11 thoughts on “TBLPOD28march2012”

1. Excellent recap!

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2. That there should be more ethnic Armenians than Abkhaz in Abkhazia is unsubstantiated Georgian propaganda.

   Ethnic minorities are underrepresented in Parliament due to a lack of political emancipation (Georgians, Armenians to a lesser extend) and because they are settled evenly troughout the country (Russians, Greeks), not forming a majority in any one constituency. Which is not to say that it isn’t a problem.

   It would be interesting to compare levels of political representation of ethnic minorities in Abkhazia and in Georgia.

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3. Actually, I just did a very quick estimate. I couldn’t find figures for the number of Georgian Parliament members belonging to an ethnic minority, but looking at the list of members I count 8 members with non-Georgian names. So let’s say 10, out of a total of 150. Ethnic minorities constitute about 16% of Georgia’s population, so the ratio of parliament share to population share is 0.41.

   Doing the same for Abkhazia, with 4 minority MPs (3 Armenians, 1 Georgian, out of 35, assuming the two constituencies with reruns return ethnic Abkhaz), representing 49% of the population (2011 census), we get a ratio of 0.23.

   So minority representation is worse in Abkhazia than in Georgia, especially if we keep in mind that the share of ethnic Abkhaz in the 2011 census may have been overstated. That said, in the previous Abkhazian parliament, there were 10 MPs belonging to an ethnic minority (3 Armenians, 3 Russians, 2 Georgians, 1 Turk), giving a ratio of 0.52, so the Abkhazian situation used to be better.

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   • Ethnic Cleansing in the United StatesWhat about the ethnic clinaseng currently taking place in the United States? It is good to condemn ethnicclinaseng in Darfur or Bosnia, but what about closer to home, like in your own neighborhood. The New York Times calls this period in the United States The Great Immigration Panic. You can readtheir incisive editorial online. Few people are concerned about the daily arrests ofundocumented immigrants in this country. Profiling isa concealed part of these search and arrrest raids.If you look latin, your car will be stopped to check thetaillights, or just stopped to demand your ID. Localpolice are taking upon themselves the responsibilityof arresting and arranging for the imprisonment anddeportation of immigrants on the grounds of usingfalse documents. In order to get a job in this country you must presenta Social Security card in most cases. And, yes thecards used were never issued to the immigrants. The result of this is that these immigrants pay atleast $1 billion a year into the Social Security Administration and are ineligible ever to receivebenefits. The SS Administration is glad to receivethis found money to help cover their deficits. So, whatis the crime? The current wave of ethnic clinaseng is part of a longhistory of similar actions in this country. It was so withthe early Chinese, with the concentration camps forJapanese-American citizens in World War II and manyother groups were ostracized: the Irish, Jews, Italians.Our treatment of African-Americans was despicable and, yes there were efforts to deport them. The new immigrants are young, healthy, and hard working. We need them and they need employment.They contribute far more to our economy than theyreceive in return, despite claims to the contrary. The random raids on workplaces have terrorizedthe entire latino population, and that is their purpose.They are being driven further underground and theirsuffering will be increased. That is what we want.It has been widely acknowledgedd that we cannot deport millions of undocumented workers. What we can and are doing is to force into them into ever more demeaning jobs. It is fun. It is a game. Catch theillegal immigrant. The deepseated need for a minority group to scapegoat is always with us, but needs to bediscouraged. One lie is that the immigrants are not learning English. They are learning English at a more rapid rate thanany other group of immigrants have in the past. Another lie is that they commit most of the crimes.The crime rate for immigrants is about one-third that of U.S. citizens, and probably less.

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4. Please change or get rid of that nasty tune at the end of the podcast! getting on nerves badly! otherwise all excellent. Hope Mr Dunbar’s back soon!

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   • I meant at the beginning of podcast not end! duhhh

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   • It’s funny- people who have been tiaevlrng forever do seem to have atrocious social skills. You’d think it’d be the opposite: a traveler does tend to meet a wider variety of people than others and a solo traveler has to be fairly outgoing in order to carve together a social life on the road.But it seems that people who have been to too many countries mostly wheeze on and on until everyone else wishes they had just stayed home

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   • Ms. Chan,I am Georgian living in the US and I just hepapn to read your editorial Russian-Georgian Conflict Proves Machiavelli Wrong .Ms. Chan, forgive me, but what do you mean when you say But the international community should not condemn a state for protecting another state that is not terrorist and clearly just wants independence. by this? Do you realize that Russia was not protecting another state, but was simply crossing into another state to protect its citizens on another state’s territory? Do you know that South Ossetia never existed in the history and was an entity created by communists? Do you know that the territory called South Ossetia was always genuine Georgian land? Well, sorry, but you obviously don’t know that. Your words _ If Russia is confident enough to allow elections in South Ossetia, which they probably will do because they intend to withdraw as soon as more peacekeeping troops arrive, which the EU has promised, or absorb South Ossetia to be united with their kin, Russia will show they truly only want the best for South Ossetia. Ms. Chan, you completely ignore here what Georgia wants and what are Georgia’s rights on its own territory. Are you really that naive to believe that Russia will withdraw from the territory it has occupied? And, what do you mean by absorbing South Ossetia to be united with their kin?!!! Do you understand that what you are saying is cutting out a chunk from Georgia and adding it Russia? If Russia really wanted good for Ossetian people, this war would never take place.But you go even further and say Was the EU too lenient in complying with some of Russia’s demands such as allowing them to continue recognizing South Ossetian and Abkhaz independence? No, because Russia’s true intentions seem to be advocates for self-determination not to “forcibly change borders.” South Ossetia and Abkhazia should be allowed self-determination, and all parties involved should be held responsible if human rights abuses are occurring. It is appalling to me to hear something like this, because it cannot be any further from the truth. What self-determination are you talking about, Ms. Chan? Is that called self-determination when 60% of original population in Abkhazia are refugees scattered throughout not occupied parts of Georgia without any chance to vote? Pretty much similar situation in South Ossetia .Please remember, when you are discussing topics of this importance to many people that suffered and are still suffering in consequence of hostilities, it is very important to know more about the subject of your discussion.I am sorry if I have been offensive, but it is very painful to see how incorrectly everything is interpreted when the knowledge of reality is based only on the propaganda!Please check on the history of the region and its conflicts from reliable and unbiased sources and discuss the current events afterwards.Konstantin T. AkhvledianiColumbia, SC

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5. The podcasts used to be available for automatic down load on iTunes however there is no up to date ones available, last one is March 15, please have a look and set it up again so I dont miss any more.
   BTW I really enjoy the weekly gossip, keep it going

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   • I enabled a feature to tell the ITunes store to pick up the new feed URL. Hope it will work within the next couple of days.

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