Dr. Hoare’s Balkan excesses need… anti-nationalist critics 21/08/2009

Noam Chomsky via last.fm

Markos Attila Hoare

I first came across Dr. Marko Attila Hoare (and his blog here) by reading his vehement critique (here) against Noam Chomsky. His position on Chomsky -which I found rather extreme- was to label him a “genocide denier”, as regards the Srebrenica massacre. His reasons for this seemed to me… rather dubious; they are partly the result of a rather extreme conceptual dichotomy (“Procrustean” I would say) that Dr. Hoare draws on a meta-level, e.g. in his article “The Left Revisionists”:

http://nwglassblowing.com/BalkanWitness/hoare.htm (November 2003)

Admittedly, I found this article to be quite amazing, as a useful source of valuable information and sharp insights about former Yugoslavia and about the Bosnian War: -Insights that can undermine constructively many widely prevalent myths and misconceptions, especially the mistakes of  people who supported Milosevic, etc.

On the other hand, I also think that Dr. Hoare‘ s reasoning was partly based on a serious methodological error; a conceptual dichotomy or mutually exclusive Logic disjunction ( Black XOR White) which is false and -politically- extremely dangerous. (I will elaborate on this later…)

There is a profile of Dr. Hoare here, where my… initial inquisitiveness about his middle name “Attila“, as well about his anti-Greekness was resolved -with a smile:

Interviewer’s QUESTION:

• Who are your political heroes?

Dr. Hoare’s ANSWER:

• Those with whom I most identify are Tony Blair, Latinka Perovic[1] and Stjepan Mesic. Those whose historical contribution to human emancipation I most appreciate are Josip Broz Tito and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Ah, well…

So, according to the (39-year-old) British professor Dr. Marko Attila Hoare, Noam Chomsky is a “genocide denier”, but… Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is “the greatest contributor to HUMAN EMANCIPATION“(!) rather than a perpetrator of the Armenian[2] and Greek Genocides.

• Hm…. I guess Marko-Attila was probably raised as a Kemalist; “son of an Englishman and a Croatian woman” but… MAYBE also  partly Turkish? UPDATE: All these remarks are -regrettably- wrong; see the comments’ section, for further details.
  

• Moreover… WHAT the hell does he find so special about… Tony Blair? (bliah….)

Hm… perhaps Dr. Hoare wants to have… powerful friends in several NATO-loving countries. At the moment, he is regarded almost as a national hero, in Bosnia, “Macedonia“(=FYROM) and Croatia (his mother’s country). Ιt was also… frightfully nice and thoughtful of him, to praise Mr. Tony Blair… (not to mention his… unprecedented, unsurpassed GIFT to Turkish NATIONALISM, about Kemal… )

Coming back now, to Dr. Hoare’s positions on Yugoslavia and the Bosnian war, according to him (his 2003 – article mentioned earlier) everyone belongs to one of two (and only two) “camps”: -The “orthodox” camp and the “revisionist” camp, defined by him as follows:

Fallmerayer Reloaded -Εθνοπαράφρονες ενωθείτε! 07/06/2008

ΤΑ ΑΝΤΙΘΕΤΑ ΣΥΝΑΝΤΙΩΝΤΑΙ, ΤΑ ΑΝΤΙΘΕΤΑ ΕΛΚΟΝΤΑΙ…

Υπάρχει (περιφερόμενος στο διαδίκτυο) ΤΟΥΛΑΧΙΣΤΟΝ ένας εθνοπαράφρων υπερ-εθνικιστής Ελλην που πρεσβεύει το εξής ΔΟΓΜΑ, σε βαρυσήμαντες δηλώσεις του:

“Οσο για τους Σκοπιανούς, αυτοί

ΔΕΝ ειναι ΣΛΑΥΟΙ ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΕΣ,

ΑΥΤΟΙ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΚΑΘΑΡΟΑΙΜΟΙ ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΕΣ,

ΑΠΟΓΟΝΟΙ ΟΧΙ ΜΟΝΟΝ ΤΟΥ ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ, ΑΛΛΑ ΚΑΙ ΠΡΩΤΟΞΑΔΕΡΦΑ ΤΩΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΩΝ.

Αντιλαμβανεσθαιαιαιαι… την γραμμη τους?

