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Pure Schizophrenia in the McCain Campaign

Even more spectacularly than we could have ever hoped the love triangle between McCain, Palin and Hicktown USA is imploding. McCain's desperately to remind us he is human, Palin's trying to show us she's Superhuman and Hicktown is reeling with the news that Obama isn't an Arab.

One particularly blinkered McCain supporter Gayle Quinnel has typified the whole of the Republican campaign, showing it to be bigoted and playing on the farcicaly ill-educated people it uses for it's supporter base. When Mz Quinnel was asked why she couldn't trust Obama she fumbled for a while, spouted rubbish and then looked confused. Meanwhile the American people watched on in disgust as though she were a gymnast with diarrohea.

GQ: "He's not, he's a...umm, he's an Arab"
McCain: (Shakes head with despair)
GQ: "(Looks confused) He's not?"
McCain: "No"
GQ "No? (Even more confused, but wait he's black (sort-of) but not an A-rab, how the begeezus does that work!?)
McCain: (Respectfully) "No mam" (snatches microphone away)

McCain's next comment surely winning the backhanded political compliment of the year, and I paraphrase. "He's not an Arab he's a decent family man citizen." What!! Hang-on he's not an Arab, he's a family man. Miss GQ sure stands corrected there, does bigot cancel bigot or just create Texas?

We must all feel a little sorry for McCain, he old and tired. He's coming to the end of a hard-fought campaign with little chance of winning. His position is as un-desireable as a mooseWall St. He's stuck between the dim-witted grassroots supporters who's sole political knowledge comes from Republican publications and the dangerous maniachal Palin who seems intent on leaving McCain far behind to fight to Republican ticket in 4 years time. McCain, consider this a political obituary. Franklin

Leader Returns from Exile Amid Icy Reception

We've had Statesman Blair, buffoon Bush and want-to-be Statesman Sarkozy, enter Leader Brown.

After a rough week Iceland considers adopting
the Zimbabwean Dollar

Amid months of backstabbing, dull political skulduggery and Blair tinted spectacles, Brown's Falklands have arrived. With Miliband ensonced in the Dept of Global Warming and Darling doing his best Belgrano impression we have seen our Leader bounce in the polls. Brown's handling of our fellow island nation seem taken straight from the sombre pages of innit24. The handling of the Iceland situation was immoral, ill-advised and contrary to what Darling had said, but damn it made me proud! Out were was the dithering and endless itellectual debate; In were the gut decisions and rock solid stance. Undercutting the ever unpopular Darling and annoying the heck out of the Icelandic PM made this an ever better decision.

For the benefit of every rational voter in Britain I hope Brown has learnt the lesson that every leader must. At all times but especially those of turmoil it matters not what decisons you make, merely that you make them, and be damn well sure you stick to them. If you can instill a bit of national pride by pissing off tiny nations more indebted than Hicktown USA then even better!

It's time now for Brown to pull Britain together and cajole all the EU Nations as Schreiber has asked into finding a joint decsion. Then we can kiss and make up with Iceland (and Russia who's backing them) and bully the IMF into realising that short-term growth is not a substiute for sound economic fundamentals and sustained but steady progess. Vive sens! Franklin


Innit24 reccomends: -
So, who's going to buy Iceland?
Brown declares war on Iceland (cracking read!)

