch up, only adding their quota of 10 missed days in 1752. By then the Western world was calculating by the sun and in another mindset.

Other cultures have their own unique way of calculating: we are currently in Jewish Year 5770 since the date of Creation. In the current Islamic lunar calendar of 355 days this year is 1430 anno Hegirae, from the date of the Hijra, when the prophet Mohammed migrated from Mecca to Medina.

In all these Old World computations, time is seen as a linear concept.

Maya Long Count calendar ends on 13.0..0.0, winter solstice 2012

Ages of Man, Spiral of Time

Taking time from its ‘origins’ in 100,496BC until the Calendar of the Maya begins in 3114BC, the count is a period of 97,000 years. From 3114 until 1756: a period of 4870 years; from 1756 until 1999: a period of 243 years; from 1999 until the middle of 2012: a period of 13 years.

Albert Einstein's fourth dimensional concept of space-time

We are progressing at such a rate that, as I have blogged before, the expression ‘the human mind is evolving’ is obsolete before we reach the end of the sentence.

Messages from the stars: the Pleiades

It is sometimes hard for us to believe this great truth, when outside influences and external circumstances pound us into emotional blobs, or we become so tired from physical and mental exertion that we are unable to feel our core, sense our own evolution, know our own sacred power.

The messages being transmitted – whether you are drawn to Archangel Metatron, Mother Mary, Jeshua or, outside the Judaeo-Christian terminology, Sirians, Pleidean energies and ET – are remarkably similar: by focusing on our Godselves, our ’still small voice within’, our loving living spirit-core, by allowing nothing that is not of light to penetrate and move us, we may begin to master our own nature and move as a whole in the direction perceived by a sentient Universe at the time of its conception. The Big Bang, ‘…and the Word flowed upon the Waters’, ‘Let There be Light’.

There has been talk of Stargates, Energy gateways, vibrational doorways and increased vibrational DNA codes. It makes sense that our star, the long-suffering Sol, should encourage us to increase our quantum light particles, to upgrade from sod-bound Neanderthals to starseed beings, capable of instant understanding, telepathic and empathic communication, with the ability to raise ourselves and our sisters to the heavens. Denser energies bog us down, mire us in thought patterns unworthy of our spiritual circuitry, send out thoughts which turn around and slam right back at us.

We are a little of what we eat, but more so, we are what we project in thought, feeling and belief.

And New Consciousness bloggers are helping us with daily updates from the spiritual hierarchy to become those godlike entities we are capable of believing ourselves to be.

When the Calendar of the Maya completes its last cycle of 13 years on winter solstice 2012, will we be ready for takeoff? Will we, as a planet, as one consciousness, be able to spread our wings? To create Heaven on Earth? Will we be ready to fly?

About to blow away on the Dumbo waterfront today, but on the plus side we do have it all to ourselves. Just waiting for Bubby’s to open for lunch before meeting Jen at the Met. A perfect day to stay toasty inside and look at art.

On the train to the Met now after a fantastic breakfast at Bubbys. We also had that place to ourselves, and enjoyed a leisurely meal looking out over the water to the Manhattan bridge.

This letter is an absolute gem in my opinion. Florensky anticipates pretty much the entire postmodern movement by fifty years, and gives the answer to their conundrum. It also provides the entry points in his argument that allow his to move from from philosophical epistemology into Christian theology.

‘The problem of the certitude of truth is reducible to the problem of finding a criterion’.

The main issue in this letter is how we can be sure that we have discovered the truth, what means we have to find something that cannot be doubted. This is harder than it may seem (or at least those who claim to have it make it sound). Florensky goes over the two main ways of finding certitude that philosophy provides, essentially the modernist and postmodern solutions.

The first is the method of a self-evident intuition, the ‘given’ that we are presented with – either sensory experience, intellectual irrefutability, and mystical intuition. The problem with these is their very ‘givenness’, their unjustified nature, the lump of factitude that sits there demanding to be recognised. He discusses the purest form of this, the most basic law of logic, the law of identity.

‘A = A. That is the final answer. But this tautological formula, this life-less, thought-less, and therefore meaningless equality A = A, is, in fact, only a generalization of the self-identity that is inherent in every given. But by no means is this formula an answer to our question “Why?”[...] A=A. That says everything. It says: “Knowledge is limited by conditional judgments.” or simply: “Be silent, I tell you!”.’

