Tin Soldier

Technical stuff is fun. Most fun is it when your earphones to the Ipod stops working. Not both, but the right side. Also they have somewhat been able to separate the sound and send it in the correct ear so that you get the best sound out of it. Well, until the right (not left, but right) side stops working. No problem in the beginning until one of my favorite songs came up: Tin soldier with Small faces. Somehow the singing parts are all in the right side. That means it was whole instrumental until the chorus when they break out. Of course I've listened to it so often that I could mime with it (singing in public is not my thing without some strong encouragement).

Also a political scandal has emerged when the Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt declared his support for Turkey to join EU that somehow provoked the French so Sarkozy decided to cancel a visit to Sweden. Of course the blogers had an interesting discussion that some where in favor and some disagreed over Bildts statement. Most funny was someone that claimed that we don't need Turkey because they would get the most funding from the EU budget in agriculture subsidiaries and so on. He didn't think about that France gets € 10,4 billion out of the total budget of € 55 billion. It's no way in hell they would let Turkey ever come up in those numbers. Even the 12 newest countries have restrictions when it come to ask for money.

Another bloger had a very interesting idea that the reason why both France and Germany don't want another 80 million country that would be a counterweight to the Paris-Berlin coalition. If we for one second become as paranoid as the conspiracy theorists, Sweden could be looking for a greater part in the EU project. We are one of the few countries that support Turkish entry (I do as well, after some structural work from their side as well the EU when it come to the Treaty of Lisboa) but we are also one of the smallest when it comes to population. Historicly we and Tukey or rather the Ottoman Empire has supported each other against the Russian Empire when trying to break away from the French subsidaries as they used to drag us in European wars with Preussia, Spain and Austria (Poland, Russia and Denmark-Norway was our own idea most of the times). So if Turkey comes in they would be indebted to us and we could form an Ankara-Stockholm coalition and hopefully move away from the damned "French farmers" policy (to the French, I'm sorry but your famers...I don't think I need to explain that).

Dream Warriors

Soon finished with the essay, just some fine tuning then it's practically done. So as celebrating that and taking some time of from school I went to celebrate Boss 25th birthday. He's surname is really Boss for you who don't know. It ended not as intended. Lets leave it at that.

Back to politics as I am a political scientist. This week the party leader for the obscure Feministiskt !nitiativ and former party leader for the left, Gudrun Schyman complained that her party (which got 0,7% of the Swedish votes to the Swedish parliament) didn't get their list delivered by the municipality as the law says only those who had 1% or over in the latest election get that. She demanded that everyone that are registrated as a party should get that favor. Of course someone checked it up and came forward that the taxpayers would pay for 34 parties except those 9 that already have over 1%. I think we can spend our money better than supporting parties that never seem to say anything in the media.

Also, the leader for the youth organization to Moderata Samlingspartiet thought that it would be a great idea, after the Swedish navy intercepted a pirate ship outside of Somalia, that the naval operation should free a journalist, both Swedish and Eritrean, that have been kept in Eritean prisons since 2001 without a court. The prison in detail appears to be in the middle of Eritrea behind some mountains so most commentators ridicules the writer for watching to many American action movies. Except those few technicalities the Swedish army will never be as effective as the Israelis in Uganda 1976, my guess it would end in something like the Americans in Iran 1980, and we don't even have the resources to spend on that since the politicians own mother party have decided to cut the military funding to extremely low levels. And we still can only muster a force of 30 000 soldiers...that takes 1 year to complete so that wouldn't work well since Eritrea has 250 000 soldiers constantly mustered. Lucky enough there is no way either of us could win that war. And still, I want to celebrate that 2014 will be the 200 year anniversary to that we have never been in war since then. Then we can start the war.

Zombie Stomp

Today the former Social Democratic Prime Minister of Sweden, Ingvar Carlsson spoke in the school about EU yesterday, today and tomorrow. He was the Prime Minister when I was born in 1987 so that was kinda fun to see. Very interesting and sometimes witty. As it is the election to the European Parliament he didn't hide which party he wanted everyone to vote to so he made some jokes about that. He spoke a lot about the young people and the vision they should bring to EU and so on. Then I got home and saw the news with the Social Democratic Nr 1 on the list and I suddenly thought of something. He was very pro-EU, but Marita Ulvskog is against it. That is why he spoke about the young ones, he didn't like her either as the first name (or that's what I believe).

