As an example, I was shocked to see a post like this in the Belarusian Livejournal political community by_politics, or to read a totally racist post like this. Haiti, in fact, has become a popular topic to chatter about and for some to sarcastically grin at the pain of Haitians. It hurts to read how my compatriots, some of whom have received foreign aid themselves, seem to be quite cynical about the Haitian earthquake and purely racist hiding under a veil of Internet anonymity.

Luckily, there are voices of sanity, for instance, here. So, please, by reading my blog post, don’t run into conclusions that Belarusians are xenophobes or racists. Unfortunately, some are.

Current blacklist members and alumni include YouTube, Facebook, the BBC, Wikipedia, Google and most recently, IMDB, an encyclopedic movie information site. China’s censorship of the net is in constant flux, aided by sets of powerful firewalls marketed to the Communist government by Western technology companies.

Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/china-wired-censorship/#ixzz0c9pmYrOH

Is it the future of the Belarusian Internet? Scary.

I know, at least in America and Western Europe, there are farms where Christmas trees are grown. Many of these beauties are planted to be cut in about seven years when they are ready for market. I haven’t heard of such farms in Lithuania. My guess is that, like in the old days, they come directly from Lithuanian forests.

I know it is a long-lasting tradition, but it is a very controversial one. As any tree, fir absorbs carbon. Forests are essential for our environment. Deforestation is not just happening in the Amazon. It is also a big issue for us, in Belarus and Lithuania.

I don’t know whether artificial trees may be a good alternative. If you are concerned about your personal carbon footprint, they might reduce it because you can reuse them for many a season. However, a professional study on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of both real and fake Christmas trees revealed that one must use its artificial Christmas tree at least during 20 years to leave an environmental footprint as small as the natural Christmas tree.

Maybe, the best way would be to plant a fir tree in the yard near your house and decorate it every holiday season. You don’t have to cut it then. Alas, I live in an apartment complex without a private yard where I could do something like that. But will I buy a Christmas tree from those merchants? No way!

The environmental controversy of the holiday season is not just about Christmas trees. It is also about our tradition to make Christmas presents. It is good for the economy when we buy things, right? But consider this – how much purely impractical, useless stuff we buy during the season just to give it away because we are kind of supposed to. How many of these things are knick-knackery, pretty-pretty flashy little nothings…

Think about those boxes wrapped in flashy paper and dripping with ribbons and bows. Household waste increases by 25% between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yeah, yeah, we have to make it the most wonderful time of the year for our kids. But maybe, just maybe, we need to ask ourselves – will our children be able to make it the most enjoyable time of the year for their own kids unless we, their parents, become less wasteful during this special season?

It is also more than strange that this climate-gate pops up on the eve of the important climate summit. It prompts all this anti-green hooblah around the world. What a convenient timing, don’t you think?

Journalists do have to cover this stuff, they do have to raise questions and give word to all sides. It is the nature of our job. So The Washington Post has published a loony op-ed by Sarah Palin. Can’t link to it, as it is restricted to Washpost subscribers, but the Republican diva pretty much expressed it on her Facebook account:

“Policy decisions require real science and real solutions, not junk science and doomsday scare tactics pushed by an environmental priesthood that capitalizes on the public’s worry and makes them feel that owning an SUV is a ’sin’ against the planet.”

Yeah, right. That’s the lady who cheered with the crowds chanting “Drill, baby, drill.” Who the hell votes for these people?

The amendments affect the order in which electoral commissions are formed. Now one half of a commission is to be formed from representatives of the political parties and nonprofit organizations. Executive committees are now forbidden to assign their officials to an electoral commission, and the number of public servants in it must be no more than one third of its members.

Subjects that nominated their representatives to electoral commissions now will have a right to be present at sittings of local executive branches or local councils when they decide upon the composition of electoral commissions. It will now be possible to appeal these decisions in court.

The new law will simplify the order for conducting town hall meetings with electors, campaign rallies, and pickets. The early voting will require a protocol listing the number of citizens who received the bulletins.

During local elections, voter turnout threshold will be eliminated. During parliamentary and presidential elections, candidates will be able to create individual financial funds. However, there are certain limitations as to how much money can be spent by a candidate.

Observers have already reprimanded the Belarusian authorities for preparing the amendments behind the closed doors. For example, Tomas Tamilinas, a representative of the United Center of Initiatives for Belarus (JuBIC) and the director of the Election Observation: Theory and Practice project, said in a statement that his organization greeted positive changes but had no illusions as to whether these amendments would uplift the electoral process to a whole new level of transparency and openness.

Mikola Statkevich, the chairman of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party Narodnaja Hramada, said that the changes were made to appease Europe, but made in such a way that essentially the character of Belarusian elections would stay the same, i.e., will remain an imitation of elections.

Still these amendments are an important concession the Belarusian regime has made. It might mean, for example, that the forthcoming local elections might be more opposition-friendly than the previous campaigns. Some candidates may actually win. And by win I mean that they will actually win officially.