The markets and the Union

As fear takes over the stock markets completely, we cannot but wonder why we are so utterly unable to deal with the financial spirits we called years ago and loved so dearly for so long. The biggest problem though is that we don’t just lack the knowledge of how to deal with our ever-shrinking markets, but we don’t even know who should deal with it.
And it seems as though the market forces we created are now stronger than us. This sounds super apocalyptic, but it is true. The credit crunch became a financial crisis, which is now about to become a perpetual economic disaster. Whilst the stocks crash all across the continents and banks go bust, business owners are already forced to declare bankruptcy. Brokers are seen in tears outside the stock exchanges in London, Tokyo, New York and Frankfurt, even though the central banks cut interest rates like a baker cuts bread. This morning, the value of City shares fell by £200m and stocks in Frankfurt and Paris dropped by 8%, again. The Sun says a cold war started between Britain and Iceland, and the Telegraph thinks the markets will end in a “complete bloodbath”. To make the catastrophe worse, everyone has a cold.
And here the big question: Who can help us and our markets? God? Marxism? Suicide? – I don’t know, really. But it is interesting to see that the one and only big player in international economic cooperation is as quite as a dead person, since the crisis started.
And yes, I’m talking about the EU. For about 60 years we have given more and more economic sovereignty to our friends in Brussels and now we ignore them. We ignore the very institution that could maybe be the only rescuer in this awful situation.Even though it was first planned to try a EU move and centrally coordinate all emergency measurements; at least after the Merkel Move, it was clear that all countries would have to fight for themselves. Hours after a meeting with Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvia Berlusconi, promising a EU solution to the crisis, Merkel guaranteed all savings in German banks (the Economist reports that this pledge is worth more than €1 trillion). Those nations fearing that the German move might destroy their banking system (even more), copied the move quickly. Hours after Sweden followed the Merkel move (which actually was the Irish move, as they were the first to guarantee the money in their banks, but the alliteration Merkel move just sounds better in headlines) Swedish banks are said to have advertised in Finland that investors should bring their money quickly to Swedish banks to be save, thus forcing the Finnish government to react as well.
French Prime Minister François Fillon even thinks it’s “logical” that the nation states and not the überstate EU deals with the crisis. But the real reason for this nationalist approach to the crisis was put into words by German finance secretary Peer Steinbrück. He said: “We as Germans don’t want to pay into a big pot where we don’t have control and don’t know where German money might be used.”
He is right, there is this fear that some taxpayers in some countries will have to pay for the problems caused by other countries. For example, many people on mainland Europe strongly disliked the Turbo Capitalism of the City of London and are now scared that they would have to pay for it. In the same way as British taxpayers would not want to pay for the disastrous management of Icelandic banks.
However people feel about it, a EU-European approach would be the best thing at the moment, keeping in mind that we know that the EU has been great in dealing with economy for the last 60 years. Why would Brussels not be able to deal with this crisis?
We should give Europe a chance.
Schreiber

Reminder

Please be careful when making out a cheque, as your bank might bounce.
Schreiber

Crisis in the nordic Paradise

The country has the 5th highest GDP per head; the highest quality of life (shared first place with Norway); is on the second place in the technological readiness index; has the second highest car ownership (632 out of 1000 citizen own a car), and has the 9th highest life expectancy (in fact, it has the second highest male life expectancy, after Andorra).
Which country am I writing about?
I’ll give you another hint. The country I’m thinking off is the probably worst affected by the credit crunch.
Yes, indeed, I am talking about Iceland. Did anyone by any chance check the value of the Icelandic Krona today? – 1 Euro is today worth 145 Krona. That means 1 Krona is not even worth a freaking Euro cent! I remember last year the Euro being worth less that 100 Krona.
In Iceland we see for the first time properly, how the financial crisis can affect the state. Prime minister Geir H. Haarde even spoke about the real danger of “national bankruptcy”.
The Allthing, the Icelandic parliament, even introduced emergency laws trying to fight the financial crisis. These emergency laws allow the state to interfere with the finance sector. However extreme and brutal these laws are, none of the political parties in the Allthing rejected them. This is how extreme this crisis is.
How did it get all that bad? Iceland's banks made a fatal mistake several years ago, offering great deals to people on the ireland and abroad (Britain mostly, but also Germany and the Scandinavian countries). Today, the banks cannot cope with the debts anymore, as they equal to 12 times the size of the entire Icelandic economy.
The government now manages the third largest bank, Glitnir Bank, and the second largest bank, Landesbanki Island HF. However, several experts seem to doubt the government's ability to cope with the disastrous banks. One of the emergency laws that were passed by the parliament ruled that the government does not have to guarantee the money in the banks anymore. Nevertheless, the government wants to save the money for Icelandic citizens, but not for foreign investors. This could hit many Britons hard. However, I have heard from informed sources that the British Government might sue Iceland over British deposits account holders with Landsbanki's Icesave Internet banking.
The danger that Iceland might become the first country that has to declare national bankruptcy due to the financial crisis is as real as the crisis itself.
Schreiber

Is the Far-Right due another [sic] millenarian rebirth?

The steady rise in fascist attacks will make us face up to our past, present and future.

The election of two far-right parties in Austria should have been a wake-up call to us all, but it's only on the pages of innit24 that it seems to be getting the coverage it deserves. It can be said that every country gets the Government it deserves, we have to hope this is far from the truth. There have been various recent elections where the right have made significant gains. None was more bitterly opposed than when Jean-Marie Le Pen (slightly right of Attila the Hun) won enough votes to contest Chirac for French Presidency in 2002. The fact it merely tipped the balance it the National Assembly from centre-left to centre-right we can now see was telling of a darker problem looming.

Stories of racist attacks throughout the EU have been reaching the British media for years. They all tell of increasing violence against immigrants and the slow march towards aggressive Nationalism. The worst stories appear the be centred around Moscow, France, Germany and now Austria. All countries that one would have hoped, in the strongest possible terms, WOULD KNOW BETTER.