There is many reasons for that. First it is the sheer incompetence of that woman. She apparently compared a Latvian company that lends construction workers to human trafficking. And then laughs the reporters in the face when the reporter tells her that the company received racial threats. Talk about arrogance. Secondly she is inconsistent in what she and her party wants. First they don't want EU to get to much power, but directly in the next breath they want EU to stop their view of "social dumping" with making laws that gives everyone equal pays or something like that. I get so frustrated I just want to throw my computer out of the window and stomp on it for this stupidity. But as I've said before, the Swedish politicians usually have a very low education. Unfortunately we will probably send her to EU anyway as she stand on the Social Democrats Nr 1. I pity the Europeans to see us send down one of the political zombies of Sweden.

Watching the Simpson parody of Charlie Brown and the pumpkin patch. I just love it.

Fallen Angels

Okey, yesterdays try to stop the intake of candy and whatnot kinda failed, miserably. No details except that I'm very weak toward subliminal messages. How subtle those messages are you can discuss as they put the damn chocolate near the exit of the store. I have the choice just to go by it with 3 meters from it, but as I said, I'm weak. I had to get closer and suddenly it was in the basket. I'm so weak. And then it was the coke for the 3 o'clock energy intake. And they didn't have any sandwiches so I took a muffin to it. I'm so weak.

My excuse for this weakness is that it's 2 weeks left until the essay must be finished. Thursday 2 P.M. I felt fine until I was checking with my professor about things so far in the essay. Everything is good. Lots of time and little to do, I thought. Got some things that could be improved and suddenly the world fell into a stress delirium. 4 hours later and 2 extra pages written it felt a bit better. I'm stable but a bit out of order and then I had to get some breakfast bread, and then you already read the rest. As I said, I'm weak.

No Reatreat - No Surrender

Was I bitter yesterday? Appeared so, I don't know why I enjoyed the rain upon all those having a great time. Let say it's essay depression. Lucky it's just 2 weeks left, then all is over. Except the opposition of the essay, but that's just reading and thinking, not creating a 35 or so long essay. On the bright side they did have a very nice weather in the evening. What was I doing? Headache for some reason unknown so I took it easy and watched the stand-up comedian Henrik Schyffert talking about the 90´s. Very funny some parts of it, depressing sometimes (meant to be that is). Well worth to watch for nearly 2 hours.

Also, I've decided t once again try to stop eating chocolate, candy, snacks and sodas. Hopefully with a better result than last time The last time lasted a little more then a month, but backlashed for some reason. It ended with a lot of coke and chocolate being digested. Also, when this essay is done it is training time. Out and run. Need to get in shape. Beach´09 is probably to late, but we shall see about autumn´09. Of course, history has often shown that it usually doesn't work mostly due to Winter when you can't be outside without being harassed by the polar bears and at the same time you have 2 weeks of constant eating of food, snacks, candy and chocolate, coupled with large quantities of julmust and other sodas. My goal is clear now. Train so that I can handle 2 weeks of decadence and overstuffing and hopefully not lose to much of my physical fittnes (that I hopefully achieved). Somehow it feels tempting to just ignore that and just live. We are still gonna die, but let us say that there is no reatreat and no surrender.

(Here comes the) Rain

Spring is beautiful in many ways. The best is just after a short but intensive rain that appears out of nowhere and is gone before you can blink. Afterwards the world is reborn. The trees and grass have gained new luster and the green leafs hang heavy with drought on them, slowly dripping down to the ground. The grass is revitalized and the straws stand up with newfound energy. The essence of flowers grow strong and fills everyones nostrils with a cascade of pleasing odors and fills the vacuum of smells the rain cleansed away. The dark clouds that brought the rain is then banished by the rays of the sun as they penetrate the compact layers of clouds and then ascend to earth to fill us all with warmth. The raindrops then reflects the light and appears as glimmering diamonds in the trees and the grass and also creating the marvelous rainbow, the gateway between heaven and earth.

