These are three books that I feel that everyone who want to expand their understading of the world we live in should read.
The Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, This book will explain astrophysics, the theory of relativity, the past, present and the future of the universe in a easily understandable format without MATHS. Quite an accomplishment and a must read if you want to understand physics and through it the great mysteries of the universe without having to go through tons of equations.
Guns, germs and steel by Jared Diamond, This book gives a pretty good anwser to why the world history took the course it did, why civilizations emerged where they did, why Philip II of Spain's representatives took Atahualpa the Inca emperor hostage and not the otherway around, why the decendants of farmers in mesopotamia invented the Helicopter and why the decendants of farmers in Papua New Guinea did not. The anwsers might shock you.
The Ascent of Money by Njall Fergusson, This book tracks the financial history of the world and how financial innovation has improved our lives. All of this is again explained in an audience friendly manner. He explains how banks and credit systems are necessary, how the first stock market in the world was a better investment than the largest silver mine in the world and why the people living in the safest part of the world the most insured.
maanantai 27. joulukuuta 2010
Taxation - The part of Government spending that isn't discussed very often
Taxes, the nasty things that the goverment uses to take money from you for uses may or may not approve, but lets face it they are a necessary evil that pay for all those good things in our society, like education, health care, the police, social benefits etc. We could continue this list ad nauceam.
In discussions about government finance taxes, atleast here in Finland, take the sidelines to government spending. Everyone has a clear idea on what money should be used or not used on, but no one rarely talks about how our taxation system should work. Its all too technical, its full of unfamiliar terminology, legal jargon and when you try to read the tax code or let alone try to understand it, tears of frustration will eventually flow. Its actually so complicated that there are thousands of people making obsene amounts of money from giving advice to people how to navigate the tax jungle. Taxation it seems is too complicated, even for the politicians, let alone for us, to understand.
Fuck this is shit! In the same way as how the public funds are used, how they are collected, is an ethical question, not a complex technical issue only understood by few experts. Here are few hard and fast rules that I have for a taxation system, with usual ranting about how fucked up things are at the moment.
1) Equality: The same amount of income should be taxed at the same rate. Period. This isn't happening at the moment in Finland, where for some completely insane reason, salary income is taxed progressively and capital income is taxed with a flat rate. This leads to the following situation, if I made 100 000€ in a year, as a lutheran living in helsinki, my tax rates for salary and capital gains would be as follows
Salary tax rate: 37,5%
Capital Income tax rate: 28%
Does this system look fair to you?
2) Proportional: The greatest tax burden should be placed on the people with the greatest ability to pay for it. This means that income taxation should be progressive, whích for those who don't know what it means, is a system where the tax rate increases the higher the income is. Flat tax rates have the big problem of not being able to generate as high revenue as progressive taxes.
3) Tax income, not consumption. This goes with the point above. When you tax consumption, it allows those with income above their needs to "escape" taxation, by not consuming. This means that the people with low levels of income, who spend all of their income on the necesseties, pay taxes on all of their income while the unspent income of the rich are not taxed. In response to the recession the government of Finland, in all its wisdom, decided to increase the VAT from 22% to 23%. What the fuck!!!
4) Tax are tools to raise funds, not tools for social engineering. Tax are the means for the government to finance the all important public services, not to control our behaviour. If something is harmful enough for the society to eliminate it, then make a law against it, don't use some half assed tax solution to manipulate people, largely because they don't really work. These include all kinds of taxes on harmful stuff, like tobacco and alcohol, UK has high taxes for tobacco, which has lead to a massive black market of smuggled cigarettes controlled by organized crime. Green taxes to penalize unenvironmental forms of energy production and the most recent insanity here in Finland, the candy tax, does the government really think that a price increase of 10 cents is going to have any impact on underaged obesity? I think not.
5) Simplicity: The system needs to be simple enough to be understood by the layman. In this the tax administration in Finland is doing suberbly well. While the system is not exactly what I would call "simple", they make an admirable effort in trying to explain all of it, in three languages no less and the website looks good as well. There is a fairly easy to use browser based tax calculator you can use to calculate your taxes, its easy to find important information and there are in-depth step by step guides on how to fill the various forms. Plus the ability to file most of the stuff ONLINE.
Check it out here
http://www.vero.fi/?domain=VERO_ENGLISH&path=488
Now how would you handle taxation?
In discussions about government finance taxes, atleast here in Finland, take the sidelines to government spending. Everyone has a clear idea on what money should be used or not used on, but no one rarely talks about how our taxation system should work. Its all too technical, its full of unfamiliar terminology, legal jargon and when you try to read the tax code or let alone try to understand it, tears of frustration will eventually flow. Its actually so complicated that there are thousands of people making obsene amounts of money from giving advice to people how to navigate the tax jungle. Taxation it seems is too complicated, even for the politicians, let alone for us, to understand.
Fuck this is shit! In the same way as how the public funds are used, how they are collected, is an ethical question, not a complex technical issue only understood by few experts. Here are few hard and fast rules that I have for a taxation system, with usual ranting about how fucked up things are at the moment.
1) Equality: The same amount of income should be taxed at the same rate. Period. This isn't happening at the moment in Finland, where for some completely insane reason, salary income is taxed progressively and capital income is taxed with a flat rate. This leads to the following situation, if I made 100 000€ in a year, as a lutheran living in helsinki, my tax rates for salary and capital gains would be as follows
Salary tax rate: 37,5%
Capital Income tax rate: 28%
Does this system look fair to you?
2) Proportional: The greatest tax burden should be placed on the people with the greatest ability to pay for it. This means that income taxation should be progressive, whích for those who don't know what it means, is a system where the tax rate increases the higher the income is. Flat tax rates have the big problem of not being able to generate as high revenue as progressive taxes.
3) Tax income, not consumption. This goes with the point above. When you tax consumption, it allows those with income above their needs to "escape" taxation, by not consuming. This means that the people with low levels of income, who spend all of their income on the necesseties, pay taxes on all of their income while the unspent income of the rich are not taxed. In response to the recession the government of Finland, in all its wisdom, decided to increase the VAT from 22% to 23%. What the fuck!!!
4) Tax are tools to raise funds, not tools for social engineering. Tax are the means for the government to finance the all important public services, not to control our behaviour. If something is harmful enough for the society to eliminate it, then make a law against it, don't use some half assed tax solution to manipulate people, largely because they don't really work. These include all kinds of taxes on harmful stuff, like tobacco and alcohol, UK has high taxes for tobacco, which has lead to a massive black market of smuggled cigarettes controlled by organized crime. Green taxes to penalize unenvironmental forms of energy production and the most recent insanity here in Finland, the candy tax, does the government really think that a price increase of 10 cents is going to have any impact on underaged obesity? I think not.