If we all follow France's lead and bury our heads in the sands of our colonial pasts there is no hope. Perhaps the most shocking stories were those of the Paris riots in 2005, where France's repression of it's colleagues in arms in the Algerian war reared it's ugly head. The mistreatment and alienation, as France has perfected, creating virtual ghettos for it's immigrants breeding hatred and bitter recriminations.

Until we can bring together all elements of society to form dynamic and sacrificial (on both parts) solutions to our clearly desperate problems the march of the far-right will continue. These aren't men in jackboots with Chaplineqsue moustaches, these are people with suits, facts and disarming rhetoric. The solutions aren't simply rooted in control of the population but go down the the very core of society: Our town planning, the way our services are provided, our attitude to ourselves and others but most importantly, the way we deal with the issues. Frank openness is the only way.

It's time we accepted our pasts, dealt with the present and plan for a better future. Franklin

No-one saw the hole issue....

Despite some valiant attempts no-one including those in the 'mainstream' media saw the link between Senator and President-in-waiting Obama and Mr Stevenson.

The simple link, that both have been shown with holes in their shoes! Due to the many hours spent pounding the beat in Congress and on the Campaign trail; Obama has been photographed (possibly off-guard) and Adlai Stevenson's statue in Chicago airport is depicted with holes in the soles of his shoes. Franklin

Old News; Quote of the Week

Proof that politicians are the greatest recyclers of all. Nothing new's been said since Plato.

"I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them." Adlai E Stevenson (20th Cenury Democratic Presidential candidate.)

10 points for the first person who emails the innit24 newsroom with details about how the idea in the picture above has been recycled very recently. Franklin

Geography 101

Where is Moldova? And where is the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia?
I like to think of myself as someone who knows European geography quite well. Fortunately I found this fun quiz on the interweb, where you can check you knowledge of our neighboring countries. Check it out here! It's truly entertaining.
Schreiber

Good night, Austria!

A cri du cœur went through Europe: 30% for the far right! The devastating, shocking and truly disgusting result of the Austrian general election astonished Europe, once again.
Here the result of the election in detail:

This means that, in order to prevent one of the far right parties (BZÖ and FPÖ) to be part of a coalition government, the unloved and unsuccessful “grand coalition” (not really grand anymore!) of SPÖ and ÖVP has to continue.
Let us have a look at BZÖ and FPÖ. The BZÖ is headed by Jörg Haider, the former FPÖ leader. The FPÖ is lead by Herr Haider’s former protégé Heinz-Christian Strache. Both man strongly hate each other.
Herr Strache’s party ran with slogans such as: “Vienna must not become Istanbul” and he promised to stop Austrian girls from “being fondled by hordes of immigrants.” Herr Strache has also connections to the neo-Nazi scene in Austria and was seen holding a gun while wearing a German army uniform.
Jörg Haider’s background is equally disturbing. He one described Nazi concentration camps as "punishment camps" and claimed Nazi-Germany’s SS were "a part of the German army which should be honoured." How can a man who says things like that get the vote of every 10th Austrian?!
Both men’s weltanschauung is, obviosly, rather disgusting. The worst is that I am quite convinced that, if SPÖ and ÖVP continue to work together (which is the only way to prevent any of the Nazi-parties to join the government, as the Greens did surprisingly bad in this election), the political frustration of the average Austrians might increase and help the far right in the next election. It might even happen that SPÖ and ÖVP decide not to go back to a grand coallition, which will lead to one of the Nazi-parties joining the government.
Schreiber

Conservative Party Conference; Precursor

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve has warned British multiculturalism has left a "terrible" legacy which has allowed extremists to flourish. Just what does he mean?

Are the Conservatives racing to the right as Comrade Brown is huffing and puffing to the left? Franklin

