» is it the age of the autocrat?
Posted September 7, 2008. By duke_Qa
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/is-this-t...yf.html?page=-1
0 Comments
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/is-this-t...yf.html?page=-1
"ARE WE entering the age of the autocrat?Although i can't say I'm a big fan of Fukuyama's neoconservative position, this philosophical angle on the future i can agree upon. as mentioned earlier, the world looks like it's in for a new sort of conflict this century. And although I'm generally sceptical to such outcomes, I like to think that this is one of the better outcomes.
It's certainly tempting to think so after watching
Russia's recent clobbering of Georgia. That invasion
clearly marks a new phase in world politics, but it's
a mistake to think that the future belongs to Russian
strongman Vladimir Putin and his fellow despots."
0 Comments
» The Renaissance of fascism?
Posted August 9, 2008. By duke_Qa
This is more or less a summary of an norwegian article written by Erling Dokk Holm. But i found it to be extremely enlightening and wish to share if with you.
The two biggest elements to change this development is imo:
4 Comments
This is more or less a summary of an norwegian article written by Erling Dokk Holm. But i found it to be extremely enlightening and wish to share if with you.
When Amnesty International criticizes China for breaking vital human rights, it sounds great in our western ears. But in a large amount of countries this criticism falls on deaf ears. China stands as a model of how a state should be organized. A strong centralized government that does not allow political opposition or individual freedom in the political field, still manages to keep the wheels spinning. Ten percent economic growth, year after year, is an argument hard to match.So, wow. this article really turns my view upon ourselves around. mixed together with Russia attacking Georgia now, we in the west are in for a much darker time than what we have anticipated. If Russia continues down the path of fascism together with China, we will quickly be outmaneuvered by hard-line governments that have the right to kill their own citizens in the name of victory over other opposing nations.
Once upon a time - that is during the aftershocks of the ending of the cold war and the collapse of Soviet -practically everybody thoguht that the western democratic model would become the standard model for governments. The american philosopher Francis Fukuyama gained world celebrity in 1992 by postulating: "what we may be witnessing is (...) the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government".
[...]
China is in many fields today most likely the worlds most capitalistic society. Workers without independent unions to protect themselves, the capitalist have very little to worry about. Competition between children, even at kindergarten-age, are extreme. And even the most competition-oriented western parents would be apalled if they got to see what their children would have to go through to gain success in the Chinese system. The chinese leaders are not just holding their 1.4 billion citizens together with the help of suppression and control, but also patriotism. how much support the system has nobody knows, but its not unlikely that the communist party would have won an free election.
200 years ago Great Britain became the world's leading superpower. throughout the entire medieval age and up to that time china had the biggest amount of power. the biggest amount of citizens, the biggest territory, the most developed economy, the most advanced industry, the most sofisticated government, no other nation could reach China. Although China have been invaded many times and its influences and borders have varied in size, the central government have been very stable, compared to the chaos of royalties and kingdoms in Europe.
The Olympics shows us that this 200 year break has now ended. the Chinese are back, and it should not surprise anyone that they have returned. The Chinese model works, its a neat package og market economy, suppression and nationalism. Russia under Putin adopted a related form of this model and it worked out alot better for them than during Jeltzins west-european democracy-model. A large number of countries looks up to China. The countries of the middle east especially. What makes matters worse is that the Chinese model looks alot like Fascism, and its this beast that we see the contours of under the waving Chinese flag. It takes time to realign and see the world as it really is, but the fact is that its about time to give up the dream that China will become like us, and rather admit that Fascism is the ruling system of the 21st century.
The two biggest elements to change this development is imo:
- Spreading knowledge of democracy and freedom to the grass-root of such countries, making the wish for more freedom an dangerous undercurrent to the aforementioned countries.
- Keeping up our own economic growth and influences with more and more hard-line and neoconservative thinking, ultimately gazing into the abyss long enough to become a monster ourselves.
