As a scientist, I think Ahmadinejad has a point buried somewhere deep beneath all that shit he chats. As modern, scientific and progressive nations we shouldn’t be advertising the belief that a sea creature can predict the future. That’s an absurd conclusion to come to. I think what the Iranian president was trying to say is that our belief in luck and believing that we can predict the future is totally unfounded. Yeah, that’s what he was trying to say.

Instead, we obviously should be punishing rape victims, segregating the population by gender because of those insatiable females who can’t control themselves and whom try to corrupt the men. We should be spending money on ‘nuclear power’, or another word is defiance, rather than letting girls learn to read and write and we should definitely be helping out those poor, poor terrorists because they’re just misunderstood and only need a few more missiles to get people to come around to their way of thinking. It all makes sense really.

Mahmoud, to put it in the politest possible words, you are a pillock. You say you and your country aspire to ‘human perfection’ and that we couldn’t possibly do the same because we cheer on a slimy sea creature because it, by chance, happens to choose to eat from one box which we happen to assign to a football team. We know it can’t predict the future. If you want to heckle and denounce something worth your while, and do something honestly decent with your power, stature and your precious time why not speak out against the belief in witchcraft in some African nations that harms children? Or work to help abolish the death penalty in Saudi Arabia for the ludicrous crime of sorcery, for which there is no legal definition.

Why? Simple, you’re a stroppy teenager rebelling against his parents, doing the things they tell you you’re not allowed to do. Pillock.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7550999.stm

Peace cannot be forced. We murder and injure and call it collateral damage to make ourselves feel better. All because we are greedy for land. All because we want that extra space on the map. We’re all people, where ever the hell we’re from. People like Putin and Bush only care about land. About flexing their muscles. Look what you’re doing Russia. Look at what you’re doing Georgia. You’re both acting like children fighting over a toy. In this case, the toy is lives. Land. People. You’ll end up breaking it and neither will want it. You disgust me. Superpower? Spoilt rich bitch more like.

From SushiPanda, linked above:

Over half of my Chinese-Chinese friends on MSN have put the badge on their contact names, in defiance of all the anti-China bullying that they’re undoubtedly reading about in the Chinese newspapers, watching on the Chinese news, and scouring over on the hundreds of blogs and BBS’s peppering China’s cyberscape and devoted to propping up this country’s national pride.

I’ve no problem with patriotism, within limits of course, but we all know that information is manipulated in an unprecedented way in China and it’s a shame that the people – the good people of China – don’t realise why foreigners do protest. It’s nice to see that Chinese internet users can rally together like this, but just a shame they seem to have a misguided view.

Today, the Daily Mail and several other papers report that British athletes are being forced to give up their right to freedom of speech in order to compete. It honestly makes me sick. I’ve always said we should boycott these Olympics. I still believe this. Why are we supporting China? They’re still a communist dictatorship.

What are your views?

It seemed that we were all fine when Russia’s president threatened to launch nuclear-capable missiles at us and now we are not even flinching as Russia puts forth its territorial claim to the Arctic. Personally, I’m alarmed and annoyed by yet another show of how greedy and naive the Russian government is. Russia is a country of over 17 million square kilometres – the largest country by area in the world – and has one of the worst poverty situations in the developed nations and now wants to stamp its ugly claim on the Arctic and the North Pole.

Cold Control

Historically, no country owns the North Pole and the countries surrounding the area are limited to a 200 mile economic zone around their coasts which is theirs to claim and defend. The United Nations wrote a clause into the agreement that all of those nations signed that said if they could prove that the Arctic continent was an extension from the continental plate they are on. Russia has been gathering evidence to support their claim that an area of the Arctic, including the North Pole, is actually such an extension.

Why would Russia go to such lengths – sending out submarines and research groups – to want to own the Arctic and the North Pole? I think you’ve guessed that it’s not because of the stunning scenery and long daylight hours. Yup, the life forces of all corrupt countries: oil and gas. The Arctic is a unique ecosystem and is known to have large natural gas, oil and mineral deposits (much like the Antarctic as well). Both the Antarctic and the Arctic have been protected from military abuse, industrial contamination and territorial claim but it seems that Russia would rather spoil the landscape and ecosystem for their energy needs than help their citizens. Oh, but don’t worry, they are spending more on weapons!

