Ahoy there matey!
It be a fine day today, for it be the International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
Oh aye, stop swabbing the deck, hoist yer Jolly Roger and join me in the local tavern to wet our whistles with grog, or are ye yellow bellied mutinous scurvy son of a dog scared? Arrr! Me throat is dry. That be it.
Blow yer man down!
The Great Ape Project has a good point. More humane treatment for our relatives.
But there is a humangous risk in it. The way I think about every new change is to think a way to abuse it. The way to begin to understand security is to awknowledge the risks. In order to be safe, you have to understand how your rights could be abused.
I do not know, whether they mean they should have the same rights to live freely as we do, or same kind of right to live freely as we do. Is it human rights, or 'human rights'?
If this indeed becomes a landmark legislation to enshrine human rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos, and we are still free to capture great apes and put them in the zoo, what stops me to capture you, dear reader, and put you in a zoo against your will? If they enjoy the same human rights as we do, I should be able to do the same to you as to our fellow human chimpanzees. Or are you more equal than a chimp in front of the law, if it is the same human rights law?
Don't get me wrong, I am not against animal rights. I am against demeaning our own rights.
There is a declaration that you can sign at the Great Ape Project webpages, but I will not sign that before I know for sure what kind of lawtwisters we are talking about. Same kind of rights, no problem. I am all for that. The same rights? No way. We can barely respect each other. I do not want to give anyone a chance to compare my rights to any non-Homo Sapiens Sapiens for as long as we treat any animal the way we do.
I want to know more about this, as this should be a step forward for animal rights, and not a step backwards for human rights. If you know better than I do, or do not care to read the fine print, feel free to sign the declaration here.
22. June, 2008 George Carlin was taken to a hospital for some chest pain. He died at the age of 71.
I will miss him.
I feel proud. One of my photographs was selected as the Reader's Photograph of the Week.
Already a second time in a short while when my photograph has been in a newspaper.
One down, six to go.
Finnish have always been very sensitive about the image about us in foreign countries. We can't even decide anything before Sweden makes the first move. So yes, I think we have to bring out our most educated, sophisticated and wisest side out more agressively.
Like this guy.
(Yeah, I have said I don't like to linke this kind of nonsense before, I still don't, but this just shows how smart we Finnish really are.)
While searching for something I came across with couple of news articles from late 90's. It seems that you cannot be a police officer in US if you are too smart.
Explains a lot.
"If the EU works out a single position or if NATO steps beyond its mandate in Kosovo, these organizations will be in conflict with the U.N., and then I think we will also begin operating under the assumption that in order to be respected, one needs to use force." - Dmitry Rogozin, Moscow's ambassador to NATO
Interfax
Yo whazzup!
I don't normally post links, but every now and then one must make an exception. This is such time.
I woz just chillin' wiv mah honkies, playin' gin, drinkin' juice. Me bro gave me a shout. I says "Yo, whazzup mah cracker?" - He says "Yo, you gotta check diz won out, b." The mofo sent me a link.
Y'all gots to check it out.
John Lajoie - Everyday Normal Guy
YouTube
MySpace
FunnyOrDie
And just noticed. He has a scetch about the same thing I ranted about today.
Today is the European 112 day.
Be safe.
Visit European Emergency Number Association (EENA) for further information.
Also, it's 18th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison.
Happy 50th birthday, Lego!
I went to check the Lego pages, and noticed under products a new series, Vikings. Under that section was five different sets. All are Vikings fighting Norse mythology monsters. Nice, uplifting toys. (I wish I had them when I was a kid.)
Interesting characters:
Fenris Wolf - Nice little doggy, Loki's son, who grows so large that in Ragnarök he kills and eats Odin.
Wyvern Dragon - Some sort of Saxon dragon. Can't think of any story in Norwegian mythology of anything Wyvern.
Nidhogg Dragon - In Norwegian World-Tree or Tree Of Life artwork, Nidhogg was the serpent who lives in the roots.
Midgar Serpent - Norwegian Ouroboros. Archenemy of Thor and has three fights with him. In the last one, during Ragnarök, Jörmungandr (Midgar Serpent) bites Thor venomosly just before it is killed. Thor takes 9 steps before dying himself, too.
Fafnir Dragon - Dwarf king's son who turns into a dragon and steals a lot of gold. Fafnir story is pretty much the same as Nibelung and Beowulf.
My small pocket camera and me were going home. But I took the wrong ferry to round Ring A10 in Amsterdam and ended up at the rings of Saturn instead.
Here's the pictures.
Joking with Ronsu about these pics:
Me: It's easy to find adventures in your neighbourhood if you just have a good imagination.
Ronsu: Yeah, just like friends, too.
The stock markets have been falling around Europe and Asia. Still waiting for yesterdays reports for USA. Let's not call it Black Monday. We already have had couple of those. Something snappy. Something catchy.