Αντιλαμβανεσθαιαιαιαι… οτι

με την ΣΛΑΥΟ-ΒΟΥΛΓΑΡΙΚΗ γλωσσα τους

μπορεσαν και διαβασαν την στηλη της Ροσσετας?

Και επειδη

οι ΕΛΛΗΝΕΣ και το DNA τους εχει εξαφανισθει,

αυτοι σαν πρωτοξαδερφα

ΑΠΑΙΤΟΥΝ ΟΛΟΚΛΗΡΗ ΤΗΝ ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΙΑ

ΣΑΝ ΟΙ ΕΠΙΒΙΩΣΑΝΤΕΣ ΞΑΔΕΡΦΟΙ !”

Εεε… Ο ίδιος άνθρωπος θεωρεί πως ΜΟΝΟ οι Βλάχοι (Βλαχόφωνοι) Έλληνες είναι ΟΙ “αυθεντικοί” (με… Ορίτζιναλ Γκρηκ DNA), ενώ σχεδόν όλοι οι άλλοι Έλληνες (π.χ. νοτίως της Πίνδου, Αρκάδες, κλπ) είναι ΑΡΑΠΑΔΕΣ!

• Κατά τα άλλα… ΕΓΩ βγήκα “ρατσιστής”

• Και ο νοών, νοείτω…

• Διαβάστε: Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer – Wikipedia

Portrait of Fallmerayer (Staatsarchiv Nürnberg).

• Διαβάστε επίσης: Νίκη της δημοκρατίας και της ελευθεροτυπίας η σημερινή καταδίκη της Ελλάδας από το ευρωδικαστήριο του Στρασβούργου. Κόλαφος για ΛΑΟΣ και δικαιοσύνη (Zalmoxis)
  

• ΣΗΜΕΙΩΣΗ:

Guilt by Association (a Paranoid Political Fallacy) 01/06/2008

Image by Dr John2005 via Flickr

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION is a known Logic Fallacy in politics, etc.

Some syllogistic examples of guilt by association are:

• Hitler was a vegetarian. Hitler was pure evil. Therefore, vegetarians have evil ideals.

• Mr. Soros finances the ACLU, YOU finance the ACLU. Therefore, YOU are ( a supporter / lackey / lover of- ) Mr. Soros.

  

  Image via Wikipedia

Greek Joke (expressing this fallacy):

• Policemen are instruments, Buzukis are instruments. Therefore, Policemen are Buzukis.
  

Honour by association:

The logical inverse of “guilt by association” is honor by association, where one claims that…

someone or something must be reputable because of the people or organizations that are related to it or otherwise support it.

EXAMPLES:

• Alice is a lawyer, and Alice thinks highly of Bob. Therefore, Bob must know the law.

• Chris is a politician, and Chris thinks highly of Mr. Tsapanos. Therefore Mr. Tsapanos knows politics.

• Aaron will make a good race car driver, because his friend is a good race car driver.

• Citizens of GREECE have won more EUROVISION / NOBEL prizes/gold medals/literary awards (etc) than citizens of BULGARIA. Therefore, a citizen of GREECE is superior to a citizen of BULGARIA (CLICK to see the related post: “For me… ICELAND is the BEST in Eurovision 2008″)

Logic Form:

In notation of First-order logic, this type of fallacy can be expressed as

(∃x∈S:φ(x))→ (∀x∈S:φ(x)),

meaning: “if there exists any x in the set S so that a property φ is true for x, then for all x in S the property φ must be true.”

Premise: A particular thing A is a B

Premise: A is also a C

Conclusion: Therefore, all Bs are Cs

Association Fallacy argument

Source: Wikipedia, as well as many other sources (to be added later on)

Related articles:

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Εθνικιστικές επικλήσεις στη… Στήλη της Ροζέτας! (από αυτόχθονες… Καλιφόρνιους Μακεδόνες) κλπ. 30/05/2008

• UPDATE: Μη χάσετε το νέο σπαρταριστό ποστ του Polsemannen “Καμένη Μακεδονική Φλάντζα“ (που δικαιώνει την… καζούρα, στους εθνικιστές και των δύο χωρών, αλλά και το ότι οι ‘γείτονες’ είναι ΠΙΟ “σοβαρά“…)
  