Moves like this only seek to disrupt attempts to reduce conflict between nations and Russia’s move in this case is a deliberate attempt to aggravate nations with which it has had disputes with lately. To me it seems that the US and Russia are have a girl fight. The US’s liberation invasion of Iraq was a strategic decision with a main objective to secure control of oil and gas reserves for American companies and thus for the US. Russia’s attempt to use a legal route to make a territorial claim to the Arctic area and thus the energy stores are a direct component of the decision to invade Iraq. The official submission was presented by Russia in 2001 whilst the invasion of Iraq began in 2003.

In It Alone?

Russia isn’t the only nation wishing to lay claim to the unique and fragile territory. Surprisingly, Canada also seems to have a quite aggressive claim to the area with more of a militarised ambition.

I really truthfully hope that the UN and the nations in it, especially those that surround the Arctic and have been mature enough not to stake a claim in it try every route possible in order to stop Russia (and Canada) spoiling one of the few remaining virtually unspoilt areas on this rocky ball called Earth. Not because I want Russia to run out of electricity but because I want to see less destruction of the Earth, less of a dependency on fossil fuels and Russia to become more concerned about its own citizens than how many bombs it has.

Is this Russia’s next Cold War? I sincerely hope not. I will not stand for Russia exerting its dominance over energy when what the world needs is for countries to unite in their differences. We are facing troubles on scales never seen before like rising sea levels, more conflict and drought and what we don’t need are countries turning away – we need countries collaborating, working together and trying to produce solutions that benefit all; not just those who can afford them.

No Respect Due

President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, with all due respect, you seem to think that the more territory you have the bigger your balls will seem to other people. That’s not the way it is any more – just look at us British. Come out of your damn coma, open your eyes and put your balls back in your trousers. I will not stand for your futile shows of strength. I will not stand for your attempts to pollute the environment. I certainly will not stand for your ability to sell your undemocratic and extremist views on as those views of the real people in it. You, and countries like you, are standing in the way of true good. I sincerely hope I am around to see Russia turn into a country that does good for the world and one that doesn’t supply a third of the weapons in the world. You are one problem of many that exist. Either you help to solve some problems or you remain one that we will have to solve. Your choice. Don’t bring us into war once again, we will not stoop to your level.

There are so many things I’d like to say but my typing doesn’t quite reach the speed of my thoughts.

Big-Arse America

If you haven’t been keeping up with America’s expanding international presence lately then you may not have heard about their growing plans to set up an anti-missile defence system around Europe and their own territory to combat what they think is a real and growing threat from ‘evil’ countries like Iran and North Korea. Their system involves a number of radar and missile sites throughout Europe – one radar site is located here in the UK. Mr. Putin’s outrageous comments came after it was announced America wanted to place sites in Poland and the Czech Republic – former Soviet states and signatories of the Warsaw Pact.

Firstly, I think we should take a look at the plans for this new defence system. It’s aim is to protect America and its allies from missile attacks by attacking the missiles mid-flight, even before they enter friendly airspace. Sounds quite a nice plan – we get protection just by giving up a few acres of land and playing host to a radar station and/or a missile site.

Not So Invisible Threat

This plan raises a number of questions that need to be investigated. What and who are we being protected from? Are the missile sites dangerous to us? Could the radar stations be used to spy on us? Could the sites be used to spy on other countries? Should we allow America to militarise an area that is still recovering from both the fall of the Soviet Union and a number of civil and bloody wars? Some of these questions have answers that we can only speculate on but I think I can speculate deep enough to hopefully allow you to make up your own mind.

Just off topic, I recently read that Mr. Putin declared himself the only true democratic leader in the world today. He must be living in a world of fantasy. If the words democratic and authoritarian have switched their meanings, then sure, he’s correct. Democratic is not closing media outlets because they disagree with you. Democratic is not cracking down on people with different political views and democratic is certainly not threatening nuclear attack; even if it is justified.