5) Simplicity: The system needs to be simple enough to be understood by the layman. In this the tax administration in Finland is doing suberbly well. While the system is not exactly what I would call "simple", they make an admirable effort in trying to explain all of it, in three languages no less and the website looks good as well. There is a fairly easy to use browser based tax calculator you can use to calculate your taxes, its easy to find important information and there are in-depth step by step guides on how to fill the various forms. Plus the ability to file most of the stuff ONLINE.
Check it out here
http://www.vero.fi/?domain=VERO_ENGLISH&path=488
Now how would you handle taxation?
maanantai 29. marraskuuta 2010
Corporate Values
During my 4 years of business studies the most confusing, misunderstood and misleading subject has been CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility. Library fulls of thick books have been writen and many heated arguments fought over what is the coporations role in the society? When the anwser has been written clear down on the Chapter 1 of nearly every single finance and strategy textbook ever written. The one and only ethical operating principle any company will ever have in a society is this
The purpouse of a company is to create value for its shareholders.
Value is generated when the company is able to invest its
capital at a return greater than the cost of capital.
Its that simple, now you maybe wondering what all of this CSR stuff is all about then. It again is simple, to disguise this cold hard fact from you. CSR is in fact just a part of the company's PR plan, its purpouse is to make you feel warm and cuddly about to company and only for the reason, you guessed it, CSR has been proven to generate bigger returns.
A few examples, those Pink Breast Cancer Awerness ribons, have fairly little to do with breast cancer, but a whole hell of a lot to do with rates of return. Ladies you can bet your oh so sweet asses that some guy, a little bit like me, went through some data and came to the conclusion that by generating x% of extra sales the company could afford a price cut of y% and if the sales would increase above x% then generate a higher return on investment. Then some ruthless marketing person came up with a concept where by donating a portion of the sales price to a charity(breast cancer) that the main focus group (women) are interested in the company could achieve the new sales targets and maybe in few years they might be actually be able to charge a higher price than before. Lo and behold the Pink Ribbon campaign was born, now they are selling the product and making you feel good about spending money, since your not really spending it you are donating. If you are serious about helping to cure cancer donate to a freaking cancer charity or better yet to straight to a goddamn University Hospital.
More positive examples are how treat your employees and customers. The first chapter of every Customer Service textbook always deals with how good customer service leads to high return on investment. Its a proven fact that repeat customers offer higher returns than new customers, they provide a steady stream of revenue. The same goes to treating employees, employees and their know-how present is the most important intangible asset the company has, Google is a good example of this, they treat their employees like Gods with spectacular results.
Now you maybe wondering how can business be ethical if the only thing they should care about is the rate of returb? The anwser is simple, you. While the corporations don't have any moral guidelines, you do. The companies are there to make money by fulfilling your wants and needs, how you choose to fulfill those wants and needs is entirely up to you. If you don't care about things like child labour or the destruction of the environment, businesses will provide you with cheap products by using child labour if that is the way to the highest shareholder value. If on the other hand you refuse to buy a brand that is associated with the use of child labour then the returns on investment for that product will go down and the shareholders will lose value. The key to ethical business are ethical consumers. So if you are pissed at a company, don't buy its products and tell your friends about it, on Facebook or Youtube.
Final words to the ones reading this who have their own business or are planning on starting one, should note that the rule at the beginning also applies to you. If I would ask you, what your required return on equity* is, how would you anwser me? I would be interested in hearing your anwsers.
*(return on equity is the "cost" of capital for the money you put into the company aka how much profit you want to make on your investment into your own business)
perjantai 26. marraskuuta 2010
Movies that are awesome
Continuing with the movie theme, a short list of films that I happen to like in no particulat order of importance
Platoon: If you want to see an emotional side of war or men being emotional, this is one of the best movies on these topics. Made by Oliver Stone who actually served in combat in Vietnam earning Broze Star before being wounded. It is made as authentic as humanly possible, for example to prepare for filming the entire cast was taken for a brutal 2 week Jungle warfare training. It was more of a recreation of the war filmed than a movie. The result is simply awesome, from the confused firefights and the constant threat of ambush to the anger, despair and hopelesness of the tired teary eyed men is simply breathtaking. My favourite scene is at the end when Sergeant O'Neil, played by John McGinley, hears that he has been assigned to lead a platoon, the expression on his face goes beyond words.
The Dark Knight: This is one the best films I have seen in recent years. The atmosphere, the plot, the characters and the theme all come together to form a cinematic masterpiece. Heath Ledger pulls of the role of his life, managing to surpase the previous Joker played by Jack Nicholson by miles. Aaron Eckhart(Harvey Dent), Gary Oldman(Commisionare Gordon) and Christian Bale(Batman) form the Triumvirate of the Good guys who begin to make some serious headway into bringing down crime in Gotham, each with their own strenghts and weakness that complement each other really well. The plot is brilliant and the moral dilemmas possed to the characters would make Aristotle cry and they force you to think what would I do in this situation, combined with cripping action scenes. But the best part is the ending which they had the balls to make into a tragedy, like they did with the whole film.
Terminator 2: The movie starts with a simple premise, two robots are sent from the future, one to kill a kid and one to save the same kid turns into an epic battle to change the future. Its also a story about how young John Connor is forced to grow up into an adult, while teaching the a terminator designed to kill, how to be a responsible human being, while trying to keep his mothers psychotic mother in check. In the same way the Terminator learns to value human life, while his mother finds new hope when she realizes that the future is not set. Add to this action scenes that still look awesome today, with one of best endings I have seen.
Rambo First Blood: A story about an argument between two men which gets way out of hand. What is cool about this film is that its really hard to tell which one is the good guy and which the bad guy, Rambo or the Sheriff. Another interesting bit about is that Rambo uses is skills, intelligence and guerrilla tactics to defeat a large number of better equipped opponents. No guns, just a knife, intelligence and the will to survive. The end is again not what you expect, how many action films end in an emotional break down of the main character.
Empire Strikes Back: The first Star Wars film I saw(Thanks Dad for showing me this one first) and in my opinion the best of them. Starts of with heroes desperately defending their base and barely escaping the seemingly invinsible onslaught of the Empire and ends in one of the most epic fight scenes in movie history. Main issue here is how to defeat evil without being corrupted into being evil? The atmosphere is foreboding as the heroes try to desperatly escape or are preparing to a face a far superior foe. On the side we get an exciting chase and a well acted romance, which is fun and interesting to watch. If you haven't seen any Star Wars films, watch this.