Μετά την (ξεφτισμένη πια) ανακήρυξη του Αλεξάνδρου σαν “πρόγονου” των κατοίκων της γνωστής γειτονικής μας χώρας, ανακήρυξαν ΚΑΙ την Κλεοπάτρα της Αιγύπτου… Μακεντόνσκι - κι αυτή! Αλλά… το άκρον-άωτον στα Βαλκάνια ΔΕΝ το ήξερα μέχρι πριν λίγες μέρες, ενώ είχε γίνει στα Ιντερνέτια ΒΟΥΚΙΝΟ, της χώρας-μάνας του κρυφό καμάρι… πριν 2 χρόνια περίπου:

Macedonia in Natural Language Search Engines! (ερωτήσεις στο Semantic Web για τη Μακεδονία) 06/05/2008

• Greek Version: May be added later. Αν είστε ανυπόμονοι, ίσως αντέξετε προσωρινά τα… σπαστά Ελληνικά του Google Translation, ΕΔΩ)

Today I started writing this blog-post after testing Powerset, using human questions about Macedonia (a well-known SEMANTIC dispute between Greece and another Balkan state). After all, the infamous “naming dispute” between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is -to a large extent- a SEMANTIC DISPUTE.

I am a registered beta-tester of the Powerset Semantic Search Engine (www.powerset.com) , where one can ask human questions and get (more-or-less) human answers, based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) from a Knowledge-Base that uses Wikipedia.

• Semantic search-engines are multiplying faster than rabbits! Two months ago, a Semantic Web Search Engine Roundup was posted by James Simmons. Among these, Natural language Search Engines are perhaps the best.

This morning, Andreas Blumauer, an Austrian blogger working for a Semantic Web Company in Vienna, published a post titled “Natural language search – a new breakthrough?”. After reading Andreas’ post I also tested www.ask.com, another natural language search engine, open to anyone, not just beta-testers. Here are the questions and some of the results:

Question 1: What is Macedonia?

• Answers:
  

1. (answers were collected here: http://omadeon.com/nlp/macedonia.html)



2. http://www.ask.com/web?qsrc=2417&o=0&l=dir&q=what+is+macedonia

Question 2: Who are the Macedonians?

Answers:

1. (answers were collected here: http://omadeon.com/nlp/macedonians.html)
2. http://www.ask.com/web?qsrc=2417&o=0&l=dir&q=who+are+the+macedonians

Here are some more sophisticated human answers:

Question 1: “Macedonia” can mean a “geographic region”, OR a sovereign state (F.Y.R.O.M), OR a large province of another sovereign State (Greece), OR an an ethnic identity (of Macedonian Slavs) OR another (very different) ethnic identity (of Greeks from Greek Macedonia), OR an Ancient Empire (of Alexander the Great), etc.

Question 2: “Macedonians” can mean anyone among a variety of identities: Greek Macedonians, Slav Macedonians, Albanian Macedonians, Bulgarian Macedonians, even Jewish Macedonians (and other ethnic groups that live -or have lived- in the region of Macedonia).

• You can experiment with more natural language questions, e.g. “Who was Alexander the Great”, or “Where did Macedonians come from”, or “Who are the real Macedonians”. (After I collect more results, this post will probably be updated).

• WARNING: This is a new search engine technology, and (although Natural Language Processing has existed for more than two decades) it can sometimes go wrong. So, expect impressive results, but also a lot of mistakes!
• Unfortunately, the second search-engine (www.ask.com) appears to be considerably biased, in the naming dispute, in favour of Slav Macedonians. However, before condemning it, consider the possibility (almost a certainty) that the cause of this is not the fault of the search-engine itself, but the overwhelming propaganda presenting inhabitants of FYROM as the ONLY “true Macedonians”!
• So, why is Powerset more unbiased? -Probably because it is based exclusively on ONE source (Wikipedia) where the balance between the 2 sides is better than in the whole World Wide Web (sadly for Greece).

Gooogle has serious competitors, now…

(click on these images to explore the new Semantic Web sites)

(video-introduction to the Semantic Web Search by True Knowledge, UK)

NOTES:

• 

• Only a few dozen results have been uploaded from Powerset. More results will be uploaded in a short while.

• Unfortunately, the Powerset Natural Language Search Engine is only available to registered Beta-testers, at the moment. The results can’t be accessed directly in public. They are instead uploaded by hand, via ftp to my site.
• I am also a registered tester of the “TrueKnowledge” Semantic Search Engine (based in Cambridge, UK). New posts about this will probably appear in this blog, in the next few days.

