Orð Benazir Bhutto árið 2002...

"The microcosm of America that was destroyed on September 11—people of all races, ethnicities and religions—is everything the extremists abhor: men and women, working side by side as equals; Muslims, Christians, Jews and Hindus, together building worldwide trade and communications. America is a symbol of what can be to millions of oppressed people all over the world. America means everything to those deprived of human rights and the rule of law. America symbolizes modernity, diversity and democracy, and it is these three things which are the fanatics´ worst fears.At this time of continuing crisis, the American people and their leaders must understand that those who would use violence and terror in the name of Islam are heretics and hypocrites. They are criminals, not clerics. Their actions contradict the teachings of the Holy Prophet of Islam, who wrote, ´Whenever the prophet of God sent forth a detachment, he said to it, ´Do not cheat or commit treachery, nor should you mutilate or kill children, women, or old men.´´ And there is a specific prohibition in Islamic law that bans killing by stealth and targeting a defenseless victim in a way intended to cause terror in a society.

It grieves me that included in the list of the victims of the perfidy of September 11 is the image of Islam across the world. Our religion is not what these people preach; in fact, it is the opposite. Islam is committed to tolerance and equality, and it is committed by Koranic definition to the principles of democracy. It is ironic that despite the strong commitment to democracy in Islam, most Muslims today are living in dictatorships. The Muslim people want freedom, and they need support in their search for political, economic and social empowerment. Much like the people of the communist world of the past, the Muslim people today are hostages in totalitarian regimes that flourished during the days of the Cold War.

In the West, there is often talk about the ´Muslim street.´ The street most often seen here on television is the street of fanaticism whipped into a frenzy. But there is another Muslim street. It is a silent street of women who suffer discrimination in every aspect of life. It is a silent street of students who are not educated. It is a silent street of businessmen and businesswomen who are not allowed to compete freely. It is a silent street of human rights activists who are jailed, political parties that are decimated, and political leaders who are either prisoners or exiles. It is the street of the people constrained by the totalitarian powers of the state. It is the street of the future in the chains of present-day intolerance, ignorance and dictatorship. And it is the street far more likely to explode than the street of the religious extremists."

 Benazir Bhutto í September 2002.

Global Warming umræðan - birtingarmynd sosialisma 21 aldarinnar

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071219/COMMENTARY/10575140

Fjölmiðlar eru svo greinilega að fara offari í heimsendaspádómum sínum hvað þessi mál varða. Það skiptir engu hvað gerist í veðurmálum heimsins...Global Warming er ástæðan fyrir öllu sem illa fer...og auðvitað þarf að ausa peningum ríkisjóðs í að koma í veg fyrir þessi endalok alheimsins.

..áhugaverð grein í Washington Times: 

 

"Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.

Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.

Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.

Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a devastating five-day freeze. Thousands of agricultural employees were thrown out of work. At the supermarket, citrus prices soared. In the wake of the freeze, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to issue a disaster declaration for affected counties. A few months earlier, Mr. Schwarzenegger had enthusiastically signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a law designed to cool the climate. California Sen. Barbara Boxer continues to push for similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.

In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records extend back to 1872.

Recent weeks have seen the return of unusually cold conditions to the Northern Hemisphere. On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a new record low of minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same date, record low temperatures were also recorded in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years.

Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are just emerging from a destructive ice storm that left at least 36 people dead and a million without electric power. People worldwide are being reminded of what used to be common sense: Cold temperatures are inimical to human welfare and warm weather is beneficial. Left in the dark and cold, Oklahomans rushed out to buy electric generators powered by gasoline, not solar cells. No one seemed particularly concerned about the welfare of polar bears, penguins or walruses. Fossil fuels don't seem so awful when you're in the cold and dark.

If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you're hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can't make this stuff up.

Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

David Deming is a geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma."

Fann þetta á blogginu hans Fannars: http://fannarh.blog.is/blog/fannarh/

Fjöldi útlendinga á Íslandi

Ég er ótrúlega ánægður með það hvað við Íslendingar erum að blandast öðrum menningarheimum þessa dagana.  Við höfum ekki síður gott af því en aðrar þjóðir að blandast aðeins, víkka sjóndeildarhringinn og átta okkur á að ekki er allt best hér á fróni.  Nýja lýðveldið okkar getur nefnilega lært mjög mikið af löndunum í kringum okkur og þeim gömlu menningarheimum sem þar er að finna.