Its a Wonderful Life: This one is old but still gold. A story about a man, who feels like he failed in his life and learns the hard way that this is in fact not true. Its a christmas classic, but also works well one is feeling depressed. Its the ultimate feel good movie with a very satisfying end.
Fight Club: A story about how pointless modern life occasionally feels and the quest of two men to change things. Bard Pitt as the nihilistic anarchist Tyler Durden who seeks to go deep into the primal urges of man that have been burried under all the bull shit of modern life and bring these instincts back. Starts of with a a bunch of guys kick the shit out of each other and culminates into an attempt to decimate the foundations of modern society, with an interesting twist end.
Platoon: If you want to see an emotional side of war or men being emotional, this is one of the best movies on these topics. Made by Oliver Stone who actually served in combat in Vietnam earning Broze Star before being wounded. It is made as authentic as humanly possible, for example to prepare for filming the entire cast was taken for a brutal 2 week Jungle warfare training. It was more of a recreation of the war filmed than a movie. The result is simply awesome, from the confused firefights and the constant threat of ambush to the anger, despair and hopelesness of the tired teary eyed men is simply breathtaking. My favourite scene is at the end when Sergeant O'Neil, played by John McGinley, hears that he has been assigned to lead a platoon, the expression on his face goes beyond words.
The Dark Knight: This is one the best films I have seen in recent years. The atmosphere, the plot, the characters and the theme all come together to form a cinematic masterpiece. Heath Ledger pulls of the role of his life, managing to surpase the previous Joker played by Jack Nicholson by miles. Aaron Eckhart(Harvey Dent), Gary Oldman(Commisionare Gordon) and Christian Bale(Batman) form the Triumvirate of the Good guys who begin to make some serious headway into bringing down crime in Gotham, each with their own strenghts and weakness that complement each other really well. The plot is brilliant and the moral dilemmas possed to the characters would make Aristotle cry and they force you to think what would I do in this situation, combined with cripping action scenes. But the best part is the ending which they had the balls to make into a tragedy, like they did with the whole film.
Terminator 2: The movie starts with a simple premise, two robots are sent from the future, one to kill a kid and one to save the same kid turns into an epic battle to change the future. Its also a story about how young John Connor is forced to grow up into an adult, while teaching the a terminator designed to kill, how to be a responsible human being, while trying to keep his mothers psychotic mother in check. In the same way the Terminator learns to value human life, while his mother finds new hope when she realizes that the future is not set. Add to this action scenes that still look awesome today, with one of best endings I have seen.
Rambo First Blood: A story about an argument between two men which gets way out of hand. What is cool about this film is that its really hard to tell which one is the good guy and which the bad guy, Rambo or the Sheriff. Another interesting bit about is that Rambo uses is skills, intelligence and guerrilla tactics to defeat a large number of better equipped opponents. No guns, just a knife, intelligence and the will to survive. The end is again not what you expect, how many action films end in an emotional break down of the main character.
Empire Strikes Back: The first Star Wars film I saw(Thanks Dad for showing me this one first) and in my opinion the best of them. Starts of with heroes desperately defending their base and barely escaping the seemingly invinsible onslaught of the Empire and ends in one of the most epic fight scenes in movie history. Main issue here is how to defeat evil without being corrupted into being evil? The atmosphere is foreboding as the heroes try to desperatly escape or are preparing to a face a far superior foe. On the side we get an exciting chase and a well acted romance, which is fun and interesting to watch. If you haven't seen any Star Wars films, watch this.
Its a Wonderful Life: This one is old but still gold. A story about a man, who feels like he failed in his life and learns the hard way that this is in fact not true. Its a christmas classic, but also works well one is feeling depressed. Its the ultimate feel good movie with a very satisfying end.
Fight Club: A story about how pointless modern life occasionally feels and the quest of two men to change things. Bard Pitt as the nihilistic anarchist Tyler Durden who seeks to go deep into the primal urges of man that have been burried under all the bull shit of modern life and bring these instincts back. Starts of with a a bunch of guys kick the shit out of each other and culminates into an attempt to decimate the foundations of modern society, with an interesting twist end.
torstai 25. marraskuuta 2010
Harry Potter Goes Camping around England
Just came back from seeing Harry Potter The Deathly Hallows part 1, which turned out into a real disappointment. This is going to be a review of that film, so SPOILER alert, not that the movie is really worth watching, let alone paying for. But now on with the review.
The beginning of the movie was pretty awesome, the mood and the music are straight from Dark Knight and I half expected Batman to appear, then we see Snape marching into a creeping looking mansion where Voldemort and his Legion of Doom is having meeting and the main topic on the agenda is, how do we capture/assassinate Harry Potter. This doesn't feel like a movie about a magic kid who gets bullied at school, this Harry Potter meets Jason Bourne, Jack Bauer and James Bond. The movie continued on this line with chases, ambushes, near misses, intelligence gathering, betrayals, paranoia and daring raids into enemy strongholds. Just swap the magic wands with Glocks, SIGs, Uzis and AKs, you get an action packed secret agent film, which I thought was fan-fucking-tastic. The best part is that all of this is happening with a background of a society that is falling under the heel of oppressive tyranny that practices similar racial doctrine that the nazis had. Harry Potter has become a lead figure in a resistance movement fighting against an oppressive regime. How could this movie possibly go wrong from here?
Then Harry, Hermione and Ron escape to a forrest where they "temporarily" set up a camp and then they stay there feeling sorry for themselves, listening to the radio and not really doing anything for the rest of the film All other characters disappear, the plot doesn't move any where, the characters don't really do anything remotely interesting or meaningful and nothing happens, the scenery occasionally changes as the move to a new cinematic spot somewhere in England, but thats about it. At this point I got really pissed, what happened to fighting the Dark Lord? What happened to the other characters? What is going in the society? How is the change in government affecting the lives of the people in the Potter-vers? All of these interesting plot lines and events that they started to talk about in the first half are completely abandoned and all we get is 3 people in a tent having a really boring holiday. Everything that happened in this part that took about 40 minutes could have been done in about 10.