Related articles about Macedonia (automatically added by Semantic WordPress Plugin “Zemanta” ):

• How Do You Solve A Problem Like Macedonia? [Naming Scandals] [via Zemanta]
• Macedonia to hold early election [via Zemanta]
• National and strategic interests dominate regional security debate [via Zemanta]
• GREEK post: Το νέο ΜΙΜΙΔΙΟ (Meme) της Πολλαπλότητας, σαν αποτέλεσμα διένεξης περί ονόματος (μιας χώρας)

Related articles about the Semantic Web:

• Meaning-Based Web and Web 3.0 [via Zemanta]
• Semantic Web: What Is The Killer App? [via Zemanta]
• i360 Adds Semantics to Everything [via Zemanta]
• TrueKnowledge Demos Its Semantic Search Engine [via Zemanta]
• The Semantic Hacker One-Million Dollar Challenge [via Zemanta]

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Peace-loving Greeks speak out in a BBC post about the Slavic Albanian Macedonian Republic’s NAME ! 23/04/2008

Greek Macedonia (via Wikipedia)

Peace-loving rational Greek people speak out, in favour of RESOLVING the “name issue” , through a composite name for the Slavonic Albanian Republic of Macedonia.

In this blog there were many posts about the “name-issue”, some of them extremely critical of the one-sided nationalist Greek position “Macedonia is (only) Greek”, e.g. “Satire is a manifestation of… covert hostility and powerlessness”! (Tasty Macedonian Greek… salad) and Exposing Big Alex, the Ancient Greek Psychopath, the Avatar of F.Y.R.O.M’s Virtual Reality History!

However, I.M.H.O. a reconciliation between the two countries can only be achieved through a critical stance against the EQUALLY one-sided Slavonic Macedonian position.

So, here are some samples of Greek people’s comments, in response to a recent BBC article (HERE) by Mark Mandel, about the “name dispute”:

The following was copied and pasted from another post in this blog, “The New York Times editorial board of imbeciles” (April 23, 2008 at 2:25 am):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2008/04/fc8650feba4c70d891220943099e8a4af72be65c.html#comment40
40. At 09:01 am on 21 Apr 2008, hi-ball wrote:

Το νέο ΜΙΜΙΔΙΟ (Meme) της Πολλαπλότητας, σαν αποτέλεσμα διένεξης περί ονόματος (μιας χώρας) 18/04/2008

Image via Wikipedia

Τα Βαλκάνια γεννούν Λογική Πολλαπλών Μορφών:

ένα νέο “μιμίδιο” (meme) Πολλαπλότητας:

Μια ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΙΑ Πολλαπλών Μορφών

Αν και οι πολιτικοί δεν το γνωρίζουν (συνειδητά τουλάχιστον) η ακατάπαυστη ζύμωση των Μπλογκοδιαλόγων γύρω από το “Σκοπιανό” ή Μακεδονικό ζήτημα, οδήγησε ήδη σε μία διαλεκτική σύνθεση απόψεων και μία νέα κατανόηση, όχι μόνο του συγκεκριμμένου αυτού “τοπικού προβλήματος” (μεταξύ δύο χωρών) αλλά του πολύ γενικότερου προβλήματος της αδιαλλαξίας, της μη-συνύπαρξης, του δογματισμού (από όπου και αν αυτός προέρχεται), της μη-αναγνώρισης του Διαφορετικού, του Ξένου και του Άλλου.

Οι σκεπτόμενοι Έλληνες, πασχίζοντας να κερδίσουν -τώρα- έναν Λογικό Συμβιβασμό στο θέμα του ονόματος της γειτονικής χώρας (που οικειοποιήθηκε μία ΑΝΥΠΑΡΚΤΗ σχέση με την Αρχαία Μακεδονία), έφτασαν αναπόφευκτα σε μία νέα κατανόηση του φανατισμού, τόσο στη δική μας χώρα όσο και στην άλλη (που μιμείται τα… δικά μας λάθη του παρελθόντος).