 

Það getur hins vegar gengið mikið á þegar lönd verða "multi-cultural" á svona skömmum tíma líkt og við gerum nú.  

 

Þetta eru mjög áhugaverðar tölur frá hagstofunni: 

 

Hurðaskellir

Drengurinn skellti hurðum.

Menn hrukku í kút.

Konur fengu fyrir brjóstið.

Börn grétu í kerrum.

Hann skellti hurðum.

Húsið nötraði.

Mamma hans hrópaði:

,,Þú færð kartöflu í skóinn!"

Þá galaði hann:

,,Hurðaskellir kemur í kvöld!

Má hann skella hurðum en ekki ég?"

 

Hurðaskellir kom á gluggann.

,,Þú skelltir hurðum. " sagði Hurðaskellir.

,,Ég skil þig vel. mér finnst gaman að skella hurðum.

má ekki bjóða þér Ópal í skóinn? Brjóstsykur? Fílakaramellu?"

 

,,KARTÖFLU!" urraði drengurinn og skellti hurðinni.

 

Drengurinn fékk 13 kartöflur í skóinn.

Um vorið fann hann moldasvað og plantaði 13 kartöflum.

Um haustið var hver þeirra orðin að 20 kartöflum.

260 kartöflur!

 

Hann skellti hurðum fyrir jólin

og plantaði 273 kartöflum næsta vor.

Þær urðu að 5460 kartöflum um haustið.

Hann keypti sér jarðir og ræktaði að lokum milljón kartöflur

keypti sér banka, þotu, eyju og sportbíl.

 

hann var með 100.000 starfsmenn

sem urðu lafhræddir þegar hann skellti hurðum.

 

Hann hló næstum aldrei

 

Nema þegar hann hugsaði um þægu börnin

þau fengu ópal, fílakarmellur

og tannpínu.

 

Andri Snær Magnason

 

 

Heimurinn batnandi fer...

Það var Hannes Hólmsteinn sem opnaði augu mín fyrir Frjálshyggjunni þegar ég las hagfræði í Kanada. Þá komst ég yfir bókina Hádegisverðurinn er aldrei ókeypis en hugmyndirnar þar höfðu mjög mikil áhrif á lífsskoðanir mínar.

Gaman að því líka hvað hann er óhræddur við að taka stöðu með óvinsælum viðhorfum á eldfimum málefnum með beittan penna að vopni.

Mjög skemmtilegur pistill hjá honum í dag: http://hannesgi.blog.is/blog/hannesgi/

London, Jól ofl

Fyndin helgi að baki. Mjög gestkvæm. Mamma og pabbi voru í heimsókn, Ásgeir vinur minn, Hilmar tengdapabbi bróður míns varð strandaglópur á Standsted eftir að missa af flugi og kom líka en aðrir bætust í hópinn.

Það var því mikið fjör. Gaman að ná að eyða smá tíma með mömmu og pabba þó maður hefði nú kannski kosið að ná meiri tíma með þeim, en málin flækjast alltaf þegar það eru svona margir á sama tíma hjá manni.

Orðið mjög jólalegt í London, jólaskraut út um allt, en kaupmenn eru að hafa miklar áhyggjur af því hvað desember fór hægt af stað og er nú svo komið að margar verslanir hafa farið af stað með útsölur til að hreyfa við neytendum.

Það var gerð heiðarleg tilraun til að fara klúbbahring, Fabric og Ministry of Sound, en við vorum svo sein á ferð á laugardagskvöldinu að það var hætt að hleypa inn. Það var samt auðvitað farið út á galeiðuna, með þessa gesti hefði annað ekki verið í boði. Við vorum stærstan part kvöldins á St. Martins Lane hótelinu (þar sem Asia De Cuba er) í einkapartýi með Roberto Cavalli, sem var mjög spes.

Fór svo reyndar á Westham Everton með góðum hópi á miðvikudagskvöldið. Eins og ég er lítill fótboltagaur finnst mér snilld að fara á leiki. Það er auðvitað of snemmt (er nývaknaður) til að fullyrða með 100% vissu, en held þetta hafi verið 4 leikurinn sem ég fer á þetta season.