The debate

The media says it was a draw. But was it? The widely anticipated US presidential debate was, and to some extend that surprised me, rather interesting. Still, I’m not too sure whether or not it was a draw between Mr McCain and Mr Obama. From an American point of view, I suppose I could understand why one would say it was a draw. Both seemed to bring their point across quite well, Obama seemed more involved, but McCain more like a statesman. But I think from a European point of view, many have realised that McCain is actually a man with some not too unimportant opinions and solutions for the US. This was quite surprising for many people over here, as many people in Europe love Obama as much as creationists love God. I personally am not a McCain supporter, but I do think that he was able to show quite a few people in the Old World, that he has quite some good ideas. He also, as I said earlier, came across more like a statesman, and not as a candidate. His answers weren’t as short and pregnant as those of Obama, but on the other hand he was not standing there, shaking his hand and simply saying something like “this is not true,” whenever he felt treated wrongly. Instead, he was able to actually explain where Obama was wrong, which made him appear, to a certain extend, more competent.
Nevertheless, both seem a bit like the macher, and that certainly is what America needs. They had grand ideas and both wanted to break with all the meshuga politics of Mr Bush. Here, naturally, McCain had more problems convincing the audience than Senator Obama. I think, from a European point of view, McCain surprised with some sort of sharpness people did not expect him to have. Whereas Mr Obama was just like we expected him to be, remembering his words at the Siegessäule in Berlin. But, even though I just said a few positive things about McCain, somehow his Gordon Brownness, his old-fashioned slowliness, his awkward shiftlessness just annoyed me, especially towards the end of the debate… It was quite long after all – but still worth watching. Schreiber.

America's Most Hated

1. Bankers
2. Osama bin Laden
3. Lawyers

The change from bowler hatted city gentlemen to ill-educated ruthless swine is finally complete. What financial scandals as large as Credit Suisse First Boston and the Citigroup/ Salomon couldn't achieve, it took the relatively unknown world of derivatives trading just a matter of months.

Derivatives are the financial instruments made when simple company issues are transformed by brokers and investment banks into 'exotic' tradable instruments. The returns of these are linked to many different benchmarks including mortgages, interest rates and stock indexes.

The upside gain is as fantastic as the downside loss. The problems have arisen because no money actually changes hands between the two parties meaning they are leveraged to the hilt. The parties have entered into agreements where they can't cover the downside, this is fine, until the markets fail.

The derivatives market has many thousands of players, is global and worth trillions of dollars. Many of the individual contracts need computers to understand them. Therefore we cannot even begin to unravel the millions of derivative trades out there.

Once the markets to which the returns are linked begin, one-by-one to fail then people lose faith in these institutions and the cash flow they so desperately need dries up. And institutions begin to topple. So falls the house of cards.

The then Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan said that the risk of such a meltdown is negligible but also that “The rapid growth and increasing importance of derivative instruments in the risk profile of many large banks has been a particular concern,” This coupled with his later quote “We will never have a perfect model of risk“, he argued “We will never be able to anticipate all discontinuities in financial markets.” All this is true, derivatives are risky, as are all financial instruments. What makes them unique is that the risk is not understood, even slightly.

If you take instruments you don't understand, use them recklessly and add a large pinch of bad luck, you get Recession 2008. Franklin

Campus Europa

Italians live at home and Portuguese are super-multilingual. One of the most interesting international studies ever, reveals how life is like on Campus Europa.
Eurostudent, as the study is called, analysed several different aspects of studying in Europe. The study shows, for example, that it is much easier for students with a non-academic background to get into university in the Netherlands, whereas there are close to no students with a non-academic background to be found in Bulgarian or German universities.
The report, which is due to be published tomorrow, and will certainly lead to some debate in the education supplements in national papers across EU countries and beyond. Innit24 can already present some of the most interesting facts the study will reveal.
Students without a normal university-entrance diploma (such as the British A-Levels, the American High School Diploma, the Swiss Matura, and so on) find it much easier to get into university in England and Wales, whereas it is nearly impossible to do so in Lithuania and Germany, says Eurostudent.
Many students these days study a year abroad, but which county’s students do so the most? Here we see Norway, Germany and Finland scoring the best, Italy, Lithuania and Turkey can be found at the bottom of the list.
One very interesting fact that the study will reveal tomorrow, concerns the ability of students to speak two languages fluently. Here we see Portugal’s students to score best, followed by Slovenian and Swiss students. Again, it is the Turkish, which score worst of all participating countries.
For those of our reader who are still looking for a partner, the following fact might be rather interesting: Italy has the most single students, followed by Portugal and Scotland.
In contrast, the country with the most students already married is Norway, followed by Slovakia and Sweden.
Most Italians live with Mum and Dad (73%) (Could that be the reason why they are all single??). This love of living at home seems to be a Mediterranean thing though, as Spanish (64%) and Portuguese (55%) students do the same. On the other hand, students from more northern European countries can’t wait to get away from home. 79% of the Norwegian students live in rented/private flats/houses without their parents, as do 68% of the Finnish students and 65% of those studying in Germany and Austria. (This excludes students living in university halls.)
As I mentioned earlier, the full study will be published tomorrow. You may also want to check out Eurostudnet’s website for more details.
Schreiber

Comrade Brown: Onward!