Any positive change should be welcomed. In a way, it is a chance for the opposition to reach out to the electorate with fewer hurdles and obstacles. Some active regional leaders can even make it into the local councils. The campaign may reenergize local opposition communities. But be warned, many folks will still be apathetic no matter the laws have been improved. As you may know, Belarusian local councils (local legislative branches) have very little real power. The law on government and local self-governments has not been amended. It remains a pitiful reminder that we have NO self-government in Belarus whatsoever. I hear from some of my acquaintances that they see no reason why they should come and vote, let alone run for the council.

Moreover, having observed Belarusian elections for several campaigns, I can say that I wouldn’t hope for much. There are too many things going on behind the closed doors in executive committees, there’s still too much power granted to election commission chairpersons. There are too many interdependencies in the Belarusian vertical system of government where public servants, executive officials have very few motives to swim against the current. Many are highly motivated to conform, even to break an election law if required by their superiors. It might be partly due to the fact that these people see no way how the opposition could actually win the main battle – presidential elections, even though some of these public servants might covertly oppose Lukashenka’s policies.

The only real election campaign in Belarus is presidential. But it is also the most fraudulent. It is vital that, as it approaches, the Belarusian opposition comes prepared and organized. It’s good that we have local elections before it so as to test the amended Belarusian electoral law and see how it works out.

To wavering conservatives I’d say, it is high time to realize that being green does not contradict capitalism or traditional values. Being green is purely traditional and capitalistic. First, it saves life on earth. Second, alternative renewable energy will probably be the most important industry of XXI century. The sooner you grant political and financial support to it, the better standing on the energy marketplace your country will have.

To left-wingers I’d say, green jobs are not outsourced, they stay at home, and they feed life back into your home economies.

Frankly, I am quite frustrated with most Belarusian politicians being quite blank and lackadaisical as it comes to green ideas. Fortunately, there are exceptions. I salute both Milinkevich and Lyabedzka for their quite vocal opposition to construction of a nuclear plant in the greenest region of Belarus. Belarus also has a Green Party which has partly sprung up from the community of anarchists and leftwing youth. The Green Party may be small, but I salute them for being active opponents of the nuclear plant construction.

Belarusians have suffered from nuclear power enough. We have reasons to go green. No way would it happen though. Not with this government… It is sad to see how our foreign policy is all about getting cheap gas and oil; when we don’t, we are in big trouble. So we want to fight our energy dependency from Russia by building a nuclear plant. Anecdotally, it is Russians who will build it for us. I wonder what kind of energy independence that would be?

Well, maybe I don’t need to be so harsh on the nuclear energy. I know it is cleaner than coal. But I also know that the spent fuel rods contain highly radioactive fission products and must be stored safely. These used fuel rods are considered high level nuclear waste. I wonder where it would be stored. Is Belarus prepared for it? Is local population prepared for it? Hardly. My impression is that they do not know what they are subscribing to. All they hear from the authorities is pro-nuclear propaganda. Voices of dissent are marginalized. In such a political climate, are we really prepared to build a nuclear plant properly? How safe will it be when the government ignores opinion of ecologists (one was even detained)?

I personally would rather see Belarus invest in wind power. We don’t get much sun here, but we do have winds. How come our country totally ignores this endless source of energy, while the world, especially the European Union, is actively building up its wind power infrastructure? Are we wearing a blindfold?

Tradition involves what people actually do now, whereas history narrates what people supposedly once did. Where tradition stops and history begins appears to depend a great deal upon the social origins of national activists. Here again the Lithuanians enjoyed an unexpected advantage over the Belarusians. Activists of humble social origins, whose families never played any role in early modern politics, found it easier to treat the entire past as history. Lithuanian activists, often Russian-educated peasant sons, happily skipped over several centuries and spoke of rebirth. Belarusian activists, Polish-speaking Roman Catholic gentry, were bogged down in the received truth of the actual tradition they learned from their parents and grandparents.

I can’t agree more.

The party did not split as it had happened in the past when an old party leader could not accept to cooperate with a new one. The old leader would just bang the door, taking his supporters with him. That was before. Now our democratic parties are becoming more democratic and tolerant, aren’t they?

Well, let’s just say that somebody’s hands are itching to put stokes into the wheels of the newly elected party leader and council. According to the Belarusian blogosphere, a webmaster, loyal to the previous leader, is refusing to pass passwords and website requisites to the new team. Thus they can’t update the party website. A source in the party revealed that they are now thinking of registering a new domain to bypass the obstacle.

Can you imagine anything like that happening in your country? For example, what if Bush web team refused to pass control to Obama’s team over whitehouse.gov? Belarus is surely a pretty odd place.

Now it seems, if nothing goes wrong, this country will be the first Baltic state to adopt euro. Way to go, Estonia, way to go!