When the director decides to spend the latter half of the film on useless carbage, you know that the end is just going to plain suck and guess what it did. Its basically one deux ex machina after another. First the Ghost of Bambi appears to Harry and leads him to a Magic Sword which just happens to be in a bond 100 meters from where they were camping. Then Ron comes back(He left at one point). Then they search for clues get betrayed and get caught by conveniently placed bad guys. No Problem, a magic elf appears, completely decimates Harry's captors and Harry and buddies escape. The End.
The movie turned out this way because the studios got greedy. This is based on the last Harry Potter book, so they better milk every penny out of this cash cow while they still can, so what I think happened was that they had a solid 3 hour screenplay for the last book, but they figured out that if they have two films they will get twice the money. So they had to add about 45 minutes of extra to make two two hour films, but since they were greedy bastards they didn't want to invest too much into it in terms of money, writing a meaningful plot or anything of real value. All they needed to do was to send the 3 principal actors into a wood for few days with a tent, a cameraman and an audio guy, the director wasn't sent, since nothing really happens in the woods the actors don't really need direction anyway.
The cast of Harry Potter includes some pretty awesome villains, Bellatrix Lestrange played by Helena Bonham Carter is simply awesome, insane, cruel and really entertaining to watch, she could easily be the girlfriend of Joker played by Heath Ledger from Dark Knight. Dolores Umbridge played by Imelda Staunton is another big favourite, a classic narcissistic sociopath with sadistic tendencies, looks all cute and cuddly on the outside, greets you with a big smile but underneeth beats a dark heart that wishes nothing but to bully, humiliate, dominate and hurt those who stand against her wishes. And finally Severus Snape played by Alan Rickman is perhaps the most complicated character in the series, but sadly he was reduced to a meer cameo in this film. Of the heroes Ron and Hermione are always entertaining, its fun to watch a screen couple that don't constantly profess their love to one anohter or kiss or do all that other cliche romantic stuff, reminds me of Princess Leia and Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back.
Speaking of Empire Strikes Back Roger Moore said the following in his review of the movie "Alternately funny and touching, it's the best film in the series, an "Empire Strikes Back" for these wizards and their wizarding world. And those effects? They're so special you don't notice them." Sorry Roger this was not the best HP film and comparing this to Empire Strikes Back is like comparing Sacher cake to a Shit Cake. This movie tries to have similar contemplative part like the one Luke had in Dagobah, but with a one big difference. In the Dagobah part of Empire Strikes Back we learn interesting things about the nature of the Force, the philosophy of the Jedi and Luke grows as a person as he gets ready to face Darth Vader, in this film nothing remotely similar happens, in fact nothing really meaningfull happens. Plus in Empire Strikes Back we get to also watch what goes on with the other characters, which is what they should have done with this film.
Finally words, this movie could have been a really good movie, if they had gone along with the Harry Potter meets Jack Bauer thing, but instead they had to ruin it with a needless and poorly executed melodrama and a really stupid ending. Based on this part I won't be watching the next part at a theater where I have to pay, I will watch it online for free. Serves the greedy bastards at Hollywood right.
The beginning of the movie was pretty awesome, the mood and the music are straight from Dark Knight and I half expected Batman to appear, then we see Snape marching into a creeping looking mansion where Voldemort and his Legion of Doom is having meeting and the main topic on the agenda is, how do we capture/assassinate Harry Potter. This doesn't feel like a movie about a magic kid who gets bullied at school, this Harry Potter meets Jason Bourne, Jack Bauer and James Bond. The movie continued on this line with chases, ambushes, near misses, intelligence gathering, betrayals, paranoia and daring raids into enemy strongholds. Just swap the magic wands with Glocks, SIGs, Uzis and AKs, you get an action packed secret agent film, which I thought was fan-fucking-tastic. The best part is that all of this is happening with a background of a society that is falling under the heel of oppressive tyranny that practices similar racial doctrine that the nazis had. Harry Potter has become a lead figure in a resistance movement fighting against an oppressive regime. How could this movie possibly go wrong from here?
Then Harry, Hermione and Ron escape to a forrest where they "temporarily" set up a camp and then they stay there feeling sorry for themselves, listening to the radio and not really doing anything for the rest of the film All other characters disappear, the plot doesn't move any where, the characters don't really do anything remotely interesting or meaningful and nothing happens, the scenery occasionally changes as the move to a new cinematic spot somewhere in England, but thats about it. At this point I got really pissed, what happened to fighting the Dark Lord? What happened to the other characters? What is going in the society? How is the change in government affecting the lives of the people in the Potter-vers? All of these interesting plot lines and events that they started to talk about in the first half are completely abandoned and all we get is 3 people in a tent having a really boring holiday. Everything that happened in this part that took about 40 minutes could have been done in about 10.
When the director decides to spend the latter half of the film on useless carbage, you know that the end is just going to plain suck and guess what it did. Its basically one deux ex machina after another. First the Ghost of Bambi appears to Harry and leads him to a Magic Sword which just happens to be in a bond 100 meters from where they were camping. Then Ron comes back(He left at one point). Then they search for clues get betrayed and get caught by conveniently placed bad guys. No Problem, a magic elf appears, completely decimates Harry's captors and Harry and buddies escape. The End.
The movie turned out this way because the studios got greedy. This is based on the last Harry Potter book, so they better milk every penny out of this cash cow while they still can, so what I think happened was that they had a solid 3 hour screenplay for the last book, but they figured out that if they have two films they will get twice the money. So they had to add about 45 minutes of extra to make two two hour films, but since they were greedy bastards they didn't want to invest too much into it in terms of money, writing a meaningful plot or anything of real value. All they needed to do was to send the 3 principal actors into a wood for few days with a tent, a cameraman and an audio guy, the director wasn't sent, since nothing really happens in the woods the actors don't really need direction anyway.
The cast of Harry Potter includes some pretty awesome villains, Bellatrix Lestrange played by Helena Bonham Carter is simply awesome, insane, cruel and really entertaining to watch, she could easily be the girlfriend of Joker played by Heath Ledger from Dark Knight. Dolores Umbridge played by Imelda Staunton is another big favourite, a classic narcissistic sociopath with sadistic tendencies, looks all cute and cuddly on the outside, greets you with a big smile but underneeth beats a dark heart that wishes nothing but to bully, humiliate, dominate and hurt those who stand against her wishes. And finally Severus Snape played by Alan Rickman is perhaps the most complicated character in the series, but sadly he was reduced to a meer cameo in this film. Of the heroes Ron and Hermione are always entertaining, its fun to watch a screen couple that don't constantly profess their love to one anohter or kiss or do all that other cliche romantic stuff, reminds me of Princess Leia and Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back.