Firstly, let us concentrate on the question of what this system would be protecting us from. One state that has already proven that it has the capabilities to fire nuclear weapons on board missiles – although whether it could hit Europe remains to be seen – is North Korea. Could that fat, four-eyed Doctor Evil imitator become a pain in our backside? It remains to be seen but at the moment it appears he’s more of a threat to his own people than us. That’s another post right there. Do we need to be worried about attack from China? I think the answer’s no but I they are becoming slightly arrogant because of their unsustainable high economic growth. Their recent destruction of a satellite with a missile showed us how all strong and mighty they and most importantly how they care more for putting on shows of military might than they do care for helping the older, traditional and more remote members of the population. My own opinion is that China isn’t a threat to us but in an economical sense, they could inflict quite a lot of damage.

So, if those states aren’t a threat to Europe, who is? Well, there are many different types of threats to Europe and most are not missile based or in fact posed by a particular state. Groups of individuals, known rather generically as terrorists, pose a more probable risk to us than any one state. Do these terrorists in question have access to missiles that could carry a nuclear bomb? They most likely have access to missiles but to missiles with a range not large enough to pose any risk to us.

Before I come to a conclusion about the answer to this question, I’d like to talk about whether or not a state would actually launch a missile at another state in today’s world. Most states are in alliances of one political direction or another except for states like Switzerland which has a strategy of neutrality in war and non-alignment in peace – hence why Switzerland has not been in a foreign war since 1815. If one state was to attack another, the allies of the attacked state would defend it either politically and/or with military force. An eye for an eye, as it were, will only lead to more attacks until something along the lines of mutually assured destruction occurs. You have ‘alliances’ like NATO, the UN and the lesser known CSTO. Some states are part of one or more of these alliances and so the number of allies a state has and the military might of these allies is a rather large deterrent from attack. Political views on military action, especially that of big superpowers, is more of a revengeful attitude than other states. Instead of responding with political talks they just go and attack with force out right. This will more than likely lead to a mutually assured destruction scenario and so states will take this into account if deciding to attack. To put this whole argument into perspective, would you beat up a member of a local gang without any mask on knowing there’s the potential risk of the other gang members coming and doing the same to you? I wouldn’t, but then again I’m quite sane which is more than can be said for some leaders in the world.

Dangerous Missiles?

Another question is do the missile sites and the radar platforms pose any risks to us. Obviously, there’s the risk of being blown up by a poorly guided Russian bomb but besides that, people are more worried about any health risks that may be present or the risk that the presence of possible nuclear material may pose. To be honest, the risks of anything bad happening is quite small and these bases are traditionally secluded and placed well away from any built up areas. The question is whether these sites will every be used. Radar sites pose nearly no risk at all – except maybe annoying drivers by turning their engines on and off at whim – and missile sites are strategically placed to pose as little risk as possible.

Putin’s Surprise

In the middle of writing this article, the G8 summit occurred and Putin surprised most people by actually offering a disused former military site for the specific use of President Bush’s missile defence system. After such offering though, Mr. Putin again stressed his opinion that George Bush shouldn’t go ahead with spreading his defence network further into Europe. Damage control at work? Most likely. Mr. Putin and his public relations office most likely had a serious discussion and have tried to hide his true authoritarian attitude and perform a clean up operation that has understandably failed.

Also bear in mind that the disused military base he has offered is not in Russia but rather in Azerbaijan and Mr. Putin said that he would retract the threat of aiming Russian missiles at Europe if the United States agrees to use only this radar site in joint cooperation with Russia. Sounds like Mr. Putin is a little green with envy.

Put Up and Shut Up

Why do we continue to accept regimes that, thirty years ago we would have at least made an attempt to correct and sixty years ago we were pushing out of western Europe? China and Russia are just two states, of quite a few, in the world which is now more than ever dictated not by moral values or righteous acts but by the greed of the people we put in office to serve our best interests. We indulge the states that we ourselves cringe at the thought of living in and our governments express fake façades of disapproval at the regimes whilst taking no actions whatsoever to impose trade restrictions or cause change.