The problem is that the law of identity, and all epistemological givens, are not expressions of the fullness of truth – they ignore time, the development of reality and the perspectives of multiple subjects, and only hold sway when they are not questioned. The law of identity is ‘only a hypostatized abstraction of a moment and a point, which, in themselves, do not exist. Yes, the law of identity is an unlimited monarch. But its subjects do not object to its autocracy only because they are bloodless phantoms, without reality, because they are not persons but rational shades of persons, i.e. things that do not exist. This is sheol. This is the kingdom of death.’

Turning from this first alternative, we arrive at the method of discursive reasoning, of justifications that seek to explain everything. But then each judgment must be further justified by another reason, and so on in an infinite regress that either arrives at a ‘given’ (with all its problems) or cuts off and does not live up to the promise of certitude. Who made the universe? God. Who made God? ……….? This is not an answer.

So with both attempts we fail. We are stuck, as Florensky says, between ‘an impenetrable wall and an uncrossable sea’. Is there a way over and across?

This leads to the problem of skepticism. This happens when someone tries to accept both of the problems at once, to reject every ‘truth’ but to still want to know the Truth, which recedes as each justification fails. This attitude is very important for Florensky in this book, and he calls it ‘epoche’, the ‘delaying of judgment, the state of refraining from all statement’.  Epoche is not a stable state, it is a constant movement between the following positions:

1. I do not affirm anything

2. I also do not affirm the fact that I do not affirm anything.

One rejects both the given and the justification. This is not ‘logically’ possible. The cheap retort of Christians to the postmodern philosophers is that for them ‘there seems to be no truth except the truth that there is no truth’. This misses the point.  Epoche is not logical inconsistency, it is a state of the soul, a spiritual torment whereby we both want the Truth but must reject everything that is not the Truth, so never being able to rest. ‘Givenness’ satisfies most people in everyday life, and ‘justification’ gives scholars something to do, but Truth is not in either, and so they do not satisfy the skeptic. Florensky describes this state of being as a tormenting fire, which may, if it continues, fall into the darkness of nihilism and despair, when one gives up completely and the mind collapses. ‘Here, behind a thin barrier, spiritual death begins’.

The only answer to epoche is hope. The fact that we seek Truth means that it might reside somewhere, so we can turn aside from skepticism and turn to probabilism, the acceptance of our limitations and the beginning of arduous ascent towards the knowledge of the Truth. We will know that we have arrived at this when we find something that is both a given, an intuition, and which can be explained and justifies, that puts an end to the endless regress of ‘Why?’. Not in a limited way, but because it is a true infinite, that encompasses all answers. Hence the title of this post, and Florensky’s conclusion that ‘TRUTH IS INTUITION-DISCURSION’.

The letter ends with a beginning of the solution. We must find something that can be fully itself (A = A), a ‘given’, while still being fully all other things (A=B/A=-A), a ‘justification’, and which returns completely to itself in an infinite fullness (A,B,C = A). This ‘absolute Subject’ can both be known by experience and provides the perfect answer and justification of itself. It resolves epoche and begins to give faith and knowledge. This, as we begin to see, is the mystery of TRIUNITY, the subject of our next letter.

‘Everything whirls. Everything slides into death’s abyss. Only One abides, only in Him are constancy, life, and peace[...] On the other hand, outside of this One Center “the only certain thing is that nothing is certain and that there is nothing more miserable and arrogant than man”[...] Yes, in life everything is in a state of unrest, everything is as unstable as a mirage. And out of the depths of the soul there arises an unbearable need to find support in the “Pillar and Ground of the Truth” (1 Tim 3:15)[...] – not in just one of the truths, not in one of the particular and fragmented human truths, which are unstable and blown about like dust chased by the wind over mountains, but in total and eternal Truth, the one Divine Truth, the radiant and celestial Truth, that “Truth” which, according to the ancient poet, is the “sun of the world”. How can one approach this Pillar?’

Florensky begins with his anguished and urgent desire for true knowledge. This is a very common question – how can we really know what is true? He begins here with the crux of the problem, which is that Truth can’t lodge itself in or be found by someone who is unprepared for it. Seeking truth is a moral and spiritual exercise, as well as one of the cognitive intellect. Florensky interprets here Matt 11:25-30 in a ‘epistemological’ sense. Truth is hidden from the wise and revealed to little children. Finding Truth means finding Christ. In this book the ‘pillar and ground of the truth’ is interpreted to mean many things, but here it starts with his central proposition, to be unfolded further in other letters – ‘But the fullness of all is in Jesus Christ, and therefore knowledge can be acquired only through Him and from Him.’