Speaking of Empire Strikes Back Roger Moore said the following in his review of the movie "Alternately funny and touching, it's the best film in the series, an "Empire Strikes Back" for these wizards and their wizarding world. And those effects? They're so special you don't notice them." Sorry Roger this was not the best HP film and comparing this to Empire Strikes Back is like comparing Sacher cake to a Shit Cake. This movie tries to have similar contemplative part like the one Luke had in Dagobah, but with a one big difference. In the Dagobah part of Empire Strikes Back we learn interesting things about the nature of the Force, the philosophy of the Jedi and Luke grows as a person as he gets ready to face Darth Vader, in this film nothing remotely similar happens, in fact nothing really meaningfull happens. Plus in Empire Strikes Back we get to also watch what goes on with the other characters, which is what they should have done with this film.
Finally words, this movie could have been a really good movie, if they had gone along with the Harry Potter meets Jack Bauer thing, but instead they had to ruin it with a needless and poorly executed melodrama and a really stupid ending. Based on this part I won't be watching the next part at a theater where I have to pay, I will watch it online for free. Serves the greedy bastards at Hollywood right.
The Problem of the One Eyed Man
"In the Kingdom of the Blind, One Eyed is the King" -Desiderius Erasmus
This quote to me holds the essences of what it means to be an expert on a topic. Expert is a person who knows about a given topic more than anyone else in the given situation. The problem here lies in the fact that if everyone around you is completely ignorant on the topic, being the best at something doesn't require much knowledge. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially when the praise you receive from the blind and ignorant makes you feel like you infact have two eyes instead of one.
The lack of knowledge associated with having only one eye can become painfully obvious when you bump into a person with 2 or more eyes. In these situations the best you can hope is to barely pass off as a two eyed person and make most of the opportunity to learn and hopefully one day you will gain enough experience points to gain the level needed to activate your second and third eyes.
This quote to me holds the essences of what it means to be an expert on a topic. Expert is a person who knows about a given topic more than anyone else in the given situation. The problem here lies in the fact that if everyone around you is completely ignorant on the topic, being the best at something doesn't require much knowledge. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially when the praise you receive from the blind and ignorant makes you feel like you infact have two eyes instead of one.
The lack of knowledge associated with having only one eye can become painfully obvious when you bump into a person with 2 or more eyes. In these situations the best you can hope is to barely pass off as a two eyed person and make most of the opportunity to learn and hopefully one day you will gain enough experience points to gain the level needed to activate your second and third eyes.
torstai 14. lokakuuta 2010
Pirates ahoy!!!
http://www.iltasanomat.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/uutinen.asp?id=2262501
The text is Finnish, but the content is pretty simple. A guy had to pay in compensations 375 000€ and got a commuted prison sentence for hosting a service that provided illegal downloads. Fuck that shit. Internet pirateism maybe illegal but the penalty here way way out of proportion. As a comparison the entire Finnish media pays 6,5 million euros in fees to play music. The penalty is about 6% of that amount, for a guy who had 3000 members on his site. I would like to see the maths behind this. Another interesting comparison is in what sort of compensations are awarded for other crimes, for example the average compensation for a sexual assault on a child is around 4000€. For Fucks Sake!!! Seriously which is more serious, hosting a site with illegal downloads or raping a child. Nice to see how fucked up the sense of justice has gone in Finland.
Fuck the music industry and its witch hunt. I say lets everyone go to the Pirate Bay and download some music, to show these motherfuckers that we aren't afraid of them.
I would dearly love to buy music online but every single time I have tried to use an online service, it has been an abysmal failure. The music industry in Finland tries to cling to old fashioned distribution channels like record shops. From now on I will stick to Youtube, its convinient, easy to use and most of all free.
The text is Finnish, but the content is pretty simple. A guy had to pay in compensations 375 000€ and got a commuted prison sentence for hosting a service that provided illegal downloads. Fuck that shit. Internet pirateism maybe illegal but the penalty here way way out of proportion. As a comparison the entire Finnish media pays 6,5 million euros in fees to play music. The penalty is about 6% of that amount, for a guy who had 3000 members on his site. I would like to see the maths behind this. Another interesting comparison is in what sort of compensations are awarded for other crimes, for example the average compensation for a sexual assault on a child is around 4000€. For Fucks Sake!!! Seriously which is more serious, hosting a site with illegal downloads or raping a child. Nice to see how fucked up the sense of justice has gone in Finland.
Fuck the music industry and its witch hunt. I say lets everyone go to the Pirate Bay and download some music, to show these motherfuckers that we aren't afraid of them.
I would dearly love to buy music online but every single time I have tried to use an online service, it has been an abysmal failure. The music industry in Finland tries to cling to old fashioned distribution channels like record shops. From now on I will stick to Youtube, its convinient, easy to use and most of all free.
On the Nature of Dictatorship - Part 1
As Requested by Sahar
The word Dictator comes from the roman office of Dictator. The romans had a very well ordered constitution and form of government that built so that it would practically impossible for one man ever to dominate the entire nation. Every official position that had any form of political power, were usually appointed in multiplies. There were always 2 consuls, who ran the country, there were strict rules regarding consequtive terms, legistlation was done by the Senate through discussion, debate and voting and even the common man was protected by the Tribunis Plebis, who was elected by the people and had the right to over rule any law that the Senate passed, by simply stating VETO!! Latin for I forbid. Add to this the fact that the Roman republic was founded by ousting a particulary nasty king, Tarquinius Superbus, the romans were paranoid about letting anyone have too much power.
There was however one exception to this lets talk, vote and share power idea that the romans were fond of, The Dictator. Romans were overall very realistic and pragmatic people and they recognized there were going to be times when they simply didn't have the time to talk and vote, times when one man needed to take control of a situation and for other to follow that man.
The Dictator was elected by the Senate to deal with a specific situation usually some form of dire emergency, often military related. The term of office was usually for the duration of the crisis but with a maximum of 6 months after which the dictator was forced to cede the power. During the dictator's office all other officials lost their powers and had to follow the orders of the dictator, the dictator could change any laws or make new ones as they saw fit, they had an Imperium, which means that they could put people to death, and they were the supreme commanders of the roman army. In battle they were forbidden to ride a horse and were expected to fight in the front line infantry, this is to insure that Dictator suffers the consequences of their actions. To assist them dictators appointed a Magister Equitum as an assitant who lead the cavalry in battle. So the Dictator had the authority to run the state as they saw fit for a limited period of time.