And why is this the subject for today? Mostly because I was in the library for most of the day as one of the bigger parties in Karlstad is going on some hundred meters away. Then the rain came poring down without warning. Some people I know will blame my friend due to killing a spider (if you are not familiar with this there is an old saying that killing a spider makes it rain) earlier that day. The rain came twice and stops just before I went home so it would be nice to know what happened to those bent on partying. Of course, I love to be evil sometimes so it would be fun to hear what happened to my friends at the pary, but as I said, I love to be evil...sometimes at least.

Hey Stoopid

Apparently there is a higher number of voters for this EU election so far. This doesn't bode well for the idea to do my C-essay while doing an easy job at taking in votes. As much as 36 people came down at the voting station I'm gonna work at yesterday. And I thought it was gonna be an easy sit-and-do-nothing-get-paid work. Oh well, at least something good from it.

Beside this there is discussion on how a future Swedish government is gonna handle the far-right Swedish Democrats (Sd)(not very democratic, but hey, it's there choice). The biggest fear from the established parties and everyone that don't appreciate them (the polls say 3%, but to show that I'm realistic there is probably 10% that would say they like that party) would be them taking 1 seat in between the 2 blocs and creating a stalemate as none could create a government without either the sd or breaking one of the blocs. If this scenario should happened my favorite solution would be the Social Democrats (S) and the People's Party Liberals (Fp). Of course the rhetoric between them would make that deal impossible and not talking about the the loss of voters in the following elections.

The easiest way to counteract this scenario would be for the established parties to challenge the Sd on a debate and then just crush them with some good arguments. First of all, there whole rhetoric is around that multiculturalism and immigrations is bad and that we should watch over what's "Swedish" as have been proven, they don't know what it is. And no one else either for that matter. First multiculturalism is good that it makes it possible for us to understand each others. The premises is that we have the "Swedish" culture (whatever that is) and then let other in to take part of our culture (whatever that is) and exchange their cultures with us. They give us some new experience and take away things that are just ridicules (most people would say jantelagen as the biggest culprit in Swedish society today) and give us new things that later evolves to something Swedish. It's still "Swedish" culture (whatever that is). A culture need to evolve otherwise it dies. Secondly they want to stop immigration until we can "deal" with what we have. Excuse me for asking but how is that gonna work? When we open up again we still can't handle it. The problem is that the politicians don't want to take the necessary actions to improve the situation. Damn, the best place to learn Swedish if you are a foreigner is in freaking Poland, what the hell. We can't even teach our own languge to others. Also, if we stop immigrations the expansion of the Swedish people will stop cause we can hardly sustain ourselves. Not that good when looking at the growing numbers of seniors. I don't think any company want to settle in Sweden if there is no people to work there. And this is pretty much all they say, come on, anyone with some education would be able to put them at their place. Then again, the Swedish politicians have a very low education to begin with so that's maybe no surprise that they don't know that much.

As relating to this I was able to get a hold of a memorial coin from one of the biggest disaster for the Swedish mind, the loss of Finland in 1809. Yes, there is 200 years since that happened and someone has decided to mint a coin to commemorate that. That is the memory of us losing almost half of Sweden to Russia and change monarch to a French Marshall. I hope they make another of those coins in 2014 when it is 200 years since we went to war with anybody (ironic enough it was our neighbor Norway that got the honor of being invaded and occupied for almost 100 years until we peacefully went separate ways)

As I believe no one is actually reading this except myself I'm now gonna be a bit offending (excuses to everyone who fell targeted, whoever that is, but if you do, I don't know why you read this). Recently one of my friends began talking about the movie Idiocracy, a satire about society and where we are going. The premise of the movie is that in the future the US will be ruled by rednecks due to smart people not reproducing while the stupid don't have anything better to do. At the same time we discussed the scientific idea that humanity is going to end up in one beautiful group of "übermenchen" and one ugly troll-like human form (read it in some scientific magazine) and at the same time some wise head at a pharmaceutic company in the US wanted to give homeless people Viagra. I don't know put putting things together, it doesn't look that good.

And as a side note, me being left handed is supposedly gonna make me sick, but on the bright side I have a more artistic talent. Strangely enough, my sisters are right handed and they sing, paint, play instruments and act. I don't like the outlook of this.

