NATO is the US+EU+some other countries. Its member countries own more than half the world's military, and it has promised to defend any member state that comes under attack. That's why NATO is in Afghanistan: a member state was under attack. If ever a member state is actually invaded, you bet NATO will strike back. It can't afford not to.
and I can guarantee you right now that Europe would sell the Baltic states back to Russia if it came to push and shove.
I can guarantee you it won't. The Baltic states aren't just part of NATO, they're part of the EU, part of Schengen, part of the EU's internal borderless free market. The EU giving up the Baltic states is like the US giving up Alaska. Or maybe Puerto Rico or something.
But Russia doesn't require that they get officially reintegrated into Russia, not directly anyways. If Russia is still seen as the overlord, I'm sure all those former republics will be permitted their own governments.
But they don't just have their own governments anymore. They're subject to the European Parliament, the European Commission, the European Courts. They're close to Russia, but they're out of its grip.
For other former Soviet-states, joining NATO and the EU is the road to freedom, the way out of Russia's grasp, and that's what Russia wants to prevent at any cost.
Oil is a big part of it, but it's hardly the only element.
Ofcourse there's a lot more to it. There always is. It wouldn't surprise me if Georgia hadn't even thought about the oil (if they did, they wouldn't have antagonised Russia so much). But to Russia, it's definitely near the top, and for US+EU, I suspect it's the straw that makes them support Georgia and condemn Russia. They need an alternative source of oil/gas, and Georgia can give them that.
The real cause of it is that a reascendant Russian Empire is telling all the fledgling statelets that broke off during a decade of political and economic chaos after the collapse of the Communist Dynasty are being reigned back in.... It is has been a basic tenet of Russian foreign policy for centuries that wherever you find Slavs, they ultimately should owe their allegiance to the Muscovite Princes (whatever form that might take at any particular moment in time). Unfortunately, in a world of petroleum-dominated economics, we tend to think of things in terms of dollars and cents, and yet one should never underestimate the power of nationalism. Oil is simply the current coin by which Russia can exert its muscle, but the situation is no different than it was twenty years ago or two hundred years ago.
But even that is ultimately about oil. How do you think Russia recovered from its economic collapse? It has lots of oil and gas, a near monopoly on access to central Asian oil and gas so it can buy those cheaply, and oil prices are going through the roof, so it can sell them at an insane profit to the EU.
That's why Russia is able to reign in it's "client states" in the first place. And now one of them is threatening that monopoly. Ofcourse it doesn't help that Georgia has been antagonising Russia for some time now, supporting breakaway provinces and seeking NATO membership, all of which undermines Russia's control over its neighbours, and therefore also Russia's control over central Asian oil.
So it goes both ways: Russia needs the oil to rebuild their empire and excert control over its neighbours, and it needs that control to keep their oil profits. It's not just about oil; it's about power. But these days, power usually involves lots of oil. The US is really not all that different in that respect.
Since the fall of the U.S.S.R, Russia's been working hard at westernizing. They're just completing the transition by invading another smaller country for oil under the pretext of national security.
I wish they were westernizing. It looked that way under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, but under Putin they're completely back to the line of the Czars (including the soviet czars).
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are all Western aligned at the moment. But each forms a crucial link in the chain. If we lose one, we lose the lot.
Exactly. And while Turkey is out of Russia's reach, Georgia and Azerbaijan are not. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some conflict in/with Azerbaijan became big news somewhere in the next couple of years.
And there are quite a lot of those, in part due to Stalin's habit of moving people around. Add the Baltic states to your list.
No doubt Putin would love to add the Baltic states to the list, but they're part of NATO already, so he's too late. Attacking them will get him at war with all of NATO, and that's more than even the new oil-rich Russia can afford.
He'll do everything to make sure Ukraine and Georgia won't join NATO, however.
These problems occur, when a country prouding itself to be the greatest, democratic nation on earth, breaks its own rules(like : not intruding on other nations Sovereignty),
This is a very good point. Recent actions of the US have given other nations like Russia and China plenty of excuses to do what they like, and to push their own interests.
Whenever the US criticised China for its human rights record, China can criticise the US right back for its human rights record.
And because the US invaded a souvereign nation with a flimsy excuse (when it was really about oil), now Russia can use the same flimsy excuse to invade a foreign nation (which is really about oil). And they make claims of genocide too, because that worked so well in Bosnia and Kosovo.
