Boston University may be forced to hand over the secret I.R.A. interviews.

Which were you know...supposed to be completely confidential.

But as it turns out, they were not. So much for academic freedom it seems - it all depends on the judge now. Now of course its obvious why the UK would want those, no questions asked there. However, digging in old wounds may not be the best idea right now. The entire world is up to the neck right now, last thing the UK needs is to poke the IRA in the eye with a pig sticker. Even if the interviews remain confidential, as the article pointed out, this rather interesting experiment at live history will die out with it. The very fact that an attempt was made to seize those interviews, means no one will risk doing them again.

Saudi woman beheaded for being a witch.

Or at least thats what the Chicago tribune says...  but I really won't put it past the Saudis. I mean they are well...trigger happy isn't the word - choppy happy, with bits and pieces and human appendages flying around. According to the same article that has happened regularly too, even to foreign nationals. If anyone wonders what a sharia law state looks like, because we've been scared that a lot of these will emerge unless certain wars were/are/will be fought look no further - Saudi Arabia the valiant ally of the US of A, the promoter and main organiser of the above mentioned wars is a textbook example. Thank god we live in the progressive 21st century!


And before I forget.      "A Witch!A witch! We found a witch! Burn her! Burn her!She turned me into a newt! I got better though..."

Watch it and weep

 

And well, that is supposed to be an elected representative. As in - the cream and crop of a nation. Back in the day of say the good olde Roman empire, you did not apologise to the barbarians you conquered before taking away their valuables. You came, you saw and you conquered and thats how it was done, without such repulsive insults to common sense and human dignity. At least the Romans brought civilization with them, and by civilization I don't mean McDonalds, I mean roads, running water, sanitation, public buildings. Unlike a certain other starting with U and ending on SA. Where they go, civilization ends. Iraq is now a tribal/sectarian mess, roads are bombed out and dangerous, you can forget about running water and electricity and schools and such? Going out to the market is dangerous enough.

The bomb Saddam and Mr. Taliban songs

Two parodies from sheesh, how long? Almost a decade ago.

I don't know who's the author but he did a damn fine job. They aren't half as funny when we look at them from our perspective now are they?

Bring your own bombs

People tend to watch when examples are being made on the world stage. Especially examples of what not to do. Right now, everyone with half a brain who looks at the coast of Africa is making some simple calculations.

1. The West cannot be trusted one bit.
2. Giving up your weapons programs won't save you.
3. Kim Jon Il might be ill, but he is also very much OK(another stupid pun, couldn't resist) and no one dares to do as much as raise a finger agaisnt him even when he shells another country.
4. The Great Leader has nukes. Gaddafi gave them up. Saddam gave up on his WMDs too.

Well I don't see two of the above mentioned 3 on the world stage anymore. Do you? The painfully obvious conclusion is that you need a proper deterrent if you want to survive when the USA&NATO are looking at you funny, and I don't mean a UN resolution. You need nukes, or at worst enough chemical agents to really really scare people. So I'm doing this moderately wild guess, that nuclear proliferation will go over the top. Same with other WMDs. Everyone that fears Western intervention will do whatever possible to get some. And, as it always happens in commerce(even this kind of commerce) some of those things will be lost and eventually find their way in very wrong hands.

Basically, the next decade will be, to quote Terry Pratchett - "Interesting times".

I don't blame the banks

No, really I don't.
Neither Wall Street. Its not that they've done nothing wrong, its just that we would have done the same in a similar situation. Consider it for a moment. What is the goal of the free market? Profit. What is the motto of the Invisible hand? That the market will regulate itself. But combine it with point 1 and you see that the market will regulate itself to provide maximum profit FOR ITSELF. What happened is painfully simple. Given free reign in return of the vague promise that they won't do what they did...well, results are in. All of those financial institutions tried to grab as much as they want, and truth is, they ARE too big to fail - the global economy depends on it, we can't halt it or everything will go to hell. Lovely isn't it?

So yeah don't cry when your credit card goes out. Just look at the name of it- Credit - card. That means you/me/someone/ will have to pay for all of this. Eventually. Its what's happening now pay day on a world scale. Occupy Wall Street is both right and wrong. They are right that something has to be done, but they are protesting at the wrong place. You can't blame money makers for making money(by taking it from yourself included) you need to blame the one who allowed them to do so with impunity.

Save us Superman!

Because, well you know, that is what I'm hearing around. Booohoo, the economy is in shambles, boohoo occupy Wall street(instead of taking some hints from the greeks because nothing scares a government in the right direction like some old-fashioned civil disobedience)   , boohoo lets start a national riot in Greece(who should take some hits from Occupy wall street because they on other hand took it too far and are damaging their country too much now).  Meanwhile in other news? Oh I dunno, drone attack kills "N" number in AfPak, some of them may or may not have been harbouring dirty thoughts about joining the jihadis one day but we can't really be sure because there isn't much left of them as it is. Booho banks are bad. Boohoo banks don't have money and so they take away your mortgage with a wide grin. Boohoo Germany is bad for trying to keep the EU together at any cost. Save us Superman!

Because...well you know, no one else is doing something about it.

Political suicide

Well then, it seems the worst has passed without any further incident...or so we think. You know there are times when you can hand waive problems away and there are times when you should just try to be as silent as a mouse and the times before elections are certainly NOT when you should display arrogance and insult  the public, because THAT is what happened more or less. You are NOT supposed to ask "Why are they protesting? Are we not doing enough?" since if there are demonstrations, you clearly are not doing enough. You are NOT supposed to say"After the elections the tensions will drop." because they were NOT caused by this and trying to hide smoldering charcoal under the carpet is just a lovely idea isn't it? All parties try to benefit, none will. Nobody trusts them anymore.