The reason why the governments of some of the most democratic nations on earth tolerate such oppressive, undemocratic, authoritarian and militarised regimes is the fact that those same democratic nations have let those regimes become so economically powerful that they are scared to do anything because those nations have the power to literally cripple our ‘developed’ way of lives. An example is that China is suspected to have such a large reserve of the Dollar, if released, could cripple the American economy and the value of it. We buy clothes and toys and electronics from these nations that have been exploited at the pleasure of the nations’ governments – something of which even I am guilty of – and we don’t think that each time we do we are supporting the regimes; effectively funding the regimes in the process.

Time is Money

To give an answer to the purpose and title of this article, how do you piss off the world? To piss off the world, you really need to do one of two things. Either build a missile defence system that has stations dangerously close to countries that you don’t exactly have the best relations with. Or, threaten to launch missiles at missile defence system stations because the owners are a nation you don’t exactly have the best relations with.

Or, I suppose you could spend £400,000 on a logo that is supposed to represent a country but that only represents the kids with caps who you see under bridges at night, delicately covering the walls with affectionate names for their best mates and ex-acquaintances. Oh, and this is all happening in the early nineties.

The world today is probably now at the end of what I call its border transition stage. I don’t expect that from now there will be any major changes in country borders or any new countries springing up. We have to face up to this fact and look to how we can mould what we have rather than trying to wipe it clean. There are many border disputes going on at the moment – from the more well known arguments like the Gaza strip and Tibet to the less well known like the fight for Transnistria’s official recognition as an independent state. Most requests for independence are quite illogical when you look at the requests. For example, asking for independence for a country whose size is less than a few kilometres is ludicrous. I will come back to this idea later.

We’re The Best

I live in the United Kingdom and I’m honestly glad that I was born here – the chances of it were astronomically unthinkable. In the last ten years, the domestic politics of the UK, England especially, has dramatically been changed – mostly due to Tony Blair and New Labour – for the good. We are of course, no where near perfect in our policies and implementation of them but I do think that the UK is one of the best places to live in the world (even if we do get crap weather). It is our international reputation and our policies abroad that needs to be revamped. We have participated in many wars and battles abroad in the last decade and I think this is why our attitude to politics both domestic and abroad have changed. Unfortunately, the battles we have fought as the UK have weakened our politics and made us look weak in the eyes of the international community.

One example I’m going to take is that of our ‘special’ relationship with the United States. For the most part it has been a prosperous relationship and we’ve both played nice but for a few years now it seems to me that we have the raw end of the deal. To name a few unfair situations in this relationship: we can’t extradite any of their citizens for trial here but our Government gave the okay to them to extradite any of our citizens. Another is that we directly invest ten percent more money into the American economy each year than they do ours. Those are just to name a few. Althought that may seen unfair, we do get protection from any impending attack via the American based missile defence system. Is all our sacrifice worth being protected by this system when it is highly unlikely that we’ll ever be attacked in this way?

We need to loosen our grip with the United States because our ties with them has had many negative effects on our international reputation and our independence is being eaten every year more we stay this close to them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should sever ties completely with them; they are a force for good and another great country but they need to rely less on our support and know that they cannot fight us into submission with their words of terror and their promise of freedom.

International Reputation

We have to change our attitudes to a lot of situations if we are to gain the respect of the wider international community. Our stance in Afghanistan should be to talk with the Taliban and allow them to participate in the new country’s government rather than shunting them to the side. In the past, their human rights record hasn’t been that great to say the least but in the last few years they have done some good for some areas – even if it is just to win people over to their cause. Rather than fighting them we need to reach a compromise that still enables them to put into practise their traditional beliefs but conforming to ‘civilised’ modern standards. If they are ready talk, we should be ready to listen.

I’m not an expert on any of these subjects and to be honest most of my knowledge about this comes from my exploration of Wikipedia but I do know the Iraq war is a controversial and rather ugly point of discussion. My personal opinion is that we were right to remove Saddam from his dictatorship but the Americans led us in under false pretences and even our own intelligence services manages to corroborate the evidence give to us by the Americans. I’m not saying that the USA didn’t go in for the good Iraq because they did but they also went for personal gain. We cannot be associated with actions like this in the future. The UK has a good record of going to war to help other countries without helping ourselves to what is rightfully and lawfully theirs.

