100 Miles

We have reached number 100! An applaud to myself for...actually just give me applaud for keeping this up. The small pieces of myself and thoughts I plant in all these post are just a big puzzle for the readers to understand me. Of course some pieces are probably dated as we all develop and I might as well have changed opinions and then again some are just ironic comments on society so have fun to figure that out. And now for something completly different:

I miss my old coursemates. It's not as fun anymore sitting in the library without their spot-on observations on the world around us. The discussions that followed could be anything between heaven and hell but they were interesting. The problem could also be that the statistic test on Saturday makes my life miserable at the moment and therefore not acknowledge the brilliance of the younger generation of political scientists. I guess that's the biggest problem. At least it's over on Saturday and my god I don't want to do that again. Why in god's name did I take this course, or even better, why didn't I study during the summer with ample oppurtunities. Lazyness just don't pay of and put you in debt instead.

I didn't cover the results from the church election. Frankly I don't actually care as seen by earler posts. I had more important stuff to do, like spending most of my time at the library reading and calculating. 8-16 ever day with occasional 17 or 18 as well. Except on Tuesday when I go home at a whopping 20:40. Of course that's because the spanish course but still. I could practicaly move in there with the amount of time I spend there. When I get some money I surely will donate some to the library so they can put up a sign that reads:

"Here studied Niklas Andersson, a political scientist that for some reason deceided to study statistics. He regretted that decision EVERY day!

Yeah, I really don't like this test. It should also be placed at my seat. Yeah, "my seat". When you spend most of your time there it should be classified as my seat. Some bastard actually took my seat the day before yesterday so I had to relocate my studie place. I can't have been in the library often as I have been on that same place for 2-3 weeks now. You think people learn after a while. It feels kinda pathetic when I think about it now.

Disturbing The Priest

Voted for the the church election today. And I still question what I voted for. I don't know. First of there was four instances to vote for. FOUR. The national elections usually have three instances, local, regional and national. Here there was four and I only voted on three on them. When they pointed it out I just said "I don't care". Which is actually true, I don't care one bit about this election, but I had to vote anyway as I justify their existence as I believe they do a good job with preserving the churches. And with that I accept there existence and can't use my loophole for other things I don't care for. The most interesting thing is that the only ones that propose a very good solution for the problem with the church overall is the Humanist movement that is secular in an debate article at Newsmill. Isn't that like going to Satan for salvation or something like that?

I don't support all seven points they propose, especially point 5 and 6. Nr 5 is that you constantly need to approve that you are a member of the Swedish church. I understand the purpose but the proposed idea that the church should send out letters that you have to answer to confirm it would be just a waist of natural resources and use the money the church get to wrong cause. Also to let children stand outside religious communities and wait until 16-18 when they are old enough to make their own decision is good, but it would probably not work that very well with peoples beliefs. This ritual comes from the old belief that if you weren't baptised and member of the community and died you would go to hell. So denying some the right to baptise their children and bring them into the community in order to protect them from hell would be against the religious freedom we have. Therefore it's more important to have a school free from religion and give the children the necessary tools to judge everything by themselves.

As this post more or less is about the church I can really recommend the song Disturbing The Priest by Black Sabbath. It's one of there better songs with Ian Gillan from Deep Purple. It's even better if you listen with the intro song Stonehenge. The build up is fantastic, it feels like you are floating on an ocean and then the heartbeats began to sound, both calming and at the same time alert you that something is wrong, and then out of nowhere the mad laughter of Ian Gillan kick starts the song and you wonder what the hell happened. Maybe that's one of the reason to stay in the church, without it a lot of good music would not have been made.

I almost forgot, nr 6 of the humanist movements proposal is that the monarch should be allowed to chose there own religion. I don't have any problem with that per se as I don't care about religion, but the reason they give is because if the head of state has his religious belief written into the constitution of the country, then it is a theocracy? Even the wikipedia page state that there is a line between monarchies of grace of god and theocracy and I hardly think our king believe in the grace of god. A theocracy is a country when a deity has direct control or an appointed person instead of said deity, such as the Vatican, Iran and the Ethiopian Empire under Haile Selassie. The King is not even in control of any power and has to bow down to the parliment and are therefore not the highest authory in the land. How can it then be a theocracy?

Inglourious Bastards

Inglourious Bastards, what a movie! So as you might have guessed I've been to the cinema again, the last time being for Valkyrie (no, I don't only watch movies about the second world war, it just happens to be those that are always running in the cinema). The reason is like last time. I get some tickets by my parents to get myself an "experience". So that's what I do, by going to a movie that glourifies violence and double-crossing. I loved it. Wonderful, all the acters were fantastic especially the antagonist, you both love and hate him, there is no escaping that. The tributes that had been smuggled in immensly fun, espeically the one toward Kelly's Heroes, maybe because that's the one I got 100% o. Apperently it was a lot more when I checked the wikipidia page afterwards. As I don't wanna spoil anything I will not discuss any points in the movie. Let's talk about the commercials instead.

