Category: Current Affairs

A Pliable Form Of Justice

What supposedly separates good from evil in terms of statehood is the belief in the rule of law.  The idea that every human being is a deserving of a trial by his peers.  Then and only then can a person’s guilt be confirmed and a fitting sentence be decided upon.  This obstacle if you will is the difference between a legitimate justice system and one of a corrupt, malevolent nature.

In the aftermath of the death of Colonel Gaddafi, the circumstances are somewhat unclear.  The initial reports suggested that he was executed by NTC soldiers.  Now the story is somewhat confusing as a number of conflicting reports have emerged.  One thing which is apparent, given the mobile phone footage which was shown on every news station last night is that for sometime at least he was dragged around the streets being struck by NTC soldiers.  That alone suggests that the idea he was taken to hospital is at the very least, rather unlikely.

As always in such cases it’s almost impossible that the truth will ever be completely clear.  As was the case with Bin Laden when he was shot dead, apparently unarmed and surrounded, the media will help us quickly forget any questions pertaining to the circumstances and move on.  In the meantime we can enjoy soundbite after soundbite about how someone has got justice, or about how the chance of building a new Libya has only started now the tyrant is dead, from various leading white Western politicians.  Despite the fact that now there is no chance of justice for the victims of Gaddafi’s regime.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Gaddafi case is the number of Western Governments who are seemingly delighted to be rid of Colonel Gaddafi.  British Prime Minister David Cameron was one of the first world leaders to speak of his pride in Britain’s part in bringing Gaddafi down.  What he didn’t speak of was the 5 million pounds worth of armored personnel carriers and water cannons we sold to Libya in 2007.  Or the tear gas we sold them in the summer of 2010.  Or the sniper rifles we sold them after that.

When the dust settles in Libya, and the nation tries to reconcile itself with its difficult past there are going to be very few figures left alive who will be able to shed some light on the torrid secrets of the Gaddafi regime.  There will be no figurehead.  There will be no one to blame.  The secrets will remain buried and the skeletons hidden in plain sight.

Eeek-anomics

It may surprise some to learn that I am not in fact an Economist.  I want to clarify this at the very beginning.  I do not possess a single economic qualification.  I have never worked in finance.  Therefore many would say that I do not have the right to make any comment on this subject.  In my defence I want to point out that the people with the relevant qualifications, running the economies of our collective nations are doing a pretty damn awful job.  I sincerely believe that with my absolute lack of any useful knowledge I could do a just as appalling job as  any finance minister in Europe.  However there is only one thing stopping me becoming an Economist, and that is the knowledge that come the revolution we shall march out those bastards first and shoot them.

The second reason is that you cannot escape the term economic crisis for 24 hours unless you hide inside your wardrobe for the rest of your life.  In the past year alone I have watched over 6,502 hours of news reports about the economic crisis and read over 569,332 words regarding the said topic.  By all appearances it seems that all Finance Ministers actually do is appear on the news as often as possible and talk about the economic crisis without actually doing very much to stop the said crisis.

I will now introduce my financial theory entitled Biebernomics.  The theory goes as follows.  There is one Justin Bieber.  A record company pays him 1 million dollars per cd.  They make 2 million dollars for each cd.  Imagine if there were two Justin Bieber’s.  If a record company paid him 1 million dollars, they would only break even on the cd as there is another Justin Bieber out there eating up their sales.  Now imagine if there were 10 Justin Bieber’s.  For a record company to make a 50% profit they couldn’t pay him more than 100,000 dollars in order to come out with a profit.  The point is that even if you are as lovely as Justin Bieber, your value is only high as long because there is one of you.  The only way Justin Bieber could earn more money would be by killing all the other Justin Bieber’s out there until he is the only one.  And the same principle works well in economics.

The Euro zone suffers from too many Justin Bieber’s.  There are 14 printing presses producing money for 17 countries.  If one country decides they need more money they print it which increases the number of euros in circulation whilst reducing the value of those already in existence.  The problem is how exactly this Euro is valued.  In my attempts to find how the value of the Euro was created I stumbled across this gem.

‘Based on International Monetary Fund estimates of 2008 GDP and purchasing power parity among the various currencies, the euro zone is the second largest economy in the world.[7]‘ from Wikipedia – Euro

In a nutshell the value of the Euro(which has been in circulation since 2002) is based upon estimates from the I.M.F, the same bunch of idiotic men in suits who steered the world economy directly into a financial crisis.  Basically a group of people guessed the value of the Euro.  A continent  has a currency which is based on the predictions a group of accountants made years ago.  The same group of people who were not able to predict that a global recession was on the horizon.  Excuse me, I know I am not any kind of financial genius but does that not sound a tad insane?