Future Policy Changes

I’m going to stray from the debate of whether it was right or wrong to go to Iraq, that’s an entirely different post for another day, and move ahead to what the UK can do in the future whether it be for the next general election or whenever. As I mentioned earlier, we can try to engage what some currently call the enemy to participate in their country’s new government. I believe I took the example of the Taliban in Afghanistan as an illustration. Now, since allied forced moved into Afghanistan a lot more women have become MPs even with fear of attacks. The Taliban are known to be the enforcers of the strictest implementation of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world but they can still have a country that complies with their beliefs whilst allowing greater freedom to their people – all they need to do (and us as well) is compromise.

Going back to Iraq, there was all this talk about governments giving money to ‘rebuild’ Iraq. As far as I’ve seen, allied troops have been destroying more things that they’re building! I believe we should distance ourselves from the American army and pull troops out of their current role there. Instead of going in there with guns blazing we should tell the people we, the British people, are there to rebuild housing. Builders and craftsmen should be sent in to rebuild houses out of bricks and mortar instead of sending armed troops in. Of course, the builders will need protection and absolutely we should send in troops only as peace keepers, not as occupation forces. Hopefully this change in tactic will change the view of us while still helping the Iraqi people. Saying this is much easier than putting it into practise.

Future Conclusions

To summarise my waffle above – I’m sorry if you felt I went off on a few tangents – I believe that the United Kingdom has experienced one of the best decades of international relations and politics in a long time and we’ve told the world that although we gave the empire back to the rightful owners we are still a world power. Hopefully we have been able to persuade the world we’re a power for good.

Our creepily intimate relationship with the USA needs to be toned down (if it isn’t naturally done so by the change of our Prime minister – I doubt Bush will take as easily to Gordon Brown as he did Blair) so we’re not seen as someone they can rely on for every action they take that affects the international community. Taking a more constructive role abroad with rebuilding programs will hopefully curb our losses.

I’ve read that the African Union (AU) has asked countries not in Africa to stay out of their affairs and I appreciate that. Some countries in Africa are really prosperous and most are dealing with their problems democratically and quite effectively but to set an example to the wider community we need to publically condemn undemocratic leaders like Robert Mugabe and say we will provide the AU with military and intelligence assistance if they need it. If you don’t want to trawl though the web for what the AU is, it is the European Union for Africa. Current members are all of the African states bar Morocco and they aim to have a single currency, just like the EU. This is something we must actively encourage while keeping our distance as it’s their project. We need to take a more active role in other international disputes like that between China and Tibet. China is becoming worryingly powerful in terms of their impact on our economy. We need to get them to leave Tibet, in my opinion, and tell them to sort out their country, their people and their politics before spending money on space travel and the likes. We can’t tolerate any forms of Communism and although they have made progress in trying to persuade the world they are not all bad by holding elections, they can’t fool anyone (especially when their name is the Communist Party of China).

This is generally more for my benefit that yours, to be honest, and I just wanted to share my views. I may be naive to do it and if I have anything wrong, you are certainly welcome to enlighten me.

Besides the fee we pay as users to access the internet from our Internet Service Providers, the net is essentially free. Do you think we should have to pay extra to, for example, visit a website hosted in a different country? I don’t think so. Do you think that we should be really restricted to what services we can use because of our location or the amount we pay for our connection? I don’t. The United States seem to think it can mould the world to suit it. First it drags us along to its wars, uses us to commit human rights crimes and now it’s moving towards a tiered internet where we’re not all equal and we don’t all have the same choices available to us. Granted, there are services at the moment that aren’t accessible to all (such as when Channel 4 released the ‘IT Crowd’ online to UK residents only) but this sort of thing will rise. I think that an independant body should be formed – independant of any country, any political view that includes people experienced in the IT industry from countries around the world. This would ensure that this body isn’t corrupted and/or influenced by governments and political views. We cannot let the United States rule us. They are one country – they do not have the right to restrict our access to the internet, nor their own citizens and especially, they do not have the right to change the structure of the internet and turn it into a capitalist state. The internet should remain like Switzerland during WWII – neutral.

What’s your view on this news and this matter?