Ég fer svo til Íslands á morgun í langt jólafrí. Það er óhætt að segja að ég hlakki mikið til en þessum jólum verður eytt í rólegheitum með Rögnu Klöru. Eftir brjálað ár og mjög svo viðburðarríkt veitir manni ekkert að því að gíra sig aðeins út og slappa af.

Þrjár góðar...

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.(masses) “

(Úr Karl Marx's Contribution to the Critique of Hegels "Philosophy of the Right")

“Under capitalism the more gifted and more able have no means to profit from their superiority other than to serve to the best of their abilities the wishes of the majority of the less gifted”

Mises daily Article 2 june 2006- “On equality and inequality”

“Ég veit ekki betur en það sé sýnt og sannað að svo skal böl bæta að benda á eitthvað annað"

Megas

Tveir merkilegir sögðu...

Hernando De Soto

“Oliver Twist comes to town; he is poor, has a TV set and he is able to sees how you live.  As compared to how he lives he is going to be very angry so either you show him a capitalist route to do it and integrate him or he is going to find another ideology.  The fact that today there is no more Kremlin, which is organizing a revolt, doesn’t mean he is not going to find another capital.  When these things happen, people are unhappy and rebel against the system, they will find another locus of power very very quickly.” Documentary: Commanding Heights / Interview with De Soto 

- - -

Johan Norberg

„I think people who have something to live for, something to look forward to, are less likely to blow them selves up”.

Al-Qaeda á bakvið árásirnar

Ferðin til Congo í Janúar að skýrast!

Um miðjan Janúar er ég að fara í 5 daga ævintýraferð til Congo, þetta verður mögnuð ferð.  Hér er planið og linkar á myndir: 

Day 1      Bonobo sanctuary, marché de Liberté

Day 2      Congo river upstreams till Mangengenge and downstream till Lokutu

Day 3      Transfer to Zongo falls, visit and dinner            

Day 4      Visit of the Congo river 8 km further inside out of Zongo and return to Kinshasa

Day 5      City trip: Mausoleum Kabila, Ethnographical museum,Gare Central, Rapids Kinsuka,     

                                                                           

Bonobo sanctuary - 1 of the 4 great Apes with for 99% our DNA        

http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=94272

                                   

Marché de Liberté - One of the bigger markets witch gives a good idea about the lifestyle         

 

Mangengenge - Village on the river, representative for most of the villages inside the country     

http://www.pixagogo.com/1167085854

 

Lokutu - Village on a sand bank. Also this type is commen on the sand banks in the jungle       

http://flickr.com/photos/greenpeacefrance/page5/

 

Zongo - Nice waterfall, some say even = fantastic.

http://www.gocongo.com/gc5products/excursies/zongo.html

                                                      

Gare Centrel -  A hugh artefact market

                                                                       

Kinsuka - Here starts the rapids till Matadi , +/- 350 km further downstreams   

 

See more pictures
Photo`s of the expedition in October 2006 Go Congo
Photo`s of the expedition in October 2006 Peter Schneider
Photo`s of the expedition in July - August 2007 Go Congo

Ótrúlega magnað

Það er nákvæmlega ekkert að marka þessa fyrirsögn þar sem áhugaverð málefni til að deila með heiminum eru af skornum skammti þennan morguninn.

Sit á Heathrow á leiðinni til Íslands. 

Fyndið hvað maður er vanafastur.  Ég t.d. kíki alltaf í bókabúðina hérna, töskubúðina með Tumi töskurnar og borða alltaf á Giraffe.  Á Giraffe borða ég alltaf Chicken Snitzel og drekk reyndar annaðhvort léttvín eða kók með.  Kók í þetta skiptið...og drep tímann þar til maður hoppar í flug.

Við biðina gefst tími til að spá í asnalegustu hlutum.  T.d. er ég búinn að eyða meira en viku samtals í flugvél á þessu ári.  Fljót reiknað fara 19 sinnum á milli Íslands og UK, fyrir utan aðrar ferðir. 

Djöfull er þetta eitthvað sad bloggfærsla, ætla rölta út í gate.

...að eilífu

Gummi