Τελικά, δεν έχει και τόση σημασία, το ίδιο το όνομα της γειτονικής χώρας, όσο το ξεπέρασμα των δογματικών εθνικιστικών θέσεων που γέννησαν το γνωστό πρόβλημα και το επιδείνωσαν χωρίς λόγο, χρόνια και χρόνια. Βέβαια, αν πετύχει κάποια συμβιβαστική λύση ενός σύνθετου ονόματος, αυτό μπορεί να φανεί σε μερικούς σαν νίκη ορισμένων πολιτικών (της κυβέρνησης – εν προκειμένω). Παρόλ’ αυτά, αυτή η νίκη ΔΕΝ θα είναι της κυβέρνησης ή ορισμένων πολιτικών. Θα είναι μια νίκη της διαλεκτικής ικανότητας και του Ορθολογισμού, τόσο των Ελλήνων, όσο και των Σλαβομακεδόνων μετριοπαθών, αν και οι τελευταίοι… έχουν λιγοστέψει, τελευταία…

Θα επανέλθω αργότερα, με ΠΟΛΛΑ UPDATES…

(ΠΟΛΥ πράμα, μιλάμε…)

(ΚΑΙ στα αγγλικά)

so: STAY TUNED !

UPDATE 1

Greek and Slavomacedonian students discussing the “name issue” friendlily, disagreeing sometimes but laughing! The Slavic ethnic nature of today’s F.Y.R.O.M. is NOT disputed at all by the Slavomacedonian students, who DON’T buy the nationalist myth of being “descendants of Alexander”!

UPDATE 2

“Σιγά τον Μακεδόνα” (μερικά δευτερόλεπτα για τον Ζουράρι)

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“Satire is a manifestation of… covert hostility and powerlessness”! (Tasty Macedonian Greek… salad) 16/04/2008

UPDATE: Macedonia was in the past regarded by its own inhabitants as a wide geographic region, inhabited by many ethnic groups. In the middle of the 19th Century, the Slavs of Macedonia thought of themselves as “Macedonian Bulgarians“. This is well known, of course: The “Macedonian” ethnic identity of their modern descendants did not exist at the time.This fact is evident e.g. in the front cover of a 19th century book, “Folk songs of the Macedonian Bulgars” by Stefan Verkovic (1860)

“Folk songs of the Macedonian Bulgars” (Wikimedia)

However, many Greeks and (most) Slavs of today’s (wider) Macedonia are unwilling to accept anyone else being “Macedonian”, than themselves. They both seem to forget that Madeconia has been (for a very long time) a geographic region, rather than an ethnic identity, or a nationality, or an ancient State. E.g.

Mrs. Olga G. Yeritsidou is a Greek psychologist (and a blogger) who declared (in response to rather moderate views I had expressed, in blog-conversation with her ) that… “in Psychology, satire is a manifestation of covert hostility and impotence (or powerlessness)”.

(in Greek, “η σάτιρα… στην ψυχολογία υποδεικνύει κεκαλυμμένη επιθετικότητα και ανημποριά από το άτομο που την εξαπολύει.”)

Well, an ENGLISH post follows, as a critique of the above quote (which is also the post-title in Greek):

Exposing Big Alex, the Ancient Greek Psychopath, the Avatar of F.Y.R.O.M’s Virtual Reality History! 05/04/2008

• UPDATE 2 (August 2009): See my new YouTube video, “Makedonskata – racist FYROM video”:

• UPDATE (for Greek readers): - Μη χάσετε το σπαρταριστό ποστ “Καμένη Μακεδονική Φλάντζα” του Pølsemannen. Αφορά το ίδιο θέμα με το UPDATE 2 , ένα ρατσιστικό και εθνικιστικό video της FYROM, που μετάφρασε στα Αγγλικά ο φιλέλληνας Vasko Gligorijevic (τελευταία νέα του ΕΔΩ και δική μου έκδοση του video ΕΔΩ).

When I realized WHAT these poor misguided Slavs REALLY believe, I almost wept for them: They really DO believe that this psycho was their ancestor:

(Alexander “the Great” – holy shit… CLICK on the image!)

I mean… hey, guys:

-LOOK VERY CLOSELY into this psycho‘s face, his obvious psychopathic perversity, also evident in his lunatic eyes, his perverse blood-thirsty lips, his despicable …Greek nose!

• THIS guy is… GREEK, can’t you SEE?
  

• Do you still think he was YOUR ancestor, huh?

- Well, no way, maaaan! If you don’t really see it, then:

The New York Times editorial board of… imbeciles 04/04/2008

Click on the image to read a NYT post of shameless idiots…

LOTS of Balkan idiots send comments there, and quite a few wise folks too.