4 Comments
» religious science teacher troll brands his students with crosses
Posted June 20, 2008. By duke_Qa
so here we are. perfect example of a man with brains used in the wrong way. he found faith before science, and quickly understood that science is the enemy of faith. "how do we stop this?" he thinks, and comes to the conclusion "we must infiltrate the schools and make sure science is kept down, FOR LORD JEBUZ!".
Plenty of complaints on this guy. saying carbon 14 dating is unstable, supporting creationisism during science classes... And finally, got the school sued for burning a cross onto a students hand with some high frequency tool.
The school board has now apparently voted unamiously to fire the teacher, but we'll see what happens. Because his friend is defending him from the accuses, claiming that he "is teaching the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district."
link
bleh, its time to go to bed, figured i post this real quick. not very objective comments from me, but i found it interesting.
7 Comments
so here we are. perfect example of a man with brains used in the wrong way. he found faith before science, and quickly understood that science is the enemy of faith. "how do we stop this?" he thinks, and comes to the conclusion "we must infiltrate the schools and make sure science is kept down, FOR LORD JEBUZ!".
Plenty of complaints on this guy. saying carbon 14 dating is unstable, supporting creationisism during science classes... And finally, got the school sued for burning a cross onto a students hand with some high frequency tool.
The school board has now apparently voted unamiously to fire the teacher, but we'll see what happens. Because his friend is defending him from the accuses, claiming that he "is teaching the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district."
link
bleh, its time to go to bed, figured i post this real quick. not very objective comments from me, but i found it interesting.
7 Comments
» Israeli soldiers tells tales their dark side
Posted April 19, 2008. By duke_Qa
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/mi...rmy-811769.html
This is the sort of information you don't often get, so it was an interesting read. If anything i gain more respect for those who dare to step up and tell of these situations.
Basically, instead of the murky dark grey i've observed Israel in, this article refined that into streams of black and whites, blending together in a strange fashion.
1 Comments
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/mi...rmy-811769.html
This is the sort of information you don't often get, so it was an interesting read. If anything i gain more respect for those who dare to step up and tell of these situations.
Basically, instead of the murky dark grey i've observed Israel in, this article refined that into streams of black and whites, blending together in a strange fashion.
1 Comments
» polygamist sect loses its lambs
Posted April 15, 2008. By duke_Qa
Court grapples with scope of polygamist sect case- NyTimes
Texas sect temple 'used for sex' -BBC
US sect leader made girl marry -BBC
So here we are, at one of the bigger cases of law vs religion in the USA.
400 children taken away by the police because one reported rape, forced marriages and low-age pregnancies. these poor children were before the intervention almost certainly doomed to a life of ignorance and abuse.
Well that is not 100% correct, as it seems the men were allowed to move out from the place once they were of age. Naturally the masters of the sect wouldn't risk the young ones coming in and eating the fruits from their carefully tended fruityards. They were to go out into the world and spread their seed and creed the way that they did it. No living in the basement, leeching money from daddy's company here.
But luckily the police ultimately got an excuse to break this place up. Now the question is, can they with good faith decide that these children can be sent back into this mind-prison? Or do they deserve a better future. Perhaps not a purely secular future, but at least a moderate one? I hope that they can, and i hope that more of them will. 400 children is alot, but i fear its just the tip of the iceberg.
Ultimately, i hope this is one of the mass-media news-stories that will leave an impact. With a recession coming up, religion is usually one of the businesses you can rely on(that, selling rope and being an undertaker are the other options
). Lets hope that it won't grow too much on it.
4 Comments
Court grapples with scope of polygamist sect case- NyTimes
Texas sect temple 'used for sex' -BBC
US sect leader made girl marry -BBC
So here we are, at one of the bigger cases of law vs religion in the USA.
400 children taken away by the police because one reported rape, forced marriages and low-age pregnancies. these poor children were before the intervention almost certainly doomed to a life of ignorance and abuse.
Well that is not 100% correct, as it seems the men were allowed to move out from the place once they were of age. Naturally the masters of the sect wouldn't risk the young ones coming in and eating the fruits from their carefully tended fruityards. They were to go out into the world and spread their seed and creed the way that they did it. No living in the basement, leeching money from daddy's company here.