The near schizophrenic ramblings of a certain free 'urban national newspaper' today actually showed our esteemed Dear Leader in a rather favourable light, follow the running score to see how they did it!


The front cover (well, front behind a desperate BA, "Honestly we're not completely useless" ad) had a large, almost flattering portrait backed by a rather un-ambiguous red background. The article freely quoting Comrade Brown was pretty much mirroring the BA slogan (see above) but still had CB coming out on top. (CB score total +1)

The next article attacked his pointless policy of suspending stamp duty for houses that cost about the same as a tin of beans. Unless of course he predicted that house prices would fall so far that it would apply to houses in areas people actually want to live. (CB score total 0)

A rather pithy (euphemism for crap) cartoon follows with a couple picture walking away from a curiously Evening Standard billboard (subliminal advertising by Associated Newspapers perhaps?). The billboard reads, "I'm the right man for the job," Brown. The couple comment, "Just as I feared his judgment's completely gone." (CB score total -1)

'Treasury to borrow £90bn' screams headline. Follows provisos on the government 'coffers' collapsing and ridiculous speculation. Still us heading towards the largest budget deficit in the West must fall at the ex-chancellors feet. (CB score total -2)

Turning to page 5, we see a raft of cliched socialist policies bought out, and supported!

'Volunteer force to tackle yobs.' (CB score total -1)

'Tax rich at 45%, says left winger.' Quite why the feel the need to point out it was a left-winger or even quote it at all is a little odd. It was hardly going to be Mr Vacuous was it? It also describes the policy as radical, how on earth is it radical, who writes this stuff. It does provide a possible unattributed quote of the week though, 'The Labour conference would seek new policies, not a new leader.' Sense at last! (CB score total 0)

'Free nurseries for two-year old.' The editor's decision to put this below the tax story made about as much sense as a McCain speech, but there it is. It's this sort of liberal policy that the Scandinavian countries have long been famed for. This definitely gets a point. (CB score total +1)

If we're going to deduct points for his countless mistakes as Chancellor, I feel we must also give credit where it's due. It a turn that is so refreshingly un-Cherie, Sarah Brown has called for greater action on deaths in childbirth. You go Sarah. (CB score total +2)

As always predicted in the secretive HQ of innit24 the tide of public opinion is turning back in favour of our Dear Comrade. If the sister paper for The Mail can have a day of positive opinions then the world is once again the rational persons oyster. (Premature perhaps but we can hope.)

This can conclusively prove my much voiced conviction that no-one really wants to vote Conservative and certainly no-one wants to vote for Mr Vacuous himself. However people find themselves unable to support CB in his near fit of bad polices. With only the un-electable Libs to turn to instead, the choice, which was not a choice but a lack of options, was a done deal. Now CB's stopped having an aneurysm or whatever it was, people are going to jump on the rational person's bandwagon faster than you can say, "In Brown we trust." Franklin

The apocalypse is experiencing severe delays, please arrange alternative transport, see: Global warming, natural disaster or financial meltdown.

The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) has been put off line for at least two months following a 'quench'. Helium liquid had leaked out meaning that the large electro-magnets were not being cooled, subsequently they heated up to nearly 100 degrees. Fortunately none of the magnets were irreversibly damaged, however due the the nature of the environment even relatively minor repairs are extremely time consuming. The collider tube has be to brought up to ambient temperature from it's maintained near absolute zero to allow workers in.

However this is the latest blow to the initially spectacularly successful project. On the start-up day protons completed a full circuit of the 27km is much less than predicted time. Shortly after a 30-ton transformer broke and had to be replaced, no mean feat for something buried under mountains of EU farming subsidies.

Here at the innit24 newsroom we wish them all the best for the future (if there is one) and would like to extend our thanks for most-kindly delaying the end of the world so we can all watch the new season of House.

Britain needs to join Euroland!