1. Slav Macedonian idiots don’t recognize the existence of Greek Macedonians, while…
2. Greek Macedonian idiots don’t recognize the existence of Slav/other Macedonians .

• UPDATE (for Greek readers):  - Μη χάσετε το σπαρταριστό ποστ “Καμένη Μακεδονική Φλάντζα” του Pølsemannen

Shamefully however, the New York Times have decided that ONLY ONE side in the dispute (between Greece and Slavic-Albanian Macedonia) is “shameful” (because President Bush says so). Well, if you’d like to comment (and you’ve been censored by the N.Y.T. imbeciles) feel free to send your comments here (or in other Greek blog posts about this idiocy, e.g. this one here, by “Animats”).

UPDATE: The “New York Times” have provably censored some civilised readers’ comments, including my own comment (which -however- was later approved by the moderators, after this post appeared), as follows:

Allright, allright, so you (the editorial board of NYT) disagree with the Greek decision. So what? Decisions like that take place all the time, in international relations. In this case, inexcusable ignorance of the true nature of the issue is the only thing worthy of being called shameful. If the issue was “shameful” then why is it that quite a lot of people and a lot of countries in Europe take it so very seriously? Personally, I believe Slavic Macedonians have as much a right to exist as Greek Macedonians. They can exist without convincing themselves that they are the direct descendants of ancient Macedonians, a Greek tribe according to most historians. Tragically, Greece is full of bigots, too. The evil DNA of the great destroyer of nations Alexander has not disappeared, most probably! What has in fact disappeared is bigotry in attitudes towards neighboring nations. We are now ready to recognize them as equals, as ethnic (slavic) Macedonians, if you like. All we asked for was an adjective qualifier, as a minimal kind of recognition of the fact that there are Greek Macedonians as well, that they too have a right to feel as Macedonian as the Slavs. Is that shameful? Well, we can talk about it, and we intend to talk about it even more in coming months. The only shameful attitude, however, is yours; a respectable newspaper, moaning as if you are part of the dispute, as if you are ethnic slavic Macedonian yourselves, JUST because your president wants his policies to be _always_ implemented unquestionably.

Well, it’s time to eat some humble pie, Mr. Bush.

(end of comment)

• BTW, Imbecile censorious moderators simply don’t realize that their shrewd policy of targetted selective moderation as a form of censorship CANNOT and will NOT succeed: A EUROPEAN “BLOG-CLONE” appeared, a few weeks ago, bypassing comment-censorship practised by a British Member of the European Parliament in his blog, as reported in my post “First anti-censorship Blog-Mirror of a British MEP“.

UPDATE 2: Many Slavic Macedonian fanatics paraded in the New York Times (blog for imbeciles) claiming Alexander the Great was their ethnic ancestor. Well, their own late president Kiro Gligorov, back in 1992, admitted this myth to be a nationalist lie:

UPDATE 3: A Greek post in this blog (http://omadeon.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/sarom) had proposed -many weeks ago- a new official name for F.Y.R.O.M.:

• Slavic Albanian Republic of Macedonia (SAROM) instead of FYROM
  

UPDATE 4: Here are some English-speaking blog-posts, apparently biased or misinformed:

1. A rather interesting critique of Greece’ which I found amusing, while still disagreeing with it: Greece’s Foreign Minister: The US must change its name to ‘United States of Central North America’ (unfortunately with comments closed): As a joke, it’s nice, but it disregards many important facts about the Balkans; using a faulty humourous analogy (hint: -WHEN did the USA claim itself to be “the one and only America”?).
2. No End to Tribalism? The Dispute Around the Copyright on “Macedonia” – a serious critique of the Greek position, where I wrote a decent comment (awaiting moderation): A clone of my comment is now in the comments’ section of this post: April 5, 2008 at 11:24 am
3. other blog-posts (to be updated -perhaps)

UPDATE 5 (17-5-2010):

This particular post was repeatedly flooded with spam, sent over here mostly from automatic spamming engines, during the last two years. This indicates some serious and quite intentional malice, since NO OTHER POST in this blog was attacked, as much as this one. As a matter of fact, The spam problem caused by this post is SO great, that today I decided to take some action: – ALL COMMENTS and PINGBACKS will be CLOSED, from now on, for THIS post! (Hopefully this will prevent the flooding of my spam-bin; We’ ll see…)

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