Media Overkill

As everyone else I will now take some time to reflect on the election to the European Parliament. I will not tell you to go vote (even if I would encourage you) mostly because you have the right to abstain and frankly, I didn't vote in the University election either so that would just be hypocritical. My reason for that was that I didn't acknowledge the right for them to say something and claim that I backed them up.Therefore by not voting I don't legitimate their existence. Being the devils advocate I wouldn't suggest using this as an excuse due to the fact that by voting on our own government you indirectly chose who to represent us in different EU questions and with that you legitimate it's existence. Of course this is my interpretation of Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, a good book with very illustrative metaphors. So those who have the right is the 20% or so that doesn't vote in any elections at all. Of course I support the whole EU project so that everyone knows.

Also another subject related to this is the rise of the small one-question parties like the Pirate Party in Sweden with a strong voters base in young men. Read a blog from some 13-year old that complained that he couldn't vote and seemed political active and everything. Made a ludicrous statement hat he should be able to vote because he's a human and it is stated in the UN charter. I don't doubt that that kid know a lot, but I wouldn't trust everyone to know everything that is needed. I hardly trust those who that are 18 or many old in that case either (best would be if only I could vote so I can appoint myself King of Sweden bwhahah, ehum).

The paradox in this whole election is that 45% doesn't know that there is an election. I don't see how they could miss that, but hey, it's probably possible. But then again the media has been awfully silent and just now start to take it up. Compare it to the US election which probably 80% of the Swedish people knew about, but couldn't do a damn thing to go either direction. I actually thought this would happened back directly after the Obama election. The campaign begins one month before the election day while we followed the US for 1 year before the real election was. Come on, I know they call us the 51st state of America, but please we are the 13, 14 or 15 state of the European Union whatever someone else says. The media AND the politicians could show some freaking interest even if they don't appreciate it wholeheartedly. Although I will blame mostly the media for downright neglect it's civic duty to inform the people (the politicians on the other hand don't have that as silence sometimes works well for them and sometimes is of utmost importance).

Over Now

It's over now, the Eurovision Song Contest and the Swedish people, the selfcrowned monarchs of Schlager is trying to cope with a huge loss, again. I'm actually glad it went so bad. At least this year. Unfortunately the Swedish people don't seem to see it that way. They cry rivers of tears and screams for some scapegoat to burn and crucify for this "disaster". Ths time it's Christer Björkman. Forget it. First of all, the blame is entirely the Swedish voters, no one else, for choosing our entry that didn't catch wind from the European people or jury's.

Secondly, come on, it was known beforehand that we wouldn't win. An easy test for that is, do you know anyone that can sing Ernmans song that's NOT an opera singer? Didn't think so, how is that supposed to catch on if you can't sing with it? And don't give me the crap that the melody is good enough on it's own, the whole song centered around her voice and no one else could do it. Think Tommy Körberg, not over the top and many can sing that song, maybe not that good, but it doesn't take away the good parts of the song.

As a side note, this is the last Eurovision Song Contest for this year if nothing spectacualar happens. I ust liked to trash it one last time. Unfortunatly it won't stay dead for the rest of the year as they now ask for next years competetors, in a few month the junior version begins and in late winter the next batch of lausy songs and artist will be presented. And then it goes round and round and round in an eternal vortex of pain and suffering. There is no need for Satan in this world as we do it so good ourselves.

Doin' the Omoralisk Schlagerfestival (3)

So, I missed the second semi-final and all the Nordic Countries is in the finals, which I'm watching at the moment. Fun to see how Norway (as I predicted would do the best of the Nordic Countries) is beating everyone else. And that we are slugging behind in points. The best scenario is that we end up last and Norway wins. As stated before, the Swedish voters sent our entry to Moscow, so if we do bad, we know who to blame (hehehe, Schadenfreude is the only true joy). Good thing is that this years there can't be blames on eastern/central countries voting for each others (except the Nordic Countries that always vote for each others) and this proves that those who don't make it just sucks at sending good songs (like us since 2000, seriously, there haven't been a good song from Sweden since Roger Pontare and shows that we need to stop sending love songs and send a battle cry).

It seems we have made our worst ESC during the whole 21st Century half way in counting. I'm so happy:). And seriously, the Moldavians must have chosen the worst name in history, at least for a Swedish audience.