Here are few examples of Roman dictators,
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus: A legendary example of how a Roman Dictator should conduct his office. When the Roman Senate came to inform him that they were going to need his help to save a roman army trapped by a rival tribe, the Aequi, he was plowing a field on his farm. He accepted his commision, asked his wife to bring his toga and went to save Rome. He assembelled an army, personally led the infantry to a crushing victory over the enemy, saved Rome, forced the enemy into a humiliating defeat, resigned, returned home and went back to farming. He did all of this in 16 days. I dearly wish we had politicians like this.
Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator: During the Second Punic War the romans suffered a series of devastating defeats against Carthagians lead by the military genious Hannibal Barca. Rome was teatering on the edge of defeat and a Dictator was needed to save the situation. Fabius was elected and he proved to be a brilliant choice. Fabius was smart enough to realize that as a field commander he was no match for Hannibal, nor was his army of raw recruits a match for Hannibal's battle-hardened veterans, so he deviced an ingenious strategy. Since he couldn't defeat Hannibal in battle he chose to avoid battle with Hannibal all together. He shadowed Hannibal's army, while using schorched earth tactics to prevent Hannibal from gathering supplies. These tactics proved successful, since Hannibal was unable to bring the romans to a decisive battle that would force the romans to accept, defeat he was forced to keep moving from one province to the next in order to feed his army. While initially unpopular with the romans and inspite of providing Fabius with very little glory, Fabius's strategies became Rome's standard solution to the threat of Hannibal. It allowed Rome to contain their most dangerous enemy, while allowing them to defeat Carthago on other fronts, culminating in the invasion of Carthage itself which finally forced Hannibal to leave Italy to defend his home city, in a battle where he was finally defeated. Cunctator, which means the delayer, was initally an insult on Fabius, but later was considered a honorific title, when romans realized the importance of what Fabius had done. One roman historian even said unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem – "one man, by delaying, restored the state to us."
Gaius Julius Caesar: A man who needs no introduction, one of the greatest politicians and generals in human history, was the last of the roman dictators. He held the office several time until getting elected as life-time dictator by the Senate, in effect becoming what the romans had been fearing for so long. This however proved to be a fatal mistake, when a group outraged roman senators stabbed him 23 times on the Senate floor on the 15 of March in 44 BC.
Next part is going to be about modern dictators
The word Dictator comes from the roman office of Dictator. The romans had a very well ordered constitution and form of government that built so that it would practically impossible for one man ever to dominate the entire nation. Every official position that had any form of political power, were usually appointed in multiplies. There were always 2 consuls, who ran the country, there were strict rules regarding consequtive terms, legistlation was done by the Senate through discussion, debate and voting and even the common man was protected by the Tribunis Plebis, who was elected by the people and had the right to over rule any law that the Senate passed, by simply stating VETO!! Latin for I forbid. Add to this the fact that the Roman republic was founded by ousting a particulary nasty king, Tarquinius Superbus, the romans were paranoid about letting anyone have too much power.
There was however one exception to this lets talk, vote and share power idea that the romans were fond of, The Dictator. Romans were overall very realistic and pragmatic people and they recognized there were going to be times when they simply didn't have the time to talk and vote, times when one man needed to take control of a situation and for other to follow that man.
The Dictator was elected by the Senate to deal with a specific situation usually some form of dire emergency, often military related. The term of office was usually for the duration of the crisis but with a maximum of 6 months after which the dictator was forced to cede the power. During the dictator's office all other officials lost their powers and had to follow the orders of the dictator, the dictator could change any laws or make new ones as they saw fit, they had an Imperium, which means that they could put people to death, and they were the supreme commanders of the roman army. In battle they were forbidden to ride a horse and were expected to fight in the front line infantry, this is to insure that Dictator suffers the consequences of their actions. To assist them dictators appointed a Magister Equitum as an assitant who lead the cavalry in battle. So the Dictator had the authority to run the state as they saw fit for a limited period of time.
Here are few examples of Roman dictators,
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus: A legendary example of how a Roman Dictator should conduct his office. When the Roman Senate came to inform him that they were going to need his help to save a roman army trapped by a rival tribe, the Aequi, he was plowing a field on his farm. He accepted his commision, asked his wife to bring his toga and went to save Rome. He assembelled an army, personally led the infantry to a crushing victory over the enemy, saved Rome, forced the enemy into a humiliating defeat, resigned, returned home and went back to farming. He did all of this in 16 days. I dearly wish we had politicians like this.
Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator: During the Second Punic War the romans suffered a series of devastating defeats against Carthagians lead by the military genious Hannibal Barca. Rome was teatering on the edge of defeat and a Dictator was needed to save the situation. Fabius was elected and he proved to be a brilliant choice. Fabius was smart enough to realize that as a field commander he was no match for Hannibal, nor was his army of raw recruits a match for Hannibal's battle-hardened veterans, so he deviced an ingenious strategy. Since he couldn't defeat Hannibal in battle he chose to avoid battle with Hannibal all together. He shadowed Hannibal's army, while using schorched earth tactics to prevent Hannibal from gathering supplies. These tactics proved successful, since Hannibal was unable to bring the romans to a decisive battle that would force the romans to accept, defeat he was forced to keep moving from one province to the next in order to feed his army. While initially unpopular with the romans and inspite of providing Fabius with very little glory, Fabius's strategies became Rome's standard solution to the threat of Hannibal. It allowed Rome to contain their most dangerous enemy, while allowing them to defeat Carthago on other fronts, culminating in the invasion of Carthage itself which finally forced Hannibal to leave Italy to defend his home city, in a battle where he was finally defeated. Cunctator, which means the delayer, was initally an insult on Fabius, but later was considered a honorific title, when romans realized the importance of what Fabius had done. One roman historian even said unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem – "one man, by delaying, restored the state to us."
Gaius Julius Caesar: A man who needs no introduction, one of the greatest politicians and generals in human history, was the last of the roman dictators. He held the office several time until getting elected as life-time dictator by the Senate, in effect becoming what the romans had been fearing for so long. This however proved to be a fatal mistake, when a group outraged roman senators stabbed him 23 times on the Senate floor on the 15 of March in 44 BC.
Next part is going to be about modern dictators
keskiviikko 13. lokakuuta 2010
A little song for my favourite political party
This is obviously a modified version of God save the Queen by Sex Pistols. For those who don't know what RKP is, it is the Swedish people's party, the party I would dearly like to see wiped off the parliament, save for that one guy who represents Åland.