He writes: ‘But far be from me the desire to convince anyone. I give of my meagerness. And if but one soul were to feel that I speak to it not with my lips and not into the ears, I would wish for no more’.

Here’s at least one soul who hears you, Pavel.

I thought I should put this down while I still remember to. I’m reading ‘The Meaning of Love’ by Vladimir Solovyov, and he speaks of the significance of human consciousness. People often wonder if the creation story in Genesis is still worth listening to, because of our advances in scientific understanding. I think that read according to a spiritual understanding, it most certainly is. Here is Solovyov:

‘The Hebrew who wrote: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, and further: This is the book of the generations of Adam, was expressing not only his personal and national consciousness. Through him first shone forth in the world the truth of the unity of the whole universe and of all humanity. And all further advances of consciousness consist solely in the development and embodiment of this truth, for they have no reason and cannot possibly go beyond this all-embracing form. What else can the most perfect astronomy and geology do but restore completely the genesis of the heaven and the earth; in just the same way the highest task of historical knowledge can only be to restore “the book of the generations of Adam”, i.e. the successive genetic bond in the life of humanity. And finally, our creative activity can possess no higher end than to embody in perceptible images this unity of heaven, earth, and humanity created and proclaimed from the beginning.’

Six million Jews were murdered in World War II.  A lot of them did not have to die.  Instead of  Walking themselves into the ghettos and concentration camps they should have fought with all their might.  Instead they walked to their untimely death with the Nazi’s leading them like sheep into the gas chambers.

The Nazis terrorizing methods where no match  for the faint of heart. Yes the Nazi’s did what they did, but the Jewish victims allowed their perpetrators to dominate them. Whether it was safer to follow the marching orders of the day or,  to stand up and fight the enemy is for you to judge.

When, the going gets tough so must you.  Being a victim is sometimes a choice not to be made.  Americans are a people who like their freedom.  President Obama’s Administration  is hell bent on throwing the freedoms of the Constitution under the carpet, and replacing it with a Radical Socialist Marxist agenda that has no place  in the United States Government.

The Obama administration will continue  using Chicago style intimidation tactics to further strengthen their radical agenda, for as long as they feel safe doing so.  It is up to every Conservative, Liberal or Independent citizen, who is worth their salt,  to stand up and take back our government.  Tea baggers of America , you need to double your efforts and start marching into Washington. Bring the city to a deadlock. Remember who you are, and what you stand for.  To all of you that are watching  America turn into a third world country, I say stop whining and behaving like victims.  This is your Country too.  To all of you I say” Stand up, Unite and Fight back”.  It is time to claim back what is yours. 2010 is coming quickly.

Should Americans sit back and do nothing, they will truly know and discover what it is to live with tyranny, sickness and abject poverty. This is the only way a Marxist Socialist government can rule.  The new America will be a nation whose citizens will work for the government, and whose every freedom will be non-existent.  And, the lessons learned by the Poles, Czechs, Romanians, Germans, Russians – the list goes on of failed Socialist “empires” who were eventually destroyed.

Andrea

13:00 hours. Baghdis province, Afghanistan. The body of a soldier, submerged in a river in Western Afghanistan, is found. There is another missing. Both are from the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division. Eight Afghans, including four soldiers, three policemen and an interpreter are killed in either the NATO air-strike or in the fighting that broke out between Afghan and American troops. It lasted for hours.

He puts the paper down. Folds it neatly on his thigh and looks out the window to the cleanly cut grass, the well-managed trees lining the sidewalks, the women pushing strollers down the promenade. Hears the wind rushing through the trees, civilians carousing the bodegas of deep Brooklyn, the laughter of the children as they wait for the bus to pick them up or walk hand-in-hand with their mothers or fathers to the doorsteps of the school. The civilian cars, the airplanes, and the helicopters all carry on as normal.

“These are passing stories,” he thinks, “whims and fancies of newspapers and radio talk shows, 24-hour streaming news channels or regularly updated websites. But pause. Take it in. Allow the story to mean more than ‘bad-news’ or ‘distant suffering’.”