Update: WHAT THE HELL, there is no end for this annoying ESC, the first thing they show after Norway has won the biggest victory in ESC they announce it's time to start preparing for the next Melodifestivalen next year, is there no end to this madness? Damn you, damn you all to hell.

Take Me Away

I wonder if spending to much time at the library is affecting me negatively. I get this feeling that I hate the rest of the world and humans in particular. That and the news reporting is at is lowest when not reporting about pain and suffering in the world. If no famous person has broken there toenail the politicians "tries" to engage voters to the European Parliament (don't seem to be that successful). I don't know what's worst, the blatant ignorance of the voters or the politicians. I'm scarred either way, either the voters don't know who they voting for or we are sending down people that don't know. Everything is going to hell.

It can't be good reading Hobbes Leviathan about the pessimistic view on humans and life. He did write that humans life are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" so can you blame me for feeling so bitter about life and everything between heaven and hell. Good thing they sending "Tingling" on SVT so that I can smile for a couple of minutes. I need to get a life.

Doin' the Omoralisk Schlagerfestival (2)

Ashamed of myself, I watched the Eurovision Song Contest yesterday. And to show that my complete lack of music taste according to rest of Europe, only 1 of the 3 songs I picked for my favorites went to Finals. That was Armenia. Kinda catchy tune with some eastern feeling. My other favorites was Switzerland, but now I forgot how it went so it was not that remarkable at first or second hearing. Lastly it was Andorra. Happy song that got stuck in my head. This statement will probably haunt me for a long time.

Other songs that needs mentioning is Turkey, not for it's music but the show. I be that one of the dancing girl got sick or something because it was the singer backed up with 2 dancers on each side. The Funny thing that 3 of them are dressed in red dresses and the last one is a guy dressed in brown jeans and a green shirt (guess that he was the choreograph). That couldn't have been the original thought because the symmetry is so awful. Another song to mention is that Sweden went to the Finals, but then again I would really liked to gloat if we had lost. Stupid voters (of course, if we happens to win everything will be forgotten, right???).

A funny incident during our own finals was our entertainment that even got the attention from the Russian Embassy that demanded an excuse for the "Tingeling" segment. And then they to the same thing (admittenly their was a bit more bombastic) in between songs. Talk about hypocrits.

How is then our chances on winnning this year? Slim. First of all both Finland, Sweden and Island went to the finals, Norway feels expected to do so as well which gives Denmark the only questionmark. Anyway, 4 or 5 of the Nordic countries goes to the finals and this consist of most of our voting base, and my guess is that Norway will get the 12s as it's a more energetic song then our own so we need to hit very good with rest of Europe (and frankly, not even I see that opera would be the usic style to convert the masses). Then again, my knowledge of knowing Europes music taste is very low.

The Mob Rules

Sometimes it is not fun to read the news. First we have the woman that aborted her child due to being a daughter and makes me and a lot others feel sickened by human nature. This was the second time as well which makes it even more horrible and in fact as someone noticed that that woman couldn't even be a good mother to the son she wanted as she wanted a "special" kind of child. Poor child.

Secondly we have a mob in one Swedish town (don't know where in Sweden) that attacked immigrants after a build up of tension. The mob consisted of a majority of youths and some older people. The build up was also between some youth gang and escalated after one non-Swede hit a Swedish girl. Something tells me that the reason for this lies in unemployment, agitators and low education in those who participated in the mob. To stop this from happening again the best would be getting everyone a job, but that's more or less impossible. The best thing to do is then to educate everyone and try to integrate the immigrants. Integration problems lies in that the State don't in a constructive ways integrate the newcomers. The state teach them Swedish (that ironic enough is better taught in Poland than in Sweden) and leave them by the wind without explaining or giving them directions in how to interact and leave them by themselves in enclaves where they don't have to adapt. It's not their fault, it's the state that don't want to act for some reason.

All in all, if humanity is going down this road we are going to hell. Now I will probably sound like an elitist over-class brat (which I'm not, I just sound like one), but humans are decayed, rotten and deceitful. Humans pride will be the end of us all and really, we should need the swine flu to wipe out those who are stupid enough to not see the obvious. Oh, and the Eurovison Song Contests first part is tonight so we all hope that Sweden goes to the finals just because it's Sweden. It's not that good actually, but I will probably be glad if we win, if we loose the good thing is that the only reason our singer is there is because the Swedish people voted her in. So if we fail, we know who to blame. The Mob Rules it is.