...somehow since then we aren't allowed to piss them off.
Russia has the greatest weapon of our time: oil. They have more than the Saudis. Nobody is going to piss them off and disrupt their supply.
Oil is what the Russia/Georgia conflict is actually about! There's lots of oil and gas in the Caspian Sea and central Asia. There are a couple of ways to get it, but two of the most important ones are:
1: through Kazakhstan and Russia 2: through Azerbaidjan, Georgia and Turkey
There's your conflict, including the reason why the US and EU want Russia out of Georgia.
The real risk isn't the fine, but the financial ruin you're facing if you ever end up in a real car accident.
What financial ruin?
There are three possible scenarios:
1. Both parties in an accident are insured. It's the insurance companies financial problem. 2. Neither party is insured. One is not likely to sue the other because it might mean admitting that they didn't have insurance either. 3. One party is insured. In this case, it would be quicker and easier for them to claim through MIB than it would be to sue the uninsured driver, and have a rather higher chance of actually recovering any losses.
I admit I don't know the differences between Dutch and British law on this, but in Netherland, as far as I know, you do risk financially ruining yourself and someone else if you hit someone with your car.
Especially when you hit a pedestrian or bicyclist.
In an open market like we have here in the US, if the offer I make to potential employees is not satisfactory, they will shun it. I may only be left with the bottom of the barrel and my company will die because of a lack of decent employees. This is not something laws should be governing in a capitalist environment. This is something free enterprise will take care of by itself if the government will merely make sure the market stays competitive.
This would be true if workers have any other choice. The problem is that people require food to live, and not all countries provide high-quality social security, which means that in those countries, workers may be forced to accept really badly paid, unfair positions. In such situations, it's fair for the government to regulate the job market so nobody will take unfair advantage of these people. If having a job wasn't such a bare necessity, you'd be absolutely right.
Sometimes starting your own company works, but not if you need food on the table right now. Or if you're trained for a job that requires significant capital investment to get started.
That was true communism. All the stuff about violent revolutions and dictatorships of the proletariat came directly from Marx.
It did, but Soviet Russia wan't a dictatorship of the proletariat. Proletarians had no power whatsoever. It was a dictatorship of the political elite.
But even then, not all communists agreed with Marx. Marx argued for state communism, as opposed to people like Bakunin, who argued for libertarian communism where no state would dictate anything.
This is actually the original use of the word "libertarian". Libertarian capitalism is a more recent invention.
It's already happening for car insurance here in the UK.
You're legally obliged to have third party insurance cover. However, young drivers and drivers who are deemed "high risk" (though no insurance company will tell you exactly what they class as "high risk" so to a certain extent you have to guess) are routinely quoted well over £1,000 for cover.
Reading through court cases in my local newspaper, it seems that driving without insurance generally attracts a fine no greater than £750. (It also attracts a criminal record and is something you'd have to tell your insurance company about - who would then increase the premium still further - but if you weren't prepared to chance that in the first place you probably would have paid for insurance)
Guess what? More and more people are taking the risk and driving without insurance.
The real risk isn't the fine, but the financial ruin you're facing if you ever end up in a real car accident.
Let's play Devil's Advocate, not for the intent of trolling nor for flaming...
How about if this was a law in China but not here?
Well, I for one think it would be great if China had a law that required workers to be paid for the work they do. But what's so Devil's Advocate about that?
Having input/influence on a hiring decision is not the same as having the AUTHORITY to do the hiring and/or firing. Basically if you want a litmus test just see if Joe can unilaterally hire Bob on his own. If he cant then he doesn't have the authority.
There are plenty of organisations where nobody can hire anyone on his own. Hiring is a joint decision, and several people need to approve of the new hire.
This is your friendly corporate PR guy come to tell you a heavily softened version of "If you push us we'll pay you your overtime, then have you train your indian replcement while we hold your severance pay hostage"
have a nice day : ).
Seriously. If I had a job in this crappy market, i'd be kissing some serious feet right now.
Not all work is easily outsourced to India. Particularly in non-English speaking countries, it's nice if a number of the employees know the local language. And even in English-speaking countries, working with people from a different culture on the other side of the world can cause communication problems that cost a lot more than what you saved by outsourcing.