Money in itself is a form of hypocrisy.  We earn it, we save it, we love it, we all want more of it, yet most of us fail to realise that money is absolutely worthless.  The thing which we use to assess the value of the world we live in is completely and utterly worthless.  It only has value because we say it does, if one day we decided that it’s worthless it would be.  Many years ago the British Pound was directly linked to the value of gold.  Even now the notes retain a promise from the chairman of the bank of England.

‘But the value of the pound has not been linked to gold for many years, so the meaning of the promise to pay has changed. Exchange into gold is no longer possible and Bank of England notes can only be exchanged for other Bank of England notes of the same face value. Public trust in the pound is now maintained by the operation of monetary policy, the objective of which is price stability.’ from the Bank Of England’s website

So let me get this right, gold is no longer how we value the pound, instead we value it by monetary policy.  The fact is the British Government made this change because we don’t have any gold left.  Which means now that the value of the pound is linked to policy’s.  Idea’s in effect which only further proves that money has no real value.  This is a constant truth.  If a friend asks to borrow 10 pounds tell him you want 11 back.  Not only have you made a profit but you have changed the value of one 10 pound note.  It’s funny to think that we are the masters of money and not vice versa.  If what I say is true, what can we do to save Capitalism?

The global economic crisis has been worsened by growing instability.  The Euro is wobbling and may well be on the verge of collapsing.  For the European Union to be a success we all need a stable currency we can rally round.  My proposal is that the new currency should be named after the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel.  The value of the Merkel will be set by me personally.  Every morning I shall find a picture of what Angela Merkel is wearing on that particular day and rate her hotness on a scale of 1 to 10.  Lets be honest she will never score less than a 4 and more than a 6.  Which means on her better days the Merkel will be worth 6 dollars, and on her worse days 4.  The Bierbernomics of the Merkel are distinctly positive.  Due to the fact there is only one Angela Merkel, and that there is almost zero chance that she has a twin or a clone, the Merkel is guaranteed to be a stable currency for many years to come.

I believe by correct application of Biebernomics and the introduction of the Merkel as the new European currency I have single-handedly saved the world from the largest financial crisis to strike the world since the second world war.  If you want to thank me feel free to leave a comment underneath,  or if you have any questions about Biebernomics and the Merkel or even if you wish to merely nominate me for the Nobel prize please feel free to do so.

7 Years On

Today is my 7th anniversary in Poland.  I thought I would try to note down some observations on the changes I have witnessed here.  However that is proving to be much more difficult than expected as I haven’t actually seen that many.  What I have experienced are lessons.

The first lesson I learnt here was that despite the fact that Poland looks much the same as any other country, albeit with a higher proportion of tower blocks, cars which drive on the wrong side(which now peculiarly feels like the right side) of the road and signs in a funny language it isn’t.  It is impossible to say that Poland is diverse in its culture and its beliefs because it isn’t.  If anything it is a country still in the process of finding itself and figuring out its place in the 21st century.

The second lesson I learnt was that a grieving Pole is an unpredictable Pole.  It is somewhat typical here to lament your lot in life and look to assign blame.  Rarely do people just move on.  Sadness here can quickly turn to anger.  In the 7 years gone I have witnessed Poland grieve a Pope and a President(with many other poor souls).  Sadness here is a bitter pill.  I have seen miners riot, football hooligans riot and most surprising of all, Old people fight with the police.

The third and final lesson I wish to mention is that bureaucracy is a cancer with always remains.  The remnants of history here are hidden in plain view to anyone who has to visit a tax office, a doctor or apply for anything at all.  The average Polish government office has to cut down the equivalent of 62.7 percent of the amazon rainforest every year in order to have enough paper to ensure that every form is signed and dated in quad-duplicate.  It is as if the advent of computers is kept in the same part of the Polish psyche as the enlightenment.

These are just a few observations in my time here.  Poland is my adopted homeland and in truth trying to love her is like loving your least favourite cousin.  You have to see beyond her rough edges to get to the good stuff.  Now it is my home.  And like any home it needs a few repairs.