He looks out the window again. Sees the sidewalks have been blown apart, chunks of steel cables lay strew across the ripped up grass. The trees are on fire or already singed, the school buses lay flat on their sides and there are children inside. They are crying. He sees the school down the street has been blown apart, the chalkboards dangle from particle board fibers over the cavernous sides of the decimated building, ruled cursive paper flutters in the smoky winds, pieces of the American flags get caught in embers of mangled civilian cars. He smells the burning of rubber, the smell of a gas that he can’t place. There is silence save for the distant cries and crackling fires of exploded cars, loose electrical wires, and burning buildings.

He knows it’s not like this. It’s worse. There are more smells, more gruesome sights, the kinds of things that keep you up at night, wake you in the morning, grace you with their darkened presence throughout the day. They are the kind of things that can’t be forgotten because they are marked into your skin, wedged in your memory. They are the kinds of things that remind you it’s not too far from the shores of America to Afghanistan and this is harrowing and best forgotten.

He stops. There is more to this, even more disturbing. He allows himself to stop thinking of these people as soldiers, as men and women, Americans or Afghans, imagines them as children playing in the streets of Kabul or Brooklyn. Maybe with kites, maybe with basketballs, children’s things, fun and carefree. But it’s the 1980’s and Afghanistan has another foreign power in its midst. The Russians, under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev, remain until the late 1980’s when they leave under the direction of Gorbachev. The children in Kabul are immersed in war while in Brooklyn, there are children immersed in the class warfare of the Reagan-era but it’s different, less immediate in its death and destruction. Maybe for some it is not. There is funding of the Taliban rushing in from the U.S. to battle the Russians in the midst of the Cold War. Over 1 million Afghans are killed, 1.2 million disabled, 3 million maimed or wounded. What were their names, where did they come from, what were their stories?

He thinks long and hard on the missing American soldier, thinks about the man found in the river. What were their names, these men and women who gave their lives to protect America or Afghanistan? What was it that brought them to the doorsteps of the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Taliban? He looks out the window, the sidewalks are back in place, the schools back in order. The trees stand tall, full of the orange and yellow colors of Fall and he watches as a child plays with a soccer ball in the street below. “What war,” he wonders, “will this child fight?”

Mrs. World 2009 Victoria Radochinskaya on November 25 paid a visit to her compatriots at the Russian Federation Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City. During the meeting, she told Sai Gon Giai Phong that she was very impressed with Vietnam and its people.

Mrs. World 2009 Victoria Radochinskaya holds a baby in her arms at the Russian Federation Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City on November 25. (Photo: SGGP)

The 30-year-old former public relations director met with 20 Russian children and their parents in a small room at the consulate where she was showered with flowers and toys from the families. 

A boy read a poem about a mother and child, which the pageant winner said made her miss her own young son back in Russia.

Speaking at the meeting, Russian Consul General Nikolai D. Ubushiev congratulated Radochinskaya on her recent win of the Mrs. World title in Vung Tau city and presented her with souvenirs.

Radochinskaya said that Vietnam is a wonderful country with many attractions and that Vietnamese people are very friendly. Everyone made her feel at home during her month-long stay here, she added. 

Moreover, Vietnam organized a very successful Mrs. World 2009 Pageant, said Radochinskaya.

Vietnamese women are beautiful and intelligent, she said, adding that Vietnamese women in particular and Asian women in general sacrifice much for their families.

Radochinskaya said she doesn’t think it’s bad for women to want to be beautiful, however, natural beauty is better and women should develop their self-confidence.

Her husband was hesitant about the pageant at first, said Radochinskaya, but he soon changed his mind and supported her fully. Her son would call often to encourage her during her trip to Vietnam, she added.

If she ever has the chance to come back, Radochinskaya says she would bring along her family.

Asked about her daily schedule, Radochinskaya said that she starts working at 9 am and finishes at 6 pm. She spends the remainder of the day with her family.

By winning the Mrs. World title, Radochinskaya says she will now have the chance to help more poor people.

Related news:

Russia wins Mrs. World 2009

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RUSNANO and AmBAR Announce the Business Plan Competition of Nanotech Projects 

    AmBAR creates a unique platform to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and business contacts between technology entrepreneurs, professionals, and investors. The organization is also dedicated to accelerating access to capital for innovative projects and developing technology partnerships between Russia, Ukraine and other FSU countries and the United States. Through various seminars and conferences AmBAR provides educational programs that help entrepreneurs refine their business plans, and advance their product development and marketing efforts.