Here are some opinions of some people on a forum:

It may well be a utopian dream as the internet may have already gone to far to bring it back… The internet and what it means and is capable of is still a very new thing in it’s infancy, whilst in this stage it is showing that it is an increasing threat to a great many of the traditional establishments they will seek to control it, the listings of sites visited, blocking or limiting to access by various nations to differing degrees all show that there is some effort to tame this wild beast with varying degrees of success.

Everyone including the W3C are trying to impose their vision of what the web should be on the public, some with what they think are the average user’s best interests at heart but some users are still content with a nice 56k dial up connection whilst others are addicts who have to have the best and pay for it. There is already a wide gap between those willing to pay for the fastest internet connections and the casual user and it would come as no surprise if this gap continues to grow.

It is impossible for something such as the internet to continue growing without there being some break up, at present this may not be apparent but the bigger it grows the more facets there will be and the more likelihood of break ups, whether it is a two tier system such as the one proposed or something completely different that hasn’t been foreseen.

What should happen and what will happen are likely to be two very different things.

The world already has two Internets, one that can be accessed from within China and one that can be accessed from everywhere else. I know which Internet I want to be connected to.

Now this may be a slightly extreme example, however creating a two-tier Internet is not as different as it may seem. A few weeks ago it emerged that publishers have to pay bookstores to market their books, to create more sales. Applying this principle to the Internet would mean that sites have to pay to get onto ‘premium’ bandwidth, effectively pushing up the price for the end user. Now a large site from a multi-national may be able to pay these fees, however I’m pretty sure the average open source project won’t. A two-tier Internet will push users towards certain chosen sites at the expense of the smaller, independent and possibly better sites.

The current Internet creates innovation, which should be encouraged. A tiered Internet would only benefit large companies endlessly rolling out material to the same tried and tested formula. The question is what do we want out of our Internet?

Check out:

• BBC News Article

• Armenia
• Belarus
• Bosnia & Herzegovina
• Bulgaria
• Denmark
• France
• F.Y.R Macedonia
• Ireland
• Spain
• Ukraine

As you can see, I haven’t listed the United Kingdom. Why, you may ask? Well, let’s just say in the UK, it’s called paedophilia. No, I haven’t listed it simply because I don’t like it and it’s way below our usual (*cough*not gemini*cough*) standards. Oh, and please bare in mind that the above list is based on the songs I liked and not my political views – so the list will probably be wrong on the night.

Toodles.

I’m calling for all Eurovision voters to not vote politically, as they have done for the last 4 or 5 times! It’s not about a country’s military status or whether or not they’ve invaded you in the past, not whether or not they’ve still got the damn death penalty – it’s about the singers, the songs and the passion of music from hundreds of cultures over Europe. Granted, this probably won’t change the UK’s chances this year, but it needs to be done. I think it was last year that 4 countries that provide the most money to the ESC were the bottom 4 losers. I say if people still vote with political bias, we should stop funding it. I don’t see why we should have to pay them so they can passively protest against war. It isn’t the place.

So, I’ll be watching the contest (after my Spanish Listening and my Science module tests) but if I see Belarus giving 12 points to Latvia, Croatia giving 12 points to Serbia and Montenegro or Ukraine 12 points to Russia, I’m boycotting the ESC untill they stop it. I also think a letter to the BBC and UKIB (ITV, C4 & S4C) would be in order. It isn’t right, it isn’t fair and it’s not in the spirit of Europe.

WARNING: Graphic imagery of injury and scenes of death!

(1) What Would Jesus Do?

(2) Broken Promises

(3) The Time Is Now

(4) The 32%

(5) Impeach The Decider

Not the sort of thing you expect from a 15 year old girl, eh? Head on over to her site now and take a look around if you feel the same.

• An Inconvenient Truth
• I am a Sex Addict
• Flicka
• Somersault
• The Devil and Daniel Johnston
• American Gun
• Guys and Balls
• 39 Pounds of Love

Even though I’m late in paying my respects, I wanted to just share with you this event. Please go on over to NASA’s tribute to the first flight by heading over to http://www.nasa.gov/ and clicking ‘STS-1 Flash Feature’. The video is well worth a watch. Let us all thank those who were involved and pay our respects for the people on the fatal missions STS-107 (Space Shuttle Columbia) and STS-51-L (Space Shuttle Challenger).

Come on 2018!