But it depends on the job. Some work is easily outsourced. But we're not quite happy with the quality of the work we outsourced to Serbia.
The question is, apart from Government financing, is it possible for Normal People to buy a Green Home / Car / Life?
There's a lot you can do (though not all of it completely on your own). Durable electricity (mostly from wind and biomass) in Netherland is actually slightly cheaper than the good old fashioned stuff, because of a slight tax break. Tax incentives can help a lot.
Other measures, like good insulation in your home, efficient central heating, and a smaller, lighter car, can very quickly earn their money back. And living close to your work so you can go to work by bicycle instead of by car, will save you tons of time and money, and get you in shape as a free bonus.
Saving energy often takes some investment, but since energy costs money, saving energy will eventually save money.
It's the risk of a non-transparent market, and lack of transparency makes a market less open.
I don't know if I'm going to enjoy the Tiramisu, but do you think I'd be within my rights to demand a dessert, and then only pay if I enjoyed it? Because that's essentially what you're saying is a valid reason.
There are two big differences between tiramisu and computer games. Firstly, tiramisu is something phisical, and therefore subject to scarcity (which information like software isn't), and secondly, tiramisu generally doesn't cost you $50. You can try tiramisu quite cheaply once, and if it turns out you like it, you can go ahead and spend $50 on tiramisu over the course of a year, knowing that you like it.
A different business model that would also reduce the risk to the consumer is a cheap subscription model: pay $2 a month to play the game, and if you like the game enough to play it for two years, you still end up paying $48, but you pay that money knowing that you enjoy that game.
(Ofcourse a subscription model like that wouldn't work for a lot of people in a lot of circumstances either, and would make most sense for online games.)
After RTFA, it appears as if the bloke in question set up his linkdin several weeks prior to him leaving. Of a more interesting nature, in my mind, is, at what point does an employer here in the States 'own' your contacts? Think about it. You've been on a site like the one mentioned in the article for lets say 5 years. You accept a position at a new company. Over the course of your 2 years being employed there, you add lets say 5 contacts. You then accept another position at another company, perhaps because you received a better job offer through this service. Can the comapny you are now leaving sue you in the US and obtain all of your contacts, even those prior to when you joined?
Depends on what you mean by "obtaining your contacts". On linkedin, you can contact your contacts' contacts, so chances are your co-workers will be able to make your contacts their contacts too. If those contacts agree, ofcourse. That's pretty much how it works.
I fail to see the need to get judges involved.
Another question is, are you now in the position of having to list out any and all personal and professional contacts you have on various internet sites as a part of your disclosure when filling out your paperwork for a new company? Sort of like having to list patents, websites and other works you might already have prior to working somehwere? Time will tell I guess. this case seems pretty straightforward based on the limited article...but it sure will muddy up quick.
I can't help laughing. Russia has basically taken the play-book we used when we "liberated" Kosovo from the Serbs (Russia's friends) and is now using it against our friends. Anyone who didn't see this coming when we gave Kosovo pseudo-independence earlier this year is a blind fool.
I noticed that too. Putin and Medvedev are repeating almost exactly the same things that the US and EU said about Bosnia and Kosovo.
I bet they'll even set up a nice, impartial, war crimes tribunal to try the all the predominant political figures from the losing side. It's what we did.
Well, they claim genocide, so I guess they'll have to. And who's going to stop them?
Ofcourse Russia playing hardball like that is going to hurt their relations with the EU and the US, but do they care? Can the EU afford and embargo on Russia, with all the gas we're importing from them?
Belgium? That depends on whose history books you've been reading. I'd say the dispute over the southern Netherlands which led to the creation of Belgium was one with France, not with a state that didn't yet exist.
I'm talking about the secession of Belgium from the united Netherlands in the 19th century. We had a short and not very successful military campaign.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess I sold my shares too soon.
(I bought some when they introduced the first iPod nano. Good investment.)
I'm not even sure NATO is worth that much.
NATO is the US+EU+some other countries. Its member countries own more than half the world's military, and it has promised to defend any member state that comes under attack. That's why NATO is in Afghanistan: a member state was under attack. If ever a member state is actually invaded, you bet NATO will strike back. It can't afford not to.
and I can guarantee you right now that Europe would sell the Baltic states back to Russia if it came to push and shove.