“The tragedy for Britain has been that politicians of both parties have consistently failed to appreciate the emerging reality of European integration,” Tony Blair said some time long ago. And he was right.
However, I do not want to write about European integration in general, but about the Euro, the currency that unites our Union.
Let us firstly ask ourselves: Why do we need the Pound Sterling? We need it, because (at the moment) the Pound is falling (compared to the Euro), which is great for UK exports. (But then, Britain does not export too much anyway).
This, however, also means that if you travel to Euroland, your Frappuccino will cost more, which will make your fun holidays in the wonderful South of France less great.
Joining the Euro does not mean that export will be impossible, only fairer. (And, we cannot just hope that the Pound keeps devaluating itself!) Let us have a look at the Thatcherite argument that the Pound is a part of national sovereignty. That’s just rubbish! The Pound is great, I love paying with it, but I have also paid with the Swiss Frank, with the Israeli New Sheqel, with the Turkish Lira, the US Dollar, etc, and I never had a problem with it. The “sovereignty” a national currency represents exists only in the heads of the burghers.
I remember how politicians in all countries in our fine Union had massive problems, as they tried to introduce the Euro and therewith EMU; Germans, for example, certainly did not like to give up their Deutschmark, as it seemed to them to be the only German thing (apart from maybe cars) that actually turned out to be a success (ignoring Heidi Klum). But they survived it, as will this wonderful Kingdom.
Even the Danes, who are known for being as reserved (to say the least!) about the EU will have a referendum soon on joining the Eurozone, and it looks as though the Yes-campaigners will win.
So far Britain always joint EU-European projects a few years too late in order to truly profit from them. As Britain joint the EEC, the money of the regional trust (to just name one of several) went to Greece, Spain and Portugal, whereas Britain could have profited from it, had it joint a bit earlier. As Britain joint EEC, policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy were already formed and Britain was unable to make them any more Britain-friendly (I will at this point not go into the entire debate on the BBQ). As Britain joint the Exchange Rate Mechanism (or in fact even the EMS), it was too late to be advantages for Britain. This list seems never ending, but Mr Franklin will complain if this post is too long, therefore I shall stop here.
However, it is not quite too late to join the Euro! Yes, by committing earlier to the Euro, Britain could have had more influence on how to set up the European Central Bank (which became some sort of bigger version of the Bundesbank), but the Euro is still evolving (and on the best way to becoming the world’s most important currency) and Britain can participate in this progress.
We need to end this annoying (and politically as well as economically dangerous) eurosclerosis and finally commit to the Euro, one of the greatest achievements of EU-European politics ever!
Schreiber

The biggest scientific deception since global warming….

The scaremongering continues even on the sober pages on innit24

The world’s largest particle accelerator (LHC) is going to destroy us all, it’s a fact. Well, at least this is the only logical conclusion we can draw from the scientific community’s deception of the media and public at large. If it wasn’t true, why would they lie to us?

Anyone reading the papers on the morning of September 10th will have breathed a sigh of relief, the slim-to-none chance of the apocalypse happening had been avoided, phew. The protons had been made, fed into the linear particle accelerator and then guided by giant magnets round the 27km collider and then it was turned off. What the popular media and scientists seemed unwilling to tell us was that simply accelerating protons to 99.99991% the speed of light won’t tear a whole in the space time continuum or create a super-massive (or even small) black hole. To create said dastardly apocalyptic tool you need to smash the protons together, at great speed, which they will do, but haven’t yet. So there was really no risk, at all, zero-risk you could say.

You must ask yourself the question, why were we not corrected, surely the doomsday predictions would have made better news when they were actually possible, couldn’t the Metro and London Lite wait just a few more weeks. It must be because the scientists themselves are more than a little unsure about what will happen. Will we find Higgs Boson or will we destroy the planet as we know it. I reckon H. Boson is probably underground but not on the Franco-Swiss border but chillin’ with Osama in a Pakistani cave till the heat dies down.

If you’re reading this blog, about the middle of October when the first collisions take place, then we can all breath a collective sigh of relief. Until then, keep reading. Franklin

Is it Cameron's time?

“Clever, articulate, well educated, socially adept, politically astute, photogenic, charming, charismatic.” This is how this week’s Time magazine Europe describes David Cameron in its cover story.
The great-great-great-great-great-greatson (that is six times great) of King William IV, will enjoy reading this story, as Time magazine seems to like him a bit too much. The entire story in this sometimes not too bad weekly, is a disgusting sanctification of the boring joke, who tries to become Prime Minister.
And yes, Cameron seems to attract many voters. That is problematic. This constantly self-exposing elitist tries so hard to hide his lack of a concept, by saying things that just don’t mean anything. His slogan for example is “It’s time for change, change you can trust.” What?? What change?! Is he talking about the economy? The education system? His mobile phone contract? And how is this change going to look like?
You think you might be used to this kind of nice but empty words, as Blair used to do the same thing, but no, Cameron is much worse. Very much he says just does not quite mean anything.
And also his slogan (“It’s time for change, change you can trust.”) does sound a bit like Barack Obama’s “The change we can believe in, the change we need.” That’s just pathetic!
Anyway, just don’t pick up this week’s Time magazine Europe, as this little pro-Cameron PR article is simply rubbish. Its not investigative, not enlightening and definitively not worth reading.
Schreiber