You want to know why dislike this party so much, mostly because its a poster child for what is wrong with the political system in our country. There is an old joke "What does Finland and North Korea have in common?" "The same party has been in the government for 50 years" In Finland this party is RKP. The election results don't really matter, gain seats or lose seats, they are there. Who they form government with doesn't matter either, as long as they get to dictate what languages get taught in schools and the swedish minority doesn't get bashed, anything goes. As long as their demands are met they could just as easily form a government with hardline Stalinists/Maoist commies as they could with a hard core ultra rightwing neonazis. But nevermind the bollocks, here is the song...
God save the RKP
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
Potential H-bomb
God save the RKP
They ain't no human beings
There is no future
In Finlands's dreaming
Don't be told what you want
Don't be told what you need
There's no future, no future,
No future for you
God save the RKP
We mean it man
We love our RKP
God saves
God save the RKP
'Cause Swedes have money
And our figureheads
Are not what they seam
Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
All crimes are paid
When there's no future
How can there be sin
We're the flowers in the dustbin
We're the poison in your human machine
We're the future, your future
God save the RKP
We mean it man
We love our RKP
God saves
God save the RKP
We mean it man
And there is no future
In Finland's dreaming
No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future,
No future for me
No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future
For you
You want to know why dislike this party so much, mostly because its a poster child for what is wrong with the political system in our country. There is an old joke "What does Finland and North Korea have in common?" "The same party has been in the government for 50 years" In Finland this party is RKP. The election results don't really matter, gain seats or lose seats, they are there. Who they form government with doesn't matter either, as long as they get to dictate what languages get taught in schools and the swedish minority doesn't get bashed, anything goes. As long as their demands are met they could just as easily form a government with hardline Stalinists/Maoist commies as they could with a hard core ultra rightwing neonazis. But nevermind the bollocks, here is the song...
God save the RKP
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
Potential H-bomb
God save the RKP
They ain't no human beings
There is no future
In Finlands's dreaming
Don't be told what you want
Don't be told what you need
There's no future, no future,
No future for you
God save the RKP
We mean it man
We love our RKP
God saves
God save the RKP
'Cause Swedes have money
And our figureheads
Are not what they seam
Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
All crimes are paid
When there's no future
How can there be sin
We're the flowers in the dustbin
We're the poison in your human machine
We're the future, your future
God save the RKP
We mean it man
We love our RKP
God saves
God save the RKP
We mean it man
And there is no future
In Finland's dreaming
No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future,
No future for me
No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future
For you
Retarded Finnish legistlation stikes again!!!
Two Retarded laws in Finland I have heard of recently
Retarded law number 1) If you are a non-EU citizen in Finland, good luck finding a job. The government in its infinate wisdom has decided that an employer has to give a solid reasoning, why they had to hire a foreigner instead of a Finn, to the emigration police, otherwise the worker cannot get a work-permit. For Fucks Sake! Then you have people complaning about foreigners not working, gee, with laws like this I wonder why. There are great speechess on equality on the labour market with laws like this. Nice to know that government finds equality so important.
Retarded law number 2) The taxation on sweets, ice cream and soft drinks. The government decided that in order to stem the tide of fat kids, fattening food products need to be taxed harder so that people can afford to eat less of them. A good idea on paper, although I am opposed to the idea of the government telling me what I should and should not eat, but the idiots in the government managed to FUBAR the whole thing. For example chocolate icecream gets a 75 cent tax per kilo, but a frozen chocolate cake sold next to icecream isn't taxed. How the chocolate cake is more healthy than chocolate icecream? If anyone can find a logic in this, please explain it to me.
Retarded law number 1) If you are a non-EU citizen in Finland, good luck finding a job. The government in its infinate wisdom has decided that an employer has to give a solid reasoning, why they had to hire a foreigner instead of a Finn, to the emigration police, otherwise the worker cannot get a work-permit. For Fucks Sake! Then you have people complaning about foreigners not working, gee, with laws like this I wonder why. There are great speechess on equality on the labour market with laws like this. Nice to know that government finds equality so important.
Retarded law number 2) The taxation on sweets, ice cream and soft drinks. The government decided that in order to stem the tide of fat kids, fattening food products need to be taxed harder so that people can afford to eat less of them. A good idea on paper, although I am opposed to the idea of the government telling me what I should and should not eat, but the idiots in the government managed to FUBAR the whole thing. For example chocolate icecream gets a 75 cent tax per kilo, but a frozen chocolate cake sold next to icecream isn't taxed. How the chocolate cake is more healthy than chocolate icecream? If anyone can find a logic in this, please explain it to me.
lauantai 25. syyskuuta 2010
On the Nature of Democracy
Firstly most so called "Democracies" in the West are not really democracies. Democracy comes from the greek words "Demos" meaning the people and "kratos" meaning power, so its literally the power of the people. In the Ancient Greece in the city of Athens this ideal was put into practice, every weekend, the male citizens(concept of gender equality hadn't been invented yet, sorry ladies) gathered together to discuss and vote on important common issues. This is one of the few times in history when actual democracy has been pra cticed.
What we have today is a perversion of this fine institution called "Representative or Parlamentarian Democracy", where every now and then we get to select the "best" and "brightest" amongst us to deside for everyone how our tax euros are spent and what sort of cool new rules the society "needs". Beyond getting to select a small minority who make the decisions, the average citizens have very limited influence on how the government runs the country. The Greeks, smart as they were, also had word for the situation where the few ruled many, oligarchy, comming from the words "oligos" meaning the few and "archo" meaning to rule. The fact that we get to everyonce in a while to select who our oligarchs are doesn't change the nature of the system we live in.
This system is sadly very necessary, largely because not everyone has the time, energy, money or interest, to go into the finer details of governing, like "the allocation of wild life sanctuary improvement funds" or "The revision of the Chapter 3, Sub-section 167, paragph 74 of the National Tranportation Safety Code of 1975". So having someone to think this sort tideous stuff through for us is not necessarilly a bad thing. There are however problems with this system and the main one is the fact that the sole power to decide over the budget and legistlation is with the few, with majority of the citizens having no say what so ever on the process. For our societies to be truly democratic this needs to be changed. Citizen must have the power to propouse and to block legistlation. This could by making a law that allows citizens movements with sufficient support to propose legistlation that the parliament must review and vote on or alternatively a similiar "people's motion" could be used to force a national referendum on any legistlation passed/rebuked by the parliament. Changes to the Constitution would require a referendum automatically.