Ragnarok Monday!
But we can all party like it's nineteen twentynine! (Again.)
If I daydream about things that cannot be proven at my work, I get fired. I understand that in your job that is exactly your job description.
However, the recent schizophrenia about Harry Potter books is confusing. First it was good, now it's evil. I am going to let you in on a little secret.
Although you have never seen your boss, nor heard from him, you belive you have a boss. Even though you never got a message from him that you didn't need to decipher wether this is a random incident or a memo from your boss, you still need to believe in your boss. That's fine. I cannot dispute that fact. Believing in it is your job security. But living your life in this kind of belief may compromise your judgement, and therefore I am compelled to inform you:
Magic does not exist.
Harry Potter cannot fly with a broom in real life. There are no spells and witchcraft. In the books you have to use your imagination to make Harry fly and in the movies it is only special effects. You can find out more about special effects if you check for example Industrial Light And Magic's webpage. (Please note: The "magic" part in ILM's name does not mean they do real magic.) You cannot gather mana and you cannot wave a magic wand and do miracles. Doing miracles is the sole right of your boss, if he exists. Also, there are no Dementors, nor Basilisks. No Thestrals nor Griffins. They are figments of J.K. Rowling's imagination. The milestone in Alchemy, the philosopher's stone does not exist either. You cannot convert lead to gold without the help of science. And our current level of science doesn't even work that well. We can create lighter atoms from heavier ones, like Uranium and Plutonium. And we have the basic knowledge how to convert hydrogene into helium. But we can't even get the latter one to work sufficiently. So don't be alarmed for the philosopher's stone and converting lead to gold either.
I know it is easy to mix up the fictional books, but remember this rule of thumb: Your book tells that it is real. J.K. Rowling has never tried to tell us that Harry Potter really exists. She says the character is fictional and as a matter of fact the book can be found under the section called "fantasy". Please try to separate your book from other books that do not claim to be true, but in fact honesty tell you they are fiction.
While I'm at it, I will hereby inform you that Smurfs don't exist either. So no worries about Gargamel making a magical potion out of Smurfs. There's no Saruman and no Merlin, nor Wicked Witch of the West. Mickey Mouse is an animated character who had been drawn to wear a wizard's apprentice's clothes in Fantasia.
For me Smurfs, the Bible and Discworld books are as fictional. But Smurfs and Discworld have less writing staff. I would recommend that stick to one fantasy land and discard the fear of others. If you play Dungeons & Dragons and immediately after that Nethack, you might mix up characters, as Cacodemon and Floating Eye are actually the same character. As a player that would make a small difference in real life, but as your job is to prove one fantasy-world exists, I would stick to only one, if I were you.
If you have irrational fears of other fictional characters, please do not be afraid to seek help. There are professional people who are trained to deal with people with this kind of delusions.
I went to take the trash out last night and noticed I got stuck in a comic book.
I took a picture of it:
I think it's time to open a Flickr account.
In the morning when I came home, I noticed Ronsu / Ephelant was still doing the same song:
In the 80's the gallant people of Afganistan had a CIA funded group called Muhajeddin fighting the evil Russians. This group later became al-Qaeda and is a very bad group nowadays. Now that Iraq's resources have been secured, Iran seems to be the next logical evil. To fight this evil USA is making a new advanced weaponry deal of $20 billion. If it would be any other country I would be careful to accept this kind of weaponry, as history has taught us that if you are a friend now and buy weapons, you might be evil later and because of the weapons the seller has an excuse attack.
It also helps if Saudis would bite the hand that feeds by, for example, following Saddam's 2001 example and accepting Euro, which is so evil that Saddam was put in the same group as some Saudi attackers.
But in this case it may not be so. In the case of those Saudi attackers, the blame was on another country. Middle-East is far away and one can easily mix up Saudi-Arabia with Afganistan. As I said, this new deal may not be dangerous for Saudis. They do own several percentage of US economy and it would be dumb for a country to attack its own economy. And I don't believe Saudi-owned companies manufacture margarine, so in oil and weaponry fields the percentage may be even higher.
It is only natural to secure oil reserves, if a country is highly addicted to it. That's why there is no interference for example in Mogadishu, where oil cannot be found in such masses. There is no government there and it is ruled by several clans. Yet, there's no massive bombing-for-peace operation. Middle-East has a lot of oil and sending troops to secure the oil may cost lifes, it is safer to ship enormous amounts of weaponry there and let them kill each other out. When they are weak enough, it's easier to control.
This is not morals, nor approval of actions. Merely observations of the actions. All we need now is the politics to justify it all. Luckily the reasons can be made up also afterwards.