I can guarantee you it won't. The Baltic states aren't just part of NATO, they're part of the EU, part of Schengen, part of the EU's internal borderless free market. The EU giving up the Baltic states is like the US giving up Alaska. Or maybe Puerto Rico or something.
But Russia doesn't require that they get officially reintegrated into Russia, not directly anyways. If Russia is still seen as the overlord, I'm sure all those former republics will be permitted their own governments.
But they don't just have their own governments anymore. They're subject to the European Parliament, the European Commission, the European Courts. They're close to Russia, but they're out of its grip.
For other former Soviet-states, joining NATO and the EU is the road to freedom, the way out of Russia's grasp, and that's what Russia wants to prevent at any cost.
Oil is a big part of it, but it's hardly the only element.
Ofcourse there's a lot more to it. There always is. It wouldn't surprise me if Georgia hadn't even thought about the oil (if they did, they wouldn't have antagonised Russia so much). But to Russia, it's definitely near the top, and for US+EU, I suspect it's the straw that makes them support Georgia and condemn Russia. They need an alternative source of oil/gas, and Georgia can give them that.
The real cause of it is that a reascendant Russian Empire is telling all the fledgling statelets that broke off during a decade of political and economic chaos after the collapse of the Communist Dynasty are being reigned back in. ... It is has been a basic tenet of Russian foreign policy for centuries that wherever you find Slavs, they ultimately should owe their allegiance to the Muscovite Princes (whatever form that might take at any particular moment in time). Unfortunately, in a world of petroleum-dominated economics, we tend to think of things in terms of dollars and cents, and yet one should never underestimate the power of nationalism. Oil is simply the current coin by which Russia can exert its muscle, but the situation is no different than it was twenty years ago or two hundred years ago.
But even that is ultimately about oil. How do you think Russia recovered from its economic collapse? It has lots of oil and gas, a near monopoly on access to central Asian oil and gas so it can buy those cheaply, and oil prices are going through the roof, so it can sell them at an insane profit to the EU.
That's why Russia is able to reign in it's "client states" in the first place. And now one of them is threatening that monopoly. Ofcourse it doesn't help that Georgia has been antagonising Russia for some time now, supporting breakaway provinces and seeking NATO membership, all of which undermines Russia's control over its neighbours, and therefore also Russia's control over central Asian oil.
So it goes both ways: Russia needs the oil to rebuild their empire and excert control over its neighbours, and it needs that control to keep their oil profits. It's not just about oil; it's about power. But these days, power usually involves lots of oil. The US is really not all that different in that respect.
Since the fall of the U.S.S.R, Russia's been working hard at westernizing. They're just completing the transition by invading another smaller country for oil under the pretext of national security.
I wish they were westernizing. It looked that way under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, but under Putin they're completely back to the line of the Czars (including the soviet czars).
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are all Western aligned at the moment. But each forms a crucial link in the chain. If we lose one, we lose the lot.
Exactly. And while Turkey is out of Russia's reach, Georgia and Azerbaijan are not. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some conflict in/with Azerbaijan became big news somewhere in the next couple of years.
And there are quite a lot of those, in part due to Stalin's habit of moving people around. Add the Baltic states to your list.
No doubt Putin would love to add the Baltic states to the list, but they're part of NATO already, so he's too late. Attacking them will get him at war with all of NATO, and that's more than even the new oil-rich Russia can afford.
He'll do everything to make sure Ukraine and Georgia won't join NATO, however.
apparently, Georgia attacked first, a prodominantly russian population.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_jCdbcAjNM
Only predominantly Russian because Russia started handing out Russian passports to foreign nationals.
As it stands, even with the recent erosion in the dollar, average Americans have more material wealth than they had 50 years ago, or 30 years ago.
The average American, yes. But the US government has a lot more debt than it had 30 years ago.
These problems occur, when a country prouding itself to be the greatest, democratic nation on earth, breaks its own rules(like : not intruding on other nations Sovereignty),
This is a very good point. Recent actions of the US have given other nations like Russia and China plenty of excuses to do what they like, and to push their own interests.
Whenever the US criticised China for its human rights record, China can criticise the US right back for its human rights record.
And because the US invaded a souvereign nation with a flimsy excuse (when it was really about oil), now Russia can use the same flimsy excuse to invade a foreign nation (which is really about oil). And they make claims of genocide too, because that worked so well in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Russia has the greatest weapon of our time: oil. They have more than the Saudis. Nobody is going to piss them off and disrupt their supply.