I don't have anything to say other then to point to the last time I mentioned it. Nothing blowing my mind away that was memorable, I can't even remeber any of the commercials for future films. And of course there is this usual bickering but it has to be said:
STAY IN YOUR F***ING CHAIRS DURING THE MOVIE!
When the movie starts you don't move. What sort of manner does people have? They can't sitt still for 2 h 32 min? I could sitt thru The Return Of The King that was over 3 h long, and that doesn't take into account 15-30 min to get to the cinema and then back with another 15-30 min. To top it of my dad had to be there 30 min BEFORE the movie starts as well. That's over 4 h and these people can't handle 2 h 32!

And don't get me started on children who are just pestering their surroundings. I'm to tired to discuss that. Yes, I'm going for the role as an antagonist. We all feel that sometimes and don't you deny it!

Christians

Another day in the library, how fun, sitting their almost alone at the same place as always studying for the statistic test next week. And when I'm sitting there calculating with my calculator what happens. I suddenly realize that most formulas and whatnot exist within the damn calculator. It's evil that this is allowed to happen. Binomial probability distribution, Poisson probability distribution, e-constant and whatnot. Everything exist in the damn calculator. It's not fair. Of course it would probably not have helped me with the last 6 points anyway, but I could probably have checked if the numbers were correct or find out if it was possible to go that way.

It will be so nice when the statistics are over. No more math, no more calculations. One more week now. And things are finally beginning to move around the Church elections, but it still feels like it's a rehearsal toward next years election. And that is what most "experts" are commenting on, how this will effect the small parties that aspire toward the Riksdag next year. Of course the leader for the biggest party has decided to be in Majorca during this weekend. I don't know if this is good or bad. I don't want the politicians to be involved in the church affairs for the sake of it so that's good, but when her party is campaigning shouldn't she support them? She apparently think that it's an important election, but I don't see her showing it. At least it's not as bad as their posters for the election I've been seeing in the papers. I can't find it anywhere so I might save you from the view. It's not a very religious poster I can say.

Actually, with the whole thing why just not leave the church after the election? I still despise the organization, I don't participate in any of the church beliefs and I haven't visited a church since third year in high-school (which was mandatory for religion class). And if I leave I would lower my tax-rate *cough* I'm not greedy *cough*. On the other hand the tax is (hopefully) used to uphold the standard of the churches around the country and ... no, that's mostly it. Of course, I haven't paid that much taxes in my life (2 year or something like that and very little at that). So why haven't I left it before? I'm just lazy. The simplest explanation in the world, just lazy.

Justice For The Peace

Today is the day that Sweden, 200 years ago, lost one-third of its area to the deceitful Russians. We lost the eastern half of our kingdom, Finland, exiled the old royal family and gained a new one and finally got the worlds second oldest constitution (until it was redone in 1976). A lot of things to remember. Also it was the last time a war has been fought on Swedish soil and was the second-last war we participated in a war at all (some people claims that our troops in Afghanistan would indicate that we ain't "neutral" anymore, but since when have we been "really neutral"?).

Of course we can always speculate how history would have appeared if we had kept Finland within our border. Would there even be a Finland our would it have been assimilated in to Sweden?How would the res of history played out? Would we have been neutral in the Crimean War our would we have taken the opportunity to attack St. Petersburg when they were preoccupied with the Ottoman Empire, England and France? Would we have taken Norway from Denmark as we did to compensate for the loss of Finland? Maybe even Denmark-Norway would have lasted until today. If that so, how would World War II play out?

Of course we can't get any answer because we don't know how each result would effect the other. But as the power-hungry grand-imperialist I can't do anything else then drool on the thought of a Swedish Empire spanning the Baltic sea and have it's own access to oil. Think about the power of a country of 3 479 586 km2 (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Greenland and some islands belonging to Norway and Denmark) being the Worlds 7th largest state, with a population of 25 428 507 people placing us as 47th in the world. The GDP per capita would be somewhere around $ 62 000 and would place us as 2nd, 3rd or 4th richest people in the world. Talk about opportunities. Of course this would mean that we avoided the world wars, otherwise who knows would happened. With our luck we would probably have entered the war on the wrong side and facing the dissolving of the empire just like the Ottoman empire after World War I.

At least the Church election is beginning to get some coverage in the media. It's a bit odd. 75 % has the right to vote in this election, but the news coverage begins 3-4 days before the election day. The EU parliament had almost 1-2 month, next year election already started, but the American presidential election where most of us don't have a say began 1 and 1/2 year before the election. Don't you see something odd about this picture? I know we have a love/hate relationship with the US but this is ridicules. Of course I was actually there so...maybe I shouldn't stay to long around this subject.

Woke Up This Morning

That's what I did today. Woke up this morning and felt very strange. It was a lot more light than usual and I didn't feel as tired I usually felt when waking up. Open my eyes and took a glance on the alarm clock: 09:10.