Fear and black holes

Everyone is scared. All the time. We wake up and ask us: ‘Will there be water left at the end of today?’, ‘Will terrorists bomb my tube later?’, ‘Will China and Russia attack as this evening?’, ‘Could Amy Winehouse make my kids start being addicted to drugs?’, ‘Does Gordon Brown try to put the bird flu virus in our tap water?’, ‘Will Sarah Palin really become vice president?’, and so on.
But what everyone seemed to have feared the most these days was a massive black hole that would first destroy Switzerland, then Europe and then the rest of our little world.
Crazy scientists from all over Europe were gathering near Switzerland’s Geneva somewhere under the earth to build the kill-the-world machine, was what the media told us.
Yeah, whatever. Even though scientists explained that this machine would not create black holes, or at least no black holes that could be harmful to our “peaceful” planet, the public and the media seem to have been attracted by the fear. The possibility that some mad scientists could destroy the world was just too good to not be written about. Even though the danger was not real.
Yesterday’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, a left-ish daily from Munich, called the Large Hadron Collider the Urknallmachine, the big-bang-machine. I liked the title and immediately thought of a funny conversation I had, the other day.
I was in a train from somewhere in Switzerland to Milan, as a probably 70-year-old man from Denmark sat opposite me and saw me reading something about the LHC in the Guardian. He looked at me and, after a while, warned me (in very bad English) of the danger of this scientific experiment.
Funny enough, he was not talking about the actual machine (“the closest men ever got to God,” as he put it) but about the damage the computer that calculated all the data could cause. The man said that to calculate all the data from the LHC, a new über-computer had to be developed.
This “super computer” is a network of many computers from all over the world. This massive system will (hopefully) be able to find out how our world came into existence. But, he said, if a hacker would hack into the system, it could be used to disconnect certain regions, maybe even an entire continent!!, from the inter-web.
See, that is something to fear, not a self-made black hole!! But then, the old man could have been a liar and not, as he claimed, a former professor from Copenhagen... Interesting story though, I think.
Schreiber

The dictator's Freud

Dictators are interesting. They are fascinating. Now imagine, it is your job to psychologically analyse them. You would have a lot to tell, no doubt. And indeed, this job exists.
Psychiatrist Jerrold M. Post analysed dictators for many years for the CIA and still does so, as an external advisor for the US administration. Luckily for us, Mr Post broke his silence and spoke to one of Switzerland’s most well known weeklies, the Weltwoche.
The paper that is internationally remembered for being the first German-language magazine to reprint the Danish Muhammad cartoons published a fantastic interview with the psychiatrist. Mr Post analysed people such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bin Laden and Fidel Castro. However, he calls North Korea’s Kim Jong Il “the biggest enigma of them all.” In the interview (by Urs Gehriger) he revels some truly interesting facts about the North Korean dictator.
He says that Kim Jong Il has always been in his father’s huge shadow and can therefore only be understood through his father. Considering that his father, Kim Il Sung, has been declared God (!), it is even harder for Kim Jong Il to emerge from his father’s almighty shadow.
His inferiority complex is also boosted by his own ugliness, says Mr. Post. He is (as many dictators seem to have been) rather short. And fat. Mr Post does not only inform us about the dictator’s inferiority complex, he also tells us interesting facts about the Dear Leader:

• He spends between $450,000 - $600,000 on cognac, per year. That is five hundred (!) times the yearly average income of a North Korean.
• He has a film collection with up to 20,000 films, mainly from the US.
• He kidnapped a South Korean actress and her husband (a film director) and kept them for eight years, hoping that at some point they could revitalise the North Korean film industry.

If you want to find out what Mr Post says about other dictators you should certainly have a look at this week’s Weltwoche. It is worth it! (This is probably the first time that I say something like that about this paper, as the Weltwoche normally gets on my nerves with all it’s anti-welfare-state editorials).
Schreiber