Oil is what the Russia/Georgia conflict is actually about! There's lots of oil and gas in the Caspian Sea and central Asia. There are a couple of ways to get it, but two of the most important ones are:
1: through Kazakhstan and Russia
2: through Azerbaidjan, Georgia and Turkey
There's your conflict, including the reason why the US and EU want Russia out of Georgia.
Can anyone shed light on what is going on?
In particular, I'd like to know what non-proliferation in/of/for/by Iran has to do with Soyuz or Georgia.
The real risk isn't the fine, but the financial ruin you're facing if you ever end up in a real car accident.
What financial ruin?
There are three possible scenarios:
1. Both parties in an accident are insured. It's the insurance companies financial problem.
2. Neither party is insured. One is not likely to sue the other because it might mean admitting that they didn't have insurance either.
3. One party is insured. In this case, it would be quicker and easier for them to claim through MIB than it would be to sue the uninsured driver, and have a rather higher chance of actually recovering any losses.
I admit I don't know the differences between Dutch and British law on this, but in Netherland, as far as I know, you do risk financially ruining yourself and someone else if you hit someone with your car.
Especially when you hit a pedestrian or bicyclist.
In an open market like we have here in the US, if the offer I make to potential employees is not satisfactory, they will shun it. I may only be left with the bottom of the barrel and my company will die because of a lack of decent employees. This is not something laws should be governing in a capitalist environment. This is something free enterprise will take care of by itself if the government will merely make sure the market stays competitive.
This would be true if workers have any other choice. The problem is that people require food to live, and not all countries provide high-quality social security, which means that in those countries, workers may be forced to accept really badly paid, unfair positions. In such situations, it's fair for the government to regulate the job market so nobody will take unfair advantage of these people. If having a job wasn't such a bare necessity, you'd be absolutely right.
Sometimes starting your own company works, but not if you need food on the table right now. Or if you're trained for a job that requires significant capital investment to get started.
That was true communism. All the stuff about violent revolutions and dictatorships of the proletariat came directly from Marx.
It did, but Soviet Russia wan't a dictatorship of the proletariat. Proletarians had no power whatsoever. It was a dictatorship of the political elite.
But even then, not all communists agreed with Marx. Marx argued for state communism, as opposed to people like Bakunin, who argued for libertarian communism where no state would dictate anything.
This is actually the original use of the word "libertarian". Libertarian capitalism is a more recent invention.
It's already happening for car insurance here in the UK.
You're legally obliged to have third party insurance cover. However, young drivers and drivers who are deemed "high risk" (though no insurance company will tell you exactly what they class as "high risk" so to a certain extent you have to guess) are routinely quoted well over £1,000 for cover.
Reading through court cases in my local newspaper, it seems that driving without insurance generally attracts a fine no greater than £750. (It also attracts a criminal record and is something you'd have to tell your insurance company about - who would then increase the premium still further - but if you weren't prepared to chance that in the first place you probably would have paid for insurance)
Guess what? More and more people are taking the risk and driving without insurance.
The real risk isn't the fine, but the financial ruin you're facing if you ever end up in a real car accident.
Let's play Devil's Advocate, not for the intent of trolling nor for flaming...
How about if this was a law in China but not here?
Well, I for one think it would be great if China had a law that required workers to be paid for the work they do. But what's so Devil's Advocate about that?
Having input/influence on a hiring decision is not the same as having the AUTHORITY to do the hiring and/or firing. Basically if you want a litmus test just see if Joe can unilaterally hire Bob on his own. If he cant then he doesn't have the authority.
There are plenty of organisations where nobody can hire anyone on his own. Hiring is a joint decision, and several people need to approve of the new hire.
This is your friendly corporate PR guy come to tell you a heavily softened version of "If you push us we'll pay you your overtime, then have you train your indian replcement while we hold your severance pay hostage"
have a nice day : ).
Seriously. If I had a job in this crappy market, i'd be kissing some serious feet right now.
Not all work is easily outsourced to India. Particularly in non-English speaking countries, it's nice if a number of the employees know the local language. And even in English-speaking countries, working with people from a different culture on the other side of the world can cause communication problems that cost a lot more than what you saved by outsourcing.