Sun King

The Sun is back and I remember reading somewhere that Swedes just loves the sun. Our faces turns to this God/Goddess of Light giving our smiles away in worship for the one and only true power in the world. It also stated that it was a sin not to be out in the sunny weather (probably doesn't matter how cold it is, if the sun's up you're out).

The sun is remarkable in that it is seen as one of the most important deity's in the world. Japan's emperor is direct descendant to the Sun Goddess, the Incas believed the Emperor and his wife was children of the sun and Louis XIV of France was the Sun King. An empire wasn't an empire until it was so big that it could be proclaimed the empire where the sun never sets. We know that it did after some time. Funny enough the Swedish monarchy also tried something similar. We couldn't call us an empire where the sun never set mostly because once a year the sun never came up so someone at the court came up with a splendid idea. Let's use the Polar Star as our celestial symbol. It never sets compared to the Sun. Ca 50 years later the Swedish Empire collapse so that was it the Kings of the Polar Star (actually only 2).

Eyes of the World

Lately the Swedish news have talked a lot about IPRED, FRA and the Telecoms Package and with it some criticism from the blogg community and whatnot. Funny thing is that it is around 50 person commenting those things (sometimes the same person does that a couple of times) and they claim they represent Swedish people. Yeah, right. The discussion is so infected that it is impossible to say anything without being shot down by, in this case, the side whose against it. They appear as a paranoid mob who butchers their prey without mercy. Calling anyone who don't follow them for facists or stalinists. Anything autharian and with it citing Orwells "1984". You get the idea.

At the same time some Swedish journalists makes a list of the 100 most important Swedes. Interesting, but as allways you could discuss who should be in and where, espesially what some modern sport stars are doing there, but still pretty intersting. Nr 1 was Gustav Vasa, hardly a surprise, but some of the comments was. Someone said he was a tyrann or whatever and be taen away as it is not "political correct", and this is the result of our modern way of thinking. Violence is bad, but no one seems to understand that to prosper, stability is the most important thing ever, it sets the rules. In the best of world, the communist would have been the best way of ruling. A revolution that takes away the old and unjust systems in a country and replaces it. The revolutionaries, when they see fit, steps down and let the people rule. Of course that never happened mostly because the elit became corrupt with power.

My point is, a democracy is best created from a stable organisation that has been established by violence (most of the time, can't think of any exceptions) that the democracy then takes over. Just look at Germany and Japan for some good examples. People seems to forget that states evolves into democracies or transforms, not just pops up from the ground.

PS. As a side note, some wisecracker apperently complained that it was to few women on the list. 16/100 they counted and they complain. Sometimes you focus to much about being political correct all the time. Get a life.

Rhymes of a Tragic Poem

It's finally spring again. All the trees blooming out in green, the birds singing (which I only hear when they wake me in the morning cause otherwise I have my Ipod shouting out. Really, even how beautiful their twitter is, when it is disturbed by the sound of cars and whatnot, then it is not worth listening to) and the sun is burning me when I'm outside. Now only if my essay was finished, life would be so much easier, instead of sitting in the library, but due to work related damages, I'm kinda fond of sitting their during the days. This is really a sign that I soon must finish my studies, 15 years of constant studies is not good.

Watched the preview of the Eurovision Song Contest and can easily say that I don't agree with the jury in most cases. Hope no other European people understands what they say cause they more or less trash all the other countries (except the Nordic ones that got really high grades by them, and then some people are talking about the eastern countries voting for each other). Next week the final preview is, and by the results of the last couple of years that will be the worst episode ever with Breat Britain, Germany, France, Spain and last year winner Russia. Russia have excelled last years with very good songs, unfortunately last year was not that great and they win with it. The big four has very few bright moments this side of the melenia. The only good year I can remember was 2003 when Germany and France (I have a tiny piece of meory that even Spain had something that year) had some really good songs (of course, 2003 was the year that was the top of the whole Eurovision Song Contest and still wrong song won, it should have been Belgium but the stupid Swedes don't know great music as seen by the awful votings that's been done at home). My expectations for the Big Four this year is very low.