Interesting little fact about Vietnam war:
Nobel Peace Price of 1973 went to Henry A. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho for peace in Vietnam. (Le Duc Tho didn't attend the ceremony in Oslo, nor accepted the price for moral reasons.)
Vietnam war ended April 30, 1975.
I just read from CNN about an incident in Bethlehem involving Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests. They were cleaning the church, which they believe was built on the spot where Jesus was born. The two religious groups share the church and have their own sides. Orthodox Christmas is on 8th of January.
One Greek Orthodox priest was accdentally cleaning on Armenian side and a brawl ensued. When Palestinian police separated 50 Orthodox priests from 30 Armenian priests armed with mops and such, four were wounded.
I guess they forgot to ask: WWJD?
I read today the oldest man-powered transportation comes from Finland. Skates. Doesn't surprise me. We still sometimes use skates and skis as transportation over lakes, as it is easier than going around the lake. And of course it came from Finland, since Finnish culture is quite old when compaired to these newbies, like Germanic and Latin countries. I've read from somewhere the oldest Finnish words hacked in stone are from about 4200BCE, so it's almost 5000 years older than for example English language, which developed around 500CE. In school we used to take trips to local islands by skates in winters. It was fun to skate when there's ice as far as an eye can see.
After the ice-age Finland was ripped and torned. Huge ice-masses moved to south and ripped the country's landscape. If you look at the map it has all its lakes in lines, coming down vertically from north and after half way turning to south-west direction. Means to travel across frozen lakes came because of need, not because of fun.
Skiing was different also. Up until late 1800's, when modern skis came, the skis were more like a large ski on the other foot and a smaller, sometimes fur-covered ski called Lyly on the other. The smaller ski and a modified spear to paddle gave more speed. The point wasn't to go very fast, but to be efficient when there's not that much food available and it's very heavy to travel through all that snow and ice.
The thing that made made me smile is when I read the horse bone skates were no match for modern speed skaters. No shite Sherlock. I can't skate 60km/h with modern skates. No way. I don't think they held that many speed skating competitions back in that time either. Not enough food to fool around. I would be more interested in comparison of the normal travelling speed of old skates vs normal travelling speed of new skates. How the manouvering is compared to the new skates and so on.
I don't need statistics how McLaren's new F1 car is so much faster than a Benz Patent Motorwagen. I know that already without statistics. I want to know the difference in normal travelling when comparing Mondeo with T-Ford, for example.
I wonder how the skates worked. They mention the skates were made from horse bones, and the fat in the bones gave extra gliding abilities. In Scientific Bloggin's page there's a picture of one skate that has the horse bone as a sole and a metallic blade. This would be already quite advanced skate and must've come after the iron age. (Was that around 600BCE?) Would be nice to test those skates someday.
But in any case, interesting articles in BBC and in Scientific Blogging. Read.
Der Spiegel writes A Finnish charity is selling silver rings emblazoned with a swastika to raise money for World War II veterans. Surprisingly good article considering Germany's fear towards that symbol, due to some mistakes in the past. They had most facts correct. Only thing I'd correct is a non-historical fact about R-Kioski. They claim it is a supermarket, but as the name R-Kioski hints, it is a chain of kiosks. (Kiosk: A kiosk is a small stand where vendors sell anything from hot-dogs to souvenirs.)
The historical facts were correct. Finnish Air Force took the symbol in 1918, and it is still used by at least couple of Air bases in Finland, the largest being the base in Lapland (Lapin Lennosto). It actually is also in our flag of the President of the Republic of Finland, which I made in SVG format for our independence day. Old symbol, for good luck. Before I forget I have to thank Der Spiegel for not getting hysterical over the symbol just because in your country it carries bad karma. (Of course, if Finland would use this symbol in any new purpose, it would most likely be misunderstood, as I do in some cases. But it's mainly an issue to us westerners.)
Sotiemme Veteraanit (Veterans of Our Wars) has created a site for the Iron Ring (The name of the ring is Iron Ring.) that was given prior to the WWII to all those Finnish people who contributed to the war effort by giving their gold items to charity. Gold items could be exchanged to the Iron Ring. As a pacifist I do not really like war in general, but the sacrifices the Finnish veterans had to do was something that can be described as altruistic devotion to the Fatherland. Of course there's a flipside to this. The enemy was shipped to the battlefield from far away (be the enemy a Russian or a German soldier), but for the Finnish veterans, they were fighting on their backyards. They knew if they let anyone pass, their families and their houses would be just behind them. Gives a different motivation.
