Liberty and freedom can only be maintained if there is power to back it up. Hence in the US, our founders wisely understood that our inalienable rights must be supported by a citizen standing behind a barrel of gun at times-if necessary.

Future conventional wars may in fact dissolve very quickly into asymmetrical affairs that disadvantage an aggressor as cost efficient, force multipliers take a toll. Fear and acknowledgement of this fact can itself be a deterrent. But how to get there? A carbine in every closet ( a la Switzerland) might be a good place to start.

Thanks for your interesting blog and posts Juri.

Jüri

A lot of people are talking about journalism being swallowed up by the processes of a global media… I tend to think that, rather than a generic media and the loss of local culture, what happens is that the broad sweep of TV and internet coverage facilitates a detailed focus on a few core areas, nidi of power and influence. And once again the peripheries vanish.

Which is why, of course, we are so so pleased to have your blog.

There are no business interests behind nuclear energy in Estonia. The only ones supporting it are academics like Anto Raukas. And plus a certain amount of civil servants with engineering degrees. You should be really ashamed of giving disinformation in such a blatant manner. Do you have a degree in physics so you can make such dramatic statements against nuclear energy in full honesty? Nope, just like I thought.

Think about it: there is no expertise inside Estonia with nuclear energy, therefore there can be no interested parties that would support it for financial gain, almost all the core building work would be outsourced to professional foreign providers, which is a good thing.

However, the opposite is actually the case, there are plenty of businessmen interested in green energy and guaranteed profits that it brings, in the form of donations and land grants, that directly oppose nuclear energy.

The renewable energy section of the economy is full of corruption and shady dealings. Urmas Sõõrumaa was saved from bankruptcy by Riigikogu, the local parliament gathering unexpectedly and raising the donations for renewable energy so he could sell his renewable energy plant to a French corporation.

The donations for renewable energy in general are insane and a lot of prolific businessman take advantage of it. These include Erki Nool, Jüri Mõis etc… Do I blame them? No, they are just taking advantage of a corrupt system that is promoted worldwide by big bankers. They are fairly innocent, if greedy, people compared to the real sharks and lions.

If anything, it is the renewable sector that is so obviously full of “rehepapp” like behaviour all over the world.

Example given: Like the fraud that has been discovered this year in Denmark. etc…etc..etc…

I dont know what this means I just offer it as a contribution.
Stan Shelley
Shelley and Son Books

This is a sentiment that has been repeated by leading politicians in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine since the start of the crisis at the Fukushima… Read more: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15002628,00.html

Inferior race? Your interpretation, not my words nor my intention. I see a tormented people hopefully on the mend after a very difficult spell. At least some PTSD lingers, IMO.

My work has to do, among other things, with crisis management and reputation management. Both went rather badly askew with the Veerpalu affair because of mismanagement. It didn’t work out too well for him, casting something of a shadow on the country as well.

Regarding usage (1) : Mixed metaphors, which you refer to, involve combining two unrelated metaphors. An example follows. Texas governor Ann Richards once said about George Bush: “He was born with a silver foot in his mouth!”
You can be “born with a silver spoon in your mouth”, or you can “put your foot in your mouth”, but governor Richards mixed them inappropriately. Either that, or she tried to milk the mixing of metaphors for comic effect – something I’m not necessarily against.

A mixed metaphor attempts to create an intricate comparison but fails, because it is not consistent with itself. I don’t see any miscomprehension when we speak of Hitler and Stalin doing mischief simultaneously in the Baltic States and Poland in 1939 within the context of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
To speak of Hitler and Stalin as two bulls in the Baltic china shop is not to mix metaphors. It is to speak of two bulls or elephants in the same metaphor that we all know, instead of the usual one bull! Not a mistake nor impermissible.

Regarding usage (2) : I also beg to differ regarding the permitted uses of “subsume”. I used it legitimately to mean: “to include or absorb (something) in something else”. The hierarchical thing that you refer to is but one way to use “subsume”.

Subsume is derived from the Modern Latin subsumere, which means “to take under.” Subsume refers to taking something into a larger group and including it. For example: smaller companies are frequently subsumed – that is to say combined, incorporated – into large units. This also hints at the smaller party being smothered and overpowered by the larger one. It even suggests the bigger stronger party can brainwash or reprogram the smaller one. Think of the Stockholm Syndrome.

Here is one example that is similar to the way that I used the word: “Mubarak accused the Islamic Republic of trying to subsume its Muslim neighbors, telling the forum that “the Persians are trying to swallow up the Arab states.” The Mubarak accusation is of course absurd, because Iran is outgunned numerically by the Arab countries, but that is neither here nor there.

Another example: “Reflecting back on his company’s precipitous fall from power, AT&T’s chief technical officer, Hossein Eslambolchi, draws a simple conclusion: It is just the beginning. Just as the Internet rapidly evolved from delivering Web pages to delivering phone calls, it will continue to subsume older communications networks. “Internet protocol will swallow everything,” warns Eslambolchi.”

I rest my case: I wanted to say that the previously Western and in my estimate reasonably honest Republic of Estonia, when occupied by the USSR, was subsumed by an often devious, less honest and often slipshod system or culture. Estonia is now in the process of casting off the unpleasant bardak maladies of the past, but we are not out of the woods yet.