Damn, I overslept. I probably had forgot to start the alarm. Of course it was nice to sleep a little longer, especially since I blew my 8 hour sleep by watching a documentary about US foreign policy in the middle-east connected to their need of oil. Of course it ended around midnight. Get some breakfast and then walk of to class. 1 hour late, but still 2 hours to go so better make the most out of it. I apparently didn't miss anything important so just flow with the tide.

Afterwards it was back to the library and sit with this infernal statistic course. I now have spent most of the last weeks in the library from 8 to 16. It has gone so far as the freshman for this year exclaiming when they see me in the morning that I'm living there. Somehow I find it kinda funny. I must be sick or something.

Also, with my graduation running closer every day I need to build up my CV. So I'm trying to land a part in the job fair at Karlstad University next year in April. Time to be at the forefront and have fingers crossed. In the news not much happens. Swedish terrorists, the financial crisis that seems to be at an end 1 year after it began. And this is supposed to be the worst financial crisis since the 1930's? Even the Swedish crisis of 1990-94 (the article says '91-'92, but the Swedish one has the other years) lasted longer and had a much bigger impact (at least for us). Funny enough it's even on this day 17 years since the Swedish Central Bank (the oldest Central Bank in the world non the less) raised the interest rate to 500% to protect "Kronan". Of course it failed miserable and cost us a lot for nothing.

On another note, after the shock-waves from the health-care reform in the US, Sweden has been painted as a Socialist state to be warned of. Completely ludicrous of course, but now someone has written a report describing us as "a bastion of market capitalism". I have no idea how that person ever came to that conclusion. Especially since we have the second highest tax rate in Europe (and the world if you take away to small islands with almost 100% tax) and a lot of monopolies or very limited selection of companies (especially in the energy market) but hey, I'm not complaining. We are the nation/country "Lagom" so why can't we be both? It would probably fit us like a glove.

Remember The Good Times

It's election time in Norway. And not a word until this weekend about it. Once again, we had almost a year coverage of the US election but only one weekend of Norway. Even worse is that we even have an election to the Swedish Church and not a single word ONE WEEK before it happens. Of course I don't like the church in general, but when I'm still a member I should probably vote in the election. At least to keep the politicians away from a religious institution. As I've said before religion and politics should not pair up, so I have to take my responsibility to secure that. Otherwise we will have some really questionable parties governing these bodies. Come on, what in god's name are the left doing there as they don't even believe that religion should have a place in society? It's screwed up I tell you.

Oh, fun thing. In most news sites in Sweden you can comment on articles and on one special site where almost anyone can write an article about any subject, Newsmill. Of course the comments usually evolve to hate/love discussion. The most infected discussion is the so-called "immigration problem". With this I mean anything that remotely can be blamed on immigrants. An unknown kid throws a stone at someone? "Out with the immigrants". Israel vs Palestinians, "Out with the immigrants". The tax is to high? "Out with the immigrants". You get the picture. Often these remarks talk about mass-immigration and we can't handle it. Fair, immigration was 100 000 last year of a population on 9 million (Red=Immigration, Blue=Emigration). But I believe our society can handle it, if the process of immigration is shaped up and of course, not taking in immigrants will just postpone the problem and slow the economic. The Swedes can't even reproduce them self with just 1,91% in fertility rate (close to the desired 2,1%, but close don't shoot the hare). At the moment the Swedish growth rate is 0,82% so we are not that bad of, but that's due to immigration. And our economy is based on a constant growth of the population to keep working and keep the older population sustained with welfare services.

So now to the fun part (took me long enough). Of course I couldn't resist to put that fact up at one place one evening, slept thru the night and voila, next day a comment to my comment had appeared. The commentator declared me a tomfoolery liberal with standard phrases who don't understand the real world or something like that (can't say I do, but who is he to judge anyway?). I more or less expected such such an answer, but then he writes that we had it much better when we were 7 million compared to 9 millions today. So I checked it out just for fun. We reached 7 million 1950. Let's see now, 1950, Cold war, Life expectancy laid around 70 years compared to around 80 years today, Inflation was above 15% compared to just above zero today, the GDP per capita has skyrocketed since the 1950's, no TV's and many other modern commodities that we have today, so according to me, we have it much better today, but some just don't want to see it. Although it is a huge stretch from what he said, but he said that we had it better then so I couldn't resist to check out how "good" we had it back then. Of course, being born in 1987 I can't possible remember that, so if I'm analyzing this right, this person must at least be over 60 years old, born earliest 1946 to have some memory of those time and that wouldn't surprise me, but my guess is that this person was born much later and have this idolized version of the 50's in his head that his parents fed him (my stereotype of old people is that they believe "that everything was better in the old days") that he himself never experienced. I could of course be wrong, but another stereotype I have is that seniors probably don't spend to much time on the internet (some probably do, but hey, I have my stereotypes and other people have others) debating politics like that. Just my opinion.

Of course I never answered the question, mostly because I was amused by the tomfoolery liberal comment and his huge misunderstanding of economic theory. And of course like this I can be an arrogant idiot sitting on my high horses looking down on the uneducated masses I more or less despise as the social liberal I am without being questioned. Anonymous on the web is fun.