But it depends on the job. Some work is easily outsourced. But we're not quite happy with the quality of the work we outsourced to Serbia.
The lyrics are very educational, but the Cernettes are far better.
What happened to the Cernettes anyway? And why don't they make a music video about this?
The question is, apart from Government financing, is it possible for Normal People to buy a Green Home / Car / Life?
There's a lot you can do (though not all of it completely on your own). Durable electricity (mostly from wind and biomass) in Netherland is actually slightly cheaper than the good old fashioned stuff, because of a slight tax break. Tax incentives can help a lot.
Other measures, like good insulation in your home, efficient central heating, and a smaller, lighter car, can very quickly earn their money back. And living close to your work so you can go to work by bicycle instead of by car, will save you tons of time and money, and get you in shape as a free bonus.
Saving energy often takes some investment, but since energy costs money, saving energy will eventually save money.
Trying before you buy reduces that risk.
Isn't that the risk of an open market?
It's the risk of a non-transparent market, and lack of transparency makes a market less open.
I don't know if I'm going to enjoy the Tiramisu, but do you think I'd be within my rights to demand a dessert, and then only pay if I enjoyed it? Because that's essentially what you're saying is a valid reason.
There are two big differences between tiramisu and computer games. Firstly, tiramisu is something phisical, and therefore subject to scarcity (which information like software isn't), and secondly, tiramisu generally doesn't cost you $50. You can try tiramisu quite cheaply once, and if it turns out you like it, you can go ahead and spend $50 on tiramisu over the course of a year, knowing that you like it.
A different business model that would also reduce the risk to the consumer is a cheap subscription model: pay $2 a month to play the game, and if you like the game enough to play it for two years, you still end up paying $48, but you pay that money knowing that you enjoy that game.
(Ofcourse a subscription model like that wouldn't work for a lot of people in a lot of circumstances either, and would make most sense for online games.)
After RTFA, it appears as if the bloke in question set up his linkdin several weeks prior to him leaving. Of a more interesting nature, in my mind, is, at what point does an employer here in the States 'own' your contacts? Think about it. You've been on a site like the one mentioned in the article for lets say 5 years. You accept a position at a new company. Over the course of your 2 years being employed there, you add lets say 5 contacts. You then accept another position at another company, perhaps because you received a better job offer through this service. Can the comapny you are now leaving sue you in the US and obtain all of your contacts, even those prior to when you joined?
Depends on what you mean by "obtaining your contacts". On linkedin, you can contact your contacts' contacts, so chances are your co-workers will be able to make your contacts their contacts too. If those contacts agree, ofcourse. That's pretty much how it works.
I fail to see the need to get judges involved.
Another question is, are you now in the position of having to list out any and all personal and professional contacts you have on various internet sites as a part of your disclosure when filling out your paperwork for a new company? Sort of like having to list patents, websites and other works you might already have prior to working somehwere?
Time will tell I guess. this case seems pretty straightforward based on the limited article...but it sure will muddy up quick.
I can't help laughing. Russia has basically taken the play-book we used when we "liberated" Kosovo from the Serbs (Russia's friends) and is now using it against our friends. Anyone who didn't see this coming when we gave Kosovo pseudo-independence earlier this year is a blind fool.
I noticed that too. Putin and Medvedev are repeating almost exactly the same things that the US and EU said about Bosnia and Kosovo.
I bet they'll even set up a nice, impartial, war crimes tribunal to try the all the predominant political figures from the losing side. It's what we did.
Well, they claim genocide, so I guess they'll have to. And who's going to stop them?
Ofcourse Russia playing hardball like that is going to hurt their relations with the EU and the US, but do they care? Can the EU afford and embargo on Russia, with all the gas we're importing from them?
Belgium? That depends on whose history books you've been reading. I'd say the dispute over the southern Netherlands which led to the creation of Belgium was one with France, not with a state that didn't yet exist.
I'm talking about the secession of Belgium from the united Netherlands in the 19th century. We had a short and not very successful military campaign.
His survival and continued career, despite massive head injuries, does however prove that you don't need brains to be a TV celebrity.
And his appearance in any infomercial that will give him a paycheck proves that you don't need dignity or taste either.
I think the lack of need for dignity and taste in order to be a TV celebrity has been proven long before Richard Hammond was even born.