Lessons About Travelling

This weeks news stories have been awash with stories of travelling.  Whether it be people travelling, neutrino’s travelling or a satellite travelling towards earth.  It’s been a wonderfully refreshing look at the stupidity of mankind.

Let’s start with the people travellers.  In yet another example of the stupidity of political correctness and the general stupidity of the human race the story of Dale Farm has been dominating the headlines in the UK.  It relates to a group of gypsies who have settled on a piece of land and want to stay there.  However the local government wants to evict them as this land belongs to someone else.  In a nutshell they are illegally squatting on land which doesn’t belong them, which by all accounts is against the law.  BBC is full of interviews with these squatters explaining that they are ‘travellers'(their preferred name for themselves) and they will never give up their way of life.  Newspapers are full of headlines such as  ‘save the travellers homes.’ and no one sees the insanity of their own statements. The day they settled at Dale Farm they ceased to be travellers and they became squatters.  To be a traveller you need to fucking travel.  Staying in one place is not travelling.  It’s not moving.

The scientific world was stunned to discover that Einstein was wrong.  After spending billions of pounds designing super extravagant overly complicated toys scientists have found something which travels faster than the speed of light.  The perfectly named sounds a bit like some monsters in Super Mario, Neutrino’s.  First of all I find it incredible the brightest minds in sciences are surprised when a 100-year-old theory is proved incorrect.  As scientists you would expect that they expect new discoveries to be made all the time.  The number of  influential scientists who have been proved wrong over time is extensive.  As science evolves, new techniques are discovered, new equipment is designed, the scientific truth is ever-changing.  The most incredible thing about these smug arrogant scientists who are on our tv screens taking discreet pleasure in using the words wrong and Einstein in the same sentence is their grasp of history.  One reason why Einstein may not have realised that there is something that travels faster than the speed of light is the fact that the Neutrino was discovered in 1959.  Where as Einstein died in 1955.  So excuse me for suggesting that this fact is crucial.  The second thing I would like to point out in Einstein’s defence is that the Theory of Relativity is…. well….. a fucking theory for God’s sake.

I will close with a few musings on the satellite which crash landed somewhere.  I say somewhere as no one knows where on earth(great choice of expression) that satellite landed.  That’s right for all the money, gadgets and brilliant minds NASA employs they could not track an enormous satellite as it hurtled towards the earth.  Its reassuring to know that nothing untoward could have happened.  That there was 0 chance of anyone losing their life.  Seriously what chance would we have if Aliens ever invaded.  Fifty percent of humanity would be arguing over whether we should call them aliens, travellers or space travellers.  Scientists would be morris dancing with delight due to the fact that the existence of aliens would prove that a large number of famous scientists were completely wrong while NASA will tell us that they are coming, they just wouldn’t know where and when.  Seriously we are fucked.  If this is the best the human race has to offer, then we belong in the special olympics.

The Battle Of Troy

Troy Davis is dead.  Executed.  He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.  That sentence has now been carried out.  It amazes me that some states in America still believe in the death penalty.  The first recorded execution took place in 1608.  403 years later it appears that America still hasn’t realised that the threat of the death penalty does not deter would be murderers.  That number alone is pretty damning.

I am not a lawyer so I do not wish to open a legal debate.  However I do wish to mention a few facts which for me are striking.  First of all 7 from 9 witnesses recanted their testimony amid allegations that they were pressured by the police to make their original statements.  A story which is all to familiar.  Regarding actual physical evidence.  At the crime scene forensic investigators found 0 evidence to connect Davis to the crime.  Another striking number.  Another man named Sylvester Cole confessed to the crime to three people.  However as he was never called as a rebuttal witness at the trial his confession was dismissed as hearsay.  Two witnesses gave statements connection Cole to a firearm in the direct aftermath of the incident.  Another witness placed him at the crime scene.  No murder weapon was ever found.  I don’t know enough about the case to give a rounded legal opinion but as a human being I can say that it sounds a little like reasonable doubt to me.

It’s hard to be completely honest about the death penalty.  As much as I believe it is wrong, if a loved one of mine was directly affected by a serious crime by position would almost certainly change instantly.  I would be a liar if I said otherwise.  The troubling fact about the eye for an eye on concept is that by and large it does not work.  As an example it is fundamentally flawed.  A decent human being should never wish harm onto anyone.  Yet most of us are not decent.  I don’t know what part of this story is the most wrong.  The murder, the dubious conviction or the fact that a seemingly guilty man has got away with a crime scot-free.