Nevertheless, they fought with great passion. Motti or Pocket was one of the most effective tactics. Only a handful of soldiers could capture entire Regiments with cunning tactics in Finnish winter landscape. Surround the Regiment, cut the service line and wait. When anyone pops their head out, shoot, relocate. With only a handful of soldiers you can fake a huge army that way. Just stay hidden. When there's a shot fired from somewhere in the woods, you can't see where the shot came from or how many shots were fired. And when it's -40 decrees of Celsius, it's better to stay in the camp. Unlike Russian soldiers in the surrounded camp, the Finnish soldiers didn't have any camp themselves. They were sitting in the snow, without any possibility to even a fire, for it would've given away the position.
One of the most victorious battles was the Battle Of Raate Road, where Finland used 6000 men to kill approximately 17 500 Russian soldiers, and capturing 1300 of 25 000 total, suffering the loss of only 250 men. Finland also captured tanks, guns, anti-tank guns, machine guns, horses, armored cars etc. Russians were planning to march through Finland, cutting it in two and have a victory party. Finnish soldiers destroyed the front tanks, the last tanks and started to cut down the enemy into smaller pieces little by little. Russians were on the road, Finnish in the surrounding forest. Again, the same tactic. Hide, shoot, relocate. Effective, as you don't see the enemy, but the enemy sees you - and when they finally give away their location, they are already on the move.
This kind of effort, considering the conditions, is one of the reasons why I would like to support the veterans by getting one of those rings. As I am living abroad, it may be difficult, but I need to see if I can still manage to get one for myself. If you live in Finland or plan to visit there, please remember to pick up one of these rings.
I love our continent. I love Europe and I love European Union in most parts. But I also love Finland.
I stand by everything EU has decided before adding 10 countries in one go, even if I don't agree with all of the decisions. After that there has been some poor decision making every now and then and my faith towards this union is shaking..
The end of European Union started when we expanded by something like 65% larger to the east. First 10 countries then 2. Not that I have anything against those countries being in EU, but the expansion was too quick. What's the hurry? Take couple of the countries, see how it goes. When everyone is again on the same level, take some more. And so on.
To put some scale, here's a timeline in a nutshell: When EEC was formed in late 50's, it took more than 10 years, until 70's, for three more countries to join. 8 years later one more country. 5 years later two more in the 80's. From that it took 7 years, until 1993 to become EU. It took Finland, Sweden and Austria 2 more years to decide whether they want to be in EU, but we joined and helped built the union better. This is a slow progression on a western scale. So after waiting 9 long years, instead of taking 2-3 countries along we expanded with 10 countries and 2 more in couple of years. Great. Just in case we have ten(ish) more countries we want to assimilate. Not all of them are even in Europe!
Of course it was us westerners who need to be in such a big hurry. In Asia, they can wait for longer than one man's lifetime. We can't wait even a half a lifetime before we start destroying what we built. Too much, too quickly is never a good idea. Try it out yourself with marshmallows, for example.
Now they have done it. We have a European Constitution. Ok, they don't call it a constitution, but what is a paper that overrides individual country's (referred from here on as a state) law but a constitution?
This is not going to ease up tension. It's going to gather it. For example just recently big wine producing states close to Mediterranean Sea wanted that only those drinks that have no added sugar and are made only from grapes can be called wines. I'm fine with that. I come from a Nordic state and we value our Vodka kind of the same way as Mediterranean states value their wine. Then those states started to blabber something weird. Only wine-producing states can sell wine. What? Did I read right? No, can't be right. Error in Finnish translation in the newspaper. Must be. But wait, there's more! They want that anything with alcohol, sugar and water can be sold as Vodka.
So... wine that you like must have very strict rules - since you have long roots with them and we just don't understand since we don't have that wine-culture? And at the same time Vodka should be allowed to be produced from cow manure if one likes to do so, since you don't understand the delicate differences in Vodka?
This is how we agree on a recreational drink level. And now we need to agree about common rules on a political level?
I support EU as a trade union, not on a constitutional level. There's no way I'm going to war if some crazy lady on some island-state wishes me to. Trade borders open, good trade regulations, some shared laws, but every country can keep their own laws and constitution. I also have nothing against sharing information about serious offenders between EU countries, either. But it must be a serious offense. But I do have a lot against state-like governing which may lead EU to resemble of a country it tries to imitate.
As I said earlier, not too much, not too quickly. Slowly but surely. I want Europe to be a strong continent. No rush. I prefer to think we have 27 wise men* who decide what is good and share their wisdom with us and each country can decide for themselves. I know it's too utopistic way of thinking, but I'd like it. We need to equalize our economic differences first, before massive expansion. We don't need to follow the footsteps of the promised land of lawsuits in handling our money. Sure, when you have a lot, your expenses are different, but you handle the money differently also. We are the older brother. We have strong roots in banking. And I know we can keep our cultures intact, rich and yet united as they are. Let's show we can be a strong economic force, with no interest in brute force. Let's show the world we can be the smarter brother.
More info:
Brussels Journal
BBC
* Sounds fairy-tale like.
