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Bloggers Versus Billionaire
Roger Whittaker writes "An interesting case in England is pitting the combined power of multiple bloggers against an Uzbek billionaire. The bloggers are supporting the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who has written a book about what happened there after the fall of Communism. The book is apparently unflattering in the extreme to oligarch Alisher Usmanov, who has engaged the law firm Schillings (which seems to specialize in getting unfavorable Web content removed for rich clients). Their threats have led to the removal of Murray's blog site by his hosting company Fasthosts. But a large number of bloggers have taken up Murray's cause, and the content that caused the original complaint, and links to it, have now sprung up in a very large number of places. The Internet still seems to regard censorship as damage and route around it."
Looks like Borat was right about Uzbekistan
If this jerk had simply kept his trap shut and his legal team leashed, I would never have heard of him. But by being an aggressive prick -- he gets worldwide exposure and confirmation that he is an aggressive prick.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
It looks harmless enough, but if you try to take information away from it, it explodes in your face.
We asked Murray if he intends to stay on Usmanov's back. He replied: "There is room on Usmanov's back for an awful lot of people. You could get even more on his stomach, and possibly lose some under the overlap of his chins."
We think that's a "yes".
It's called the Streisand effect, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect Bet he's got a smaller nose though :-)
Is this perhaps the same guy who's famous for boiling people alive: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3943.htm
Attempting to suppress a piece of information nowadays practically guarantees that it will be more widely disseminated than ever before, and with enough redundant links to remind you that the Net's underlying protocols were designed to survive WWIII.
This will without a doubt be entertaining and possibly educational. There are plenty of people with power/money who would like to censor others' public opinions of them. It is easier in some countries (China) than others (EU, US?, etc.). There may certainly be lessons to learn for both sides. I know who I'm rooting for but of course I'm not an oligarch.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
September 2, 2007
Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist
I thought I should make my views on Alisher Usmanov quite plain to you. You are unlikely to see much plain talking on Usmanov elsewhere in the media becuase he has already used his billions and his lawyers in a pre-emptive strike. They have written to all major UK newspapers, including the latter:
"Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov does not have any criminal record."
Let me make it quite clear that Alisher Usmanov is a criminal. He was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke "Gorbachev", a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed. That is completely untrue.
Usmanov's pardon was nothing to do with Gorbachev. It was achieved through the growing autonomy of another thug, President Karimov, at first President of the Uzbek Soviet Socilist Republic and from 1991 President of Uzbekistan. Karimov ordered the "Pardon" because of his alliance with Usmanov's mentor, Uzbek mafia boss and major international heroin overlord Gafur Rakimov. Far from being on Gorbachev's side, Karimov was one of the Politburo hardliners who had Gorbachev arrested in the attempted coup that was thwarted by Yeltsin standing on the tanks outside the White House.
Usmanov is just a criminal whose gangster connections with one of the World's most corrupt regimes got him out of jail. He then plunged into the "privatisation" process at a time when gangster muscle was used to secure physical control of assets, and the alliance between the Russian Mafia and Russian security services was being formed.
Usmanov has two key alliances. he is very close indeed to President Karimov, and especially to his daughter Gulnara. It was Usmanov who engineered the 2005 diplomatic reversal in which the United States was kicked out of its airbase in Uzbekistan and Gazprom took over the country's natural gas assets. Usmanov, as chairman of Gazprom Investholdings paid a bribe of $88 million to Gulnara Karimova to secure this. This is set out on page 366 of Murder in Samarkand.
Alisher Usmanov had risen to chair of Gazprom Investholdings because of his close personal friendship with Putin, He had accessed Putin through Putin's long time secretary and now chef de cabinet, Piotr Jastrzebski. Usmanov and Jastrzebski were roommates at college. Gazprominvestholdings is the group that handles Gazproms interests outside Russia, Usmanov's role is, in effect, to handle Gazprom's bribery and sleaze on the international arena, and the use of gas supply cuts as a threat to uncooperative satellite states.
Gazprom has also been the tool which Putin has used to attack internal democracy and close down the independent media in Russia. Gazprom has bought out - with the owners having no choice - the only independent national TV station and numerous rgional TV stations, several radio stations and two formerly independent national newspapers. These have been changed into slavish adulation of Putin. Usmanov helped accomplish this through Gazprom. The major financial newspaper, Kommersant, he bought personally. He immediately replaced the editor-in-chief with a pro-Putin hack, and three months later the long-serving campaigning defence correspondent, Ivan Safronov, mysteriously fell to his death from a window.