Ambar’s Mission:

·       To provide a networking platform for technology entrepreneurs, venture capital investors, and other business professionals from Russian, Ukraine and other CIS countries who are interested in innovation and commercialization of high technology products.

·       To educate, showcase, and support entrepreneurs in Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries as they seek equity capital, corporate partners, and grow their companies globally.

·       To enhance all aspects of technology partnership between the United States and the countries of the former Soviet Union. 

SVOD Conference is right around the corner and we have an amazing lineup of speakers! Register today and don’t miss out on this unique networking opportunity!

 

    This is a not to be missed event for the entrepreneurs and the Venture Capital community. This year’s theme will drive a very exciting Agenda exploring “re-invention” as it affects the startup process on multiple levels — technologies, business models, financing, monetizing and team building.

 

 

• Vinod Khosla, Founding Partner, Khosla Ventures
• Charles Giancarlo, Managing Director, Silver Lake
• Steve Blank, Serial Entrepreneur; Founder, Epiphany; Lecturer, Stanford University, Graduate School of Engineering
• Sergei Beloussov, CEO, Parallels
• Ron Conway, Founding General Partner, Angel Investors LP
• Jason Pressman, General Partner, Shasta Ventures
• Adam Lashinsky, Editor at large, Fortune magazine; regular panelist and business commentator for Fox network programs
• Esther Dyson, Director, 23andMe, Principal, EDventure Holdings (sold to CNet), investor in Flickr and del.icio.us (both sold to Yahoo!) & Medstory (sold to Microsoft)
• Jeff Crow, General Partner, Norwest Venture Partners
• Vivek Mehra, General Partner, August Capital
• Ping Li, General Partner, Accel Partners
• Kittu Kolluri, General Partner, New Enterprise Associates
• Franklin Pitch Johnson, Founding Partner, Asset Management Company
• Peter Loukianoff, Partner, Almaz Capital Partners
• Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures
• Pavel Pogodin, Partner, Sughrue Mion LLP
• Dmitry Dubograev, Partner, Femida LLP
• Leonid Gozman, Board Member, RUSNANO
• Mikhail Chuchkevich, Director, Project Office, RUSNANO
• Dmitry Vasuytinsky, Managing Partner, Allianz Asset Management
• Yan Ryazantsev, Investment Director, Russian Venture Company
• Bo Parker, Managing Director, Center for Technology and Innovation, PriceWaterhouseCoopers
• Phil Libin, CEO, Evernote
• Vlad Shmunis, CEO, RingCentral, Sequoia-backed company
• Matthew Trevithick, General Partner, Venrock
• Eric Buatois, General Partner, Sofinnova Ventures
• Vish Makhijani, COO, Zynga
• Vimal Solanki, Vice President, McAfee
• Evgeni Utkin, CEO, Kvazar-Micro, acquired by Sitronics, voted the Best Ukrainian Entrepreneur
• Greg Shenkman, General Partner, Exigen Capital, formerly CEO of Genesys, sold to Alcatel for $1.9B
• Mike Selfridge, Northern California Region Manager, Silicon Valley Bank

Whether you are looking for a deal flow, funding, information or networking – SVOD 2009 is the place to be! - WWW.SVOD.ORG 

 

 

Date: December 9-10, 2009

Location: Computer History Museum, Mountain View, Silicon Valley, CA

To Register: http://www.svod.org/

 

Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO) and American Business Association of Russian-speaking Professionals (AmBAR) announce the Business Plan Competition cor projects and companies working in the field of nanotechnology. Origination of the project may come from any country or person all over the world, but its implementation or some part of implementation has to be completed in Russia. In 2009 the nominees for the contest are pre-selected by AmBAR among the participants of the Fifth Annual High Tech Investment Conference SVOD 2009. For more information, please go to: http://www.svod.org/ or e-mail to info@ambarclub.org

The projects are evaluated by the following criteria:

• nanotechnology application;
• scientific and technical feasibility of the project;
• quality and feasibility of the business-plan;
• steps already made towards project implementation.

The winner of the competition receives the RUSNANO award and the prize in the amount of 300,000 rubles (~$10,000).

For more details, please see the Contest terms and conditions (in Russian)