But luckily the police ultimately got an excuse to break this place up. Now the question is, can they with good faith decide that these children can be sent back into this mind-prison? Or do they deserve a better future. Perhaps not a purely secular future, but at least a moderate one? I hope that they can, and i hope that more of them will. 400 children is alot, but i fear its just the tip of the iceberg.
Ultimately, i hope this is one of the mass-media news-stories that will leave an impact. With a recession coming up, religion is usually one of the businesses you can rely on(that, selling rope and being an undertaker are the other options
). Lets hope that it won't grow too much on it.4 Comments
» "Push to permit guns on campus". Don't even think about anything else
Posted February 16, 2008. By duke_Qa
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-0...nterstitialskip
i don't really know what to say about such a topic. it really is all the bad things i feel about the USA in a nutshell. make it legal to allow every American to carry a gun, no matter where they are at, instead of perhaps looking at the source of the problem... It sounds like some post-apocalyptic world. I guess its connected to the relatively freshness of the American world(wild west and all that), but i cannot see why it should be any more tradition to have the right to carry guns than its to force muslim women to wear burkas. Its a bad culture, and the nation would be better off without it.
to allow relatively premature kids to walk around in schools with guns, just because there is a small chance that someone might go nuts and shoot people(dying in traffic is still alot more likely than getting shot in or outside of school for the average American). Sounds VERY counter-productive. it sounds like some NRA quest to infest the bastions of non-armament and win the war on unarmedness.
if this came to fruition, i know for sure where i would not go abroad for studying. Getting 20 guns drawn on me because I'm late for class is a bit too traumatizing even to me.
115 Comments
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-0...nterstitialskip
i don't really know what to say about such a topic. it really is all the bad things i feel about the USA in a nutshell. make it legal to allow every American to carry a gun, no matter where they are at, instead of perhaps looking at the source of the problem... It sounds like some post-apocalyptic world. I guess its connected to the relatively freshness of the American world(wild west and all that), but i cannot see why it should be any more tradition to have the right to carry guns than its to force muslim women to wear burkas. Its a bad culture, and the nation would be better off without it.
to allow relatively premature kids to walk around in schools with guns, just because there is a small chance that someone might go nuts and shoot people(dying in traffic is still alot more likely than getting shot in or outside of school for the average American). Sounds VERY counter-productive. it sounds like some NRA quest to infest the bastions of non-armament and win the war on unarmedness.
if this came to fruition, i know for sure where i would not go abroad for studying. Getting 20 guns drawn on me because I'm late for class is a bit too traumatizing even to me.
115 Comments
» a continuance on the Russia topic
Posted January 20, 2008. By duke_Qa
its time to bring up Russia again. not that i really need to make a new thread about it, but i figured i could make a thread name which was better.
We must not cave in to the spookocracy in the Kremlin
British Council trouble
i really have to say Russian officials looks like a bunch of mobsters when they start using underhand tactics to stop the British council. it has not been one of their brighter moments and i would dare to say that its a sign of how things will be in the future. Russia is quickly turning into a mafia-run state where rules are to be bent and broken for the greater good.
hopefully this is a phase that will end within the next 4-8 years, when the physical comforts of the Russians have gotten high enough for their liberty-comforts to come into the picture.
0 Comments
its time to bring up Russia again. not that i really need to make a new thread about it, but i figured i could make a thread name which was better.
We must not cave in to the spookocracy in the Kremlin
QUOTE
Paranoia about the outside world suits Russia's rulers, even though they personally know better. They tell their people that Britain and the West have designs on the Motherland, even as they send their children to British public schools and universities. Paranoia about foreign plots gives them an excuse to hinder contact between ordinary Russians and foreigners who carry the contagion of democracy.
British Council trouble
QUOTE
Mr Miliband argued that cultural exchange between the two countries was a good thing and that the council's work was "completely legal" and Britain would defend its staff's integrity. And he said the only losers, should the offices shut, would be the Russian people and the reputation of the Russian government.
The British Council, which aims to promote cultural and educational ties, has been accused of violating Russian tax rules.