All this, both on Gazprom and the journalist's death, is set out in great detail here:
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/06/russian_journal.html
Usmanov is also dogged by the wides
but isn't a Billionaire in Britian someone with 1e12 (a million millions) pounds. That is, over 2 trillion US dollars?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Not sure if any kind of pornography or other forms of free speech should be censored; once you start the process, there's no stopping.
On the other hand, producing or sponsoring sick materials involving children, rape, etc. might very well deserve an execution, or life imprisonment at least...
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Of course all this is all because Usmanov has recently bought up a load of shares and his vast, blubbery shadow is being cast over North London as he circles Arsenal Football Club - even the club chairman has today spoken out today over concerns about how he amassed his fortune. Usmanov has said publicly that he intends to gain a "blocking stake" in the club. Football fans can be ALMOST as devout as Apple fanboys ;)
While I agree that this guy does seem like an arse, I have a thought experiment: What if someone were to make up a story like "I found out that John Howard was taking bribes from George Bush to influence Australian lawmaking -- but when I blogged about it, the AFP had my webhost pull my blog!"? They could manipulate this phenomenon to spread misinformation and people would end up believing it.
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
What if in some other case the information were completely false? If somebody posted your name and said that you were involved in perpetrating the abuses at Guantanamo Bay? And they made sure that the information was spread far enough over the Internet that a Google search on your name would bring it up?
Would you still be an "aggressive prick" (your words) for trying to correct the record? It's undoubtedly slander to knowingly falsely accuse somebody of that sort of heinous crime. But it's the sort of thing that a flat "I didn't do it" wouldn't work on. Most people aren't going to read far enough to find your denial, and even if they did why would they believe it?
That's the hard case. Think it over.
But by being an aggressive prick -- he gets worldwide exposure and confirmation that he is an aggressive prick.
The article barely mentions it, and the summary not at all, but the background to this is the battle over the ownership of Arsenal, one of the big four English football (soccer) clubs. The Arsenal fans (and apparently Craig Murray) are generally opposed to Usmanov's takeover of the club and some of them have blogs, hence the attacks on him and the unleashing of lawyers in response.
Some more details here: ahref=http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/18/arsenal-usmanov-kroenke-lifestyle-sport-cx_pm_0918arsenal_print.html/rel=url2html-32009http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/18/arsenal-usmanov-kroenke-lifestyle-sport-cx_pm_0918arsenal_print.html/>
Otherwise why would a bunch of British bloggers care about the business practices of an Uzbekistani businessman, and why would he care what they think.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
You know a frequently exploited theme in science fiction, which actually comes fromt he real world: all together we're worth more than just the sum of us.
Just like none of the nerve cells in our brain knows exactly what effect it has on the big picture, they all together create complicated intelligence machine.
Then I read this:
"The Internet still seems to regard censorship as damage and route around it."
I know it's not the context they used it in, but ponder this: Internet has enabled million of people worldwide to communicate instantly.
In this case people came together to show some rich loser he can't mess with their blogger buddy. The result is an information network that quickly provides redundant copies of information under attack and makes the information virtually impossible to erase ever.
The resulting intelligence, behavior and outcome probably escapes the mind of each one of the participators that form it.
Does the Internet have a mind on its own already?
That's what a defamation suit is for, but if you look around, they specifically aren't claiming defamation -- they're just dealing out take down notices under the draconian anti-speech rules in Britain. Secondly, given the author's position, he is quite likely a highly knowledgeable source. Last, even if totally false, he has by his own aggressive actions made the problem worse, which was my point.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
In Uzbekistan during communist times, a leader emerged, Sharaf Rashidov, who defrauded the Soviet system by falsifying the production statistics that were used to calculate payments. Communisms central planning would move products directly from producer to user but pay from a central fund so it was ripe for fraud by falsification of statistics. Eventually, the Soviet government found out and many of the government were imprisoned or dismissed.
When communism died, so did all semblance of control over the government there who reverted to a kleptocracy. The power to export (Uzbekistan is a major cotton producer) or to convert currency was given to a select few. When the blackmarket rate was something like four times the official currency rate you can imagine what happened - yes, a massive black-market in currency. Privatisation became a rip-off. Although shares were passed out to all, those in remote places became vulnerable to raiders who swept them up in return for nothing.
Given the nature of the controls on the Uzbek economy, I cannot understand how Usmanov made his money legally. He cannot be permitted to become the beneficial owner of a western company as the anti-money laundering rules would force the company to become increased-risk or worse which would cause problems for western banks to do business with him. Lawyers are now also constrained by anti-money laundering rules, so they too could have problems working with him.
A very favourable tax regime for those with non-domiciled status. They pay tax only on assets brought in to the country and keep the rest in off-shore tax havens.
I am in a 12-step recovery program for
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.