The Second problem that "Representative Democracy" has, is the fact that the relationship between the people and their representatives has been perverted. Currently the relationship is a relationship between rulers and the ruled. The rulers are superbly gracious when they listen to petitions of the ruled, which can always be ignored, unless ofcourse its one of those times when the oligarchs get elected. This is twisted relationship has its roots in those barbaric times when we didn't get that occasional chance to select our oligarchs and removing one involved a great deal of bloodshed.
What the relationship should be is that of an employer and employee. We are infact hiring them to make decision for us, so that we can continue with doing something productive with our lives, like keeping the economy that feeds, cloths and houses us, running or devoting ourselves to arts and sciences to improve the lives of all of us, instead of dealing with the revisions of the Transport Safety Code. We are the boss and they are employees. As good bosses we are ever vigilant for mistakes interveen when things look like they are going wrong. This is how we should view the relationship between the parliament and the people.
Thirdly a good democracy isn't afraid of conflict. Ideally a democracy is explosive, a situation where different viewpoints colide, heated arguments arrize, profanities get shouted at the other party, and from this chaotic mess finally a fairly voted decision is made. A democracy where dissent and opposing viewpoints don't exist is just a bunch sheep walking to the same tune, sheep that can easily be lead to slaughter. Which leads us to our next topic individual liberties.
To democracy the freedom of the individual is absolutely vital. This is to counterbalance and prevent the "Dictatorship of the Majority". All humans are born free, its not something that is given to us by God or by some text of law, its the fundamental essence of being human, its the natural state of man. Only because we are herd animals does this freedom need to be limited. Every human has the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness, in a way of their own choosing, without being interferred by the government or any individual, unless absolutely necessary to protect the rights and liberties of others. Laws and government are only necessary because we are not yet mature enough to use our freedom without harming others, they are therefore a sad necessity, not something to be proud of, even if it they been based on some form of democracy.
What we have today is a perversion of this fine institution called "Representative or Parlamentarian Democracy", where every now and then we get to select the "best" and "brightest" amongst us to deside for everyone how our tax euros are spent and what sort of cool new rules the society "needs". Beyond getting to select a small minority who make the decisions, the average citizens have very limited influence on how the government runs the country. The Greeks, smart as they were, also had word for the situation where the few ruled many, oligarchy, comming from the words "oligos" meaning the few and "archo" meaning to rule. The fact that we get to everyonce in a while to select who our oligarchs are doesn't change the nature of the system we live in.
This system is sadly very necessary, largely because not everyone has the time, energy, money or interest, to go into the finer details of governing, like "the allocation of wild life sanctuary improvement funds" or "The revision of the Chapter 3, Sub-section 167, paragph 74 of the National Tranportation Safety Code of 1975". So having someone to think this sort tideous stuff through for us is not necessarilly a bad thing. There are however problems with this system and the main one is the fact that the sole power to decide over the budget and legistlation is with the few, with majority of the citizens having no say what so ever on the process. For our societies to be truly democratic this needs to be changed. Citizen must have the power to propouse and to block legistlation. This could by making a law that allows citizens movements with sufficient support to propose legistlation that the parliament must review and vote on or alternatively a similiar "people's motion" could be used to force a national referendum on any legistlation passed/rebuked by the parliament. Changes to the Constitution would require a referendum automatically.
The Second problem that "Representative Democracy" has, is the fact that the relationship between the people and their representatives has been perverted. Currently the relationship is a relationship between rulers and the ruled. The rulers are superbly gracious when they listen to petitions of the ruled, which can always be ignored, unless ofcourse its one of those times when the oligarchs get elected. This is twisted relationship has its roots in those barbaric times when we didn't get that occasional chance to select our oligarchs and removing one involved a great deal of bloodshed.
What the relationship should be is that of an employer and employee. We are infact hiring them to make decision for us, so that we can continue with doing something productive with our lives, like keeping the economy that feeds, cloths and houses us, running or devoting ourselves to arts and sciences to improve the lives of all of us, instead of dealing with the revisions of the Transport Safety Code. We are the boss and they are employees. As good bosses we are ever vigilant for mistakes interveen when things look like they are going wrong. This is how we should view the relationship between the parliament and the people.
Thirdly a good democracy isn't afraid of conflict. Ideally a democracy is explosive, a situation where different viewpoints colide, heated arguments arrize, profanities get shouted at the other party, and from this chaotic mess finally a fairly voted decision is made. A democracy where dissent and opposing viewpoints don't exist is just a bunch sheep walking to the same tune, sheep that can easily be lead to slaughter. Which leads us to our next topic individual liberties.
To democracy the freedom of the individual is absolutely vital. This is to counterbalance and prevent the "Dictatorship of the Majority". All humans are born free, its not something that is given to us by God or by some text of law, its the fundamental essence of being human, its the natural state of man. Only because we are herd animals does this freedom need to be limited. Every human has the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness, in a way of their own choosing, without being interferred by the government or any individual, unless absolutely necessary to protect the rights and liberties of others. Laws and government are only necessary because we are not yet mature enough to use our freedom without harming others, they are therefore a sad necessity, not something to be proud of, even if it they been based on some form of democracy.
And so it begins...
This is my blog, this the dark corner of the internet that I claim as my own. Here I will be ranting about stuff that annoys, irritates and makes me angry. Most of it will be in english, since inspite of it not being my native language its the one that I am most comftorable at expressing my thoughts, ideas and feelings. I don't really care if anyone reads this stuff or not, I am mainly doing this out of the fun of writing. If you like my rants, then feel free to share this with your friends. If you disagree with me I must insist that you share your disagreement with me, I love talking with people I disagree with. If you find all of this very boring and unentertaining for fucks sake why have you been reading the blog this far, GTFO and do something productive with your life.
Topics discussed here will be music(mainly about the music that sucks), politics(aka everything that is FUBAR in the world), philosophy(fantasizing about how the world should be), history(how FUBAR the world was in the years before), business and economics(our desperate attempts at staying alive or more retardedly climbing up the social ladder) and anything else that my sick and twisted mind can come up with...
PS. For those who don't know what FUBAR is, FUBAR=Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition
Topics discussed here will be music(mainly about the music that sucks), politics(aka everything that is FUBAR in the world), philosophy(fantasizing about how the world should be), history(how FUBAR the world was in the years before), business and economics(our desperate attempts at staying alive or more retardedly climbing up the social ladder) and anything else that my sick and twisted mind can come up with...
PS. For those who don't know what FUBAR is, FUBAR=Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition
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