The British Council, which aims to promote cultural and educational ties, has been accused of violating Russian tax rules.
i really have to say Russian officials looks like a bunch of mobsters when they start using underhand tactics to stop the British council. it has not been one of their brighter moments and i would dare to say that its a sign of how things will be in the future. Russia is quickly turning into a mafia-run state where rules are to be bent and broken for the greater good.
hopefully this is a phase that will end within the next 4-8 years, when the physical comforts of the Russians have gotten high enough for their liberty-comforts to come into the picture.
0 Comments
» a new era of american politics
Posted January 4, 2008. By duke_Qa
i'll just quote a bit from a newspaper article i read today that i thought was an interesting analysis of the current candidates for the presidential election.
Jimmy Carter said around the times when Ronald Reagan took over that "the USA is going out of control"(1). while Reagan said "this is a new age for America". it has been a conservative era, where most of the last 30 years the president has either been a Reagan or a Bush.
But we now we are seeing the beginning of the end of this era. we see that the talk of the presidents-to-be are moving away from the neo-conservative and tried-and-true politics of the last thirty years. Obama won the Iowa democratic position as main candidate, and he is one of the few candidates that truly have played on the promise of change. and with a surprising support from a group that earlier were not known to politically engaged; the young.
There is alot more to be said about Obama and the new demographics, but i don't have any good sources at hand at the moment. But there is another stroke that i need to put on the canvas that is more important than the details that i have mentioned as of yet.
None of the other candidates embrace the ways of the current presidency. there is no vice-president or major politician from the current "rulership" in the white house, which is also a strange thing. But the thing that makes it really weird, is that none of the candidates are running on policies that Bush jr and co have been using the last 7 years. Not even the Republican candidates dare to embrace the legacy of the Bush administration in full.
to sum things up, i think these are the early signs of politics more up to date with the current population of the western world. it might be the first side-effect of the free information flow on the internet, it might not. but whatever it is, it is a sign that conservative politics can come in too large doses, even in the USA.
(1)=english->norwegian->vague memorization of what the norwegian was back to english
23 Comments
i'll just quote a bit from a newspaper article i read today that i thought was an interesting analysis of the current candidates for the presidential election.
Jimmy Carter said around the times when Ronald Reagan took over that "the USA is going out of control"(1). while Reagan said "this is a new age for America". it has been a conservative era, where most of the last 30 years the president has either been a Reagan or a Bush.
But we now we are seeing the beginning of the end of this era. we see that the talk of the presidents-to-be are moving away from the neo-conservative and tried-and-true politics of the last thirty years. Obama won the Iowa democratic position as main candidate, and he is one of the few candidates that truly have played on the promise of change. and with a surprising support from a group that earlier were not known to politically engaged; the young.
There is alot more to be said about Obama and the new demographics, but i don't have any good sources at hand at the moment. But there is another stroke that i need to put on the canvas that is more important than the details that i have mentioned as of yet.
None of the other candidates embrace the ways of the current presidency. there is no vice-president or major politician from the current "rulership" in the white house, which is also a strange thing. But the thing that makes it really weird, is that none of the candidates are running on policies that Bush jr and co have been using the last 7 years. Not even the Republican candidates dare to embrace the legacy of the Bush administration in full.
to sum things up, i think these are the early signs of politics more up to date with the current population of the western world. it might be the first side-effect of the free information flow on the internet, it might not. but whatever it is, it is a sign that conservative politics can come in too large doses, even in the USA.
(1)=english->norwegian->vague memorization of what the norwegian was back to english
23 Comments
» so Iran is not making nukes
Posted December 5, 2007. By duke_Qa
yeah, i guess people have been busy about other things, and school is kinda boring today so i'll just write this thread now.
Nuclear report a victory - Iran
New Data and New Methods Lead to Revised View on Iran
The report changes nothing: Iran is still a threat, says defiant George W. Bush
and it also seemed for a while that powers within Iran was bending to the pressure and critizising Ahmadinejad. a few more months and he might have started giving in aswell. oh well, i guess that Bush have been holding that report secret for as long as he could. guess that its not as easy as it used to be.
personally i am not sure how this will work out. it certainly is a propaganda-loss for the US. it will be used by Ahmadinejad to gain better control over those persons who dared to oppose him in his provocative ways. Bush won't back down, so he'll make the US's image even more tarnished. alot of things can happen here now, but at least it seems to have reduced the risks of war, at least for a few more months.
29 Comments
yeah, i guess people have been busy about other things, and school is kinda boring today so i'll just write this thread now.
Nuclear report a victory - Iran
New Data and New Methods Lead to Revised View on Iran
The report changes nothing: Iran is still a threat, says defiant George W. Bush
and it also seemed for a while that powers within Iran was bending to the pressure and critizising Ahmadinejad. a few more months and he might have started giving in aswell. oh well, i guess that Bush have been holding that report secret for as long as he could. guess that its not as easy as it used to be.
personally i am not sure how this will work out. it certainly is a propaganda-loss for the US. it will be used by Ahmadinejad to gain better control over those persons who dared to oppose him in his provocative ways. Bush won't back down, so he'll make the US's image even more tarnished. alot of things can happen here now, but at least it seems to have reduced the risks of war, at least for a few more months.
29 Comments
» Pirate Communication
Posted November 7, 2007. By duke_Qa
we've seen the last few months that the internet and cellphone networks have been vital for democratic rebellions. these new technologies have the possibility to make the world a better place. but the problem is that when the rulers understands what is going on, they cut the wires.
the internet was originally a DARPA project to keep communication running even if they lost a city with a server in it. why doesnt this work when dictatorships cut the cables today? most likely because corporations owning the systems wants to have overview over what they are doing.
so basically i thought, what the hell would be the right direction to go to improve this? pirate communication. it shouldnt be as easy as just to throw a switch to blacken a country's communication networks. there should be hundreds of alternative transmitters that could get information out of the country if the main cables are cut. satelite cellphones are an example. mobile and hard to disconnect. a more modern concept would perhaps be the satelite-based router.
the main problems would be cost and distribution. in countries which doesnt approve of not having control over their people's communication capabilities such items=death. secondly, nobody in a poor country can really afford a satelite-based router that probably would cost like 1000$. naturally these routers would probably be sponsored by pro-democracy movements, so it might not be too bad on the populations of the countries.
mobile cell-phone networks which allows people within range to communicate would also be nice, but i'm not too sure how easy it would be for people to hide those away if the oppressors had tracking epquipment. anyway, if anyone has any other ideas about pirate communication technologies i would love to hear about that here. it can most likely save ourselves alot of trouble one day if things start getting hairy.
3 Comments
we've seen the last few months that the internet and cellphone networks have been vital for democratic rebellions. these new technologies have the possibility to make the world a better place. but the problem is that when the rulers understands what is going on, they cut the wires.
the internet was originally a DARPA project to keep communication running even if they lost a city with a server in it. why doesnt this work when dictatorships cut the cables today? most likely because corporations owning the systems wants to have overview over what they are doing.
so basically i thought, what the hell would be the right direction to go to improve this? pirate communication. it shouldnt be as easy as just to throw a switch to blacken a country's communication networks. there should be hundreds of alternative transmitters that could get information out of the country if the main cables are cut. satelite cellphones are an example. mobile and hard to disconnect. a more modern concept would perhaps be the satelite-based router.
the main problems would be cost and distribution. in countries which doesnt approve of not having control over their people's communication capabilities such items=death. secondly, nobody in a poor country can really afford a satelite-based router that probably would cost like 1000$. naturally these routers would probably be sponsored by pro-democracy movements, so it might not be too bad on the populations of the countries.
mobile cell-phone networks which allows people within range to communicate would also be nice, but i'm not too sure how easy it would be for people to hide those away if the oppressors had tracking epquipment. anyway, if anyone has any other ideas about pirate communication technologies i would love to hear about that here. it can most likely save ourselves alot of trouble one day if things start getting hairy.
3 Comments