It’s official: Thatcher’s off her head

It is shocking for all Daily Mail readers. God is about to die. Yeah, a few weeks after it was decided that Mrs T will get a state funeral, her daughter, Carol Thatcher, writes her memoirs and reassures us that mum will be gone soon.
This is sad. I will not make a joke about the mental illness of the former Prime Minister, who (and even I as a liberal admit that) did (a few) great things for Britain.
But the way the Daily Mail writes about MT’s dementia made me nearly cry this morning, as I was drinking a rubbish Americano in Costa.
Amanda Platell of the Mail complaints that Carol should not have written this book. “To me,” she wrote, “and to many who admired or loved her mother, it felt not only like a terrible invasion of an old woman’s privacy but a personal betrayal.”
What? There are people who love and admire her??
The Mail’s position here is clear: don’t mention the illness; pretend everything is fine. Thatcher has never been ill, she will never have dementia, she will never die - and if she does, she will come back, just like Jesus did.
“Particularly distasteful is the revelation in Carol’s book that her mother sometimes forgets that her beloved Denis is gone.” – If it is that “distasteful”, why did the Mail on Sunday print it then, exclusively?!
“My only hope is that Lady Thatcher’s dementia will mean that the full extent of her daughter’s crass misjudgement can soon be forgotten, …”, that’s what Amanda Platell wrote in today’s Mail… I am not quite sure why the Mail did not use the story to explain dementia to its reader. The story would have been especially interesting for the Mail’s readers, considering that most of them probably suffer of this not too entertaining illness already.
Schreiber

Dance, beloved populace!

G2 excelled itself last week, showing it is Britain where T2 is clearly Australia in medals table terms. Charlie Brooker’s column showed clarity and humour beyond the reaches even of these humble bloggers, well Schreiber at least!
Writing on the subject of the Olympic opening ceremony……Perhaps Mr Brooker read previous innit24 posts, urging people not to forget China’s many and deep faults. China is a developing nation, with many millions living in abject poverty in a medieval manner. The citizens have no rights that cannot immediately withdrawn at the whim of an official. The justice system is as transparent as Mr Brown’s calm façade, well that’s clearly nonsense but you see my point. I previously wrote, “Who wants to live in a country where civil servants are the most lethal people!” And I stand by this.
Mr Brooker clearly shows, big parades and shows of national unity are simply that, shows. These events do not occur in free and democratic states, the mark of such states is complete apathy.
Let’s free Tibet and continue to harass China by sending dim-witted officials (Mayors) to bumble as rudely as possible and perhaps take the rest of the Tories with him. Franklin

IS PUTIN THE NEW JFK?

Comparisons are fun. Everyone loves them. David Cameron, for example, compared himself (yesterday) to Margaret Thatcher and Benjamin Disraeli. John Prescott compared Gordon Brown to Al Gore, the other week. This summer has often been compared to shit, as has the European Union (for no real reason!). But there is another comparison, I would like to write about. Carl Bildt, Swedens foreign secretary, compared Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler (quite indirectly, but still...). Mr Bildt has been right about quite a few things during this awful war between Georgia and Russia in the last few weeks. However, this comparison is quite over the top. Hitler was a vegetarian and Putin eats meat. No, honestly, I read a comment by Gabor Steingart, the internationally relatively well known author and correspondent of Germany's "Der Spiegel" news magazine. Mr Steingart argues that Putin should not be compared to Hitler (or Stalin), but instead to John F. Kennedy. - Yeah, i admit that sounds shocking, but there is some logic behind it. Georgia is for Putin what Cuba was for Kennedy. JFK wanted to keep his backyard "American", in the same way as Putin wants to keep his backyard "Russian".
Also, Putin represents the new Russia, as Kennedy represented the new America. Putin is loved by his people, as was JFK.
(This might be bad news for Mr Obama, who tries so hard to be the new JFK... ) I am not too sure if I agree with Mr Steingart, but his remarks definitively made me think very differently about Mr Putin's brutality in the Caucasus. Schreiber

Second Amendment Madness

“This is a friendly warning, next time I’m going to bust a cap in your ass.”

If only the right to bear arms meant you were able to wear short sleeve shirts, the most dangerous outcome would be being mistaken for an angry trade unionist.

A most forward thinking school district, in where else but deepest whitest Texas has decided to let teachers carry concealed weapons, well guns anyway. Concealing a baseball bat might be a little conspicuous .

Superintendent (Skinner, if only) David Thweatt displaying faultless logic has rationalised this by saying, "When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started," It will be a cold day in hell when America realises that peace through superior firepower is not the road-map to harmony (perhaps Tom-Tom can help?).

It has been proven by contradiction that the amount of guns per person has no direct effect on the number of gun deaths. Think Switzerland where everyone has an AK beneath their bed and no gun crime and say Germany where waffenkontrollgesetz is among the most restrictive and gun crime is ‘relatively’ higher. The individual country’s social culture has a much greater affect on how guns are used.

Whatever your individual countries/ personal views on gun control there are surely a few sacrosanct ideas that we can all agree on, chiefly: -
• There are no place for guns in Schools, if you increase the amount of guns in schools more people will die
• Guns have no place in the hands of untrained ‘guardians’, without proper and regular training increasing the number of guns will mean more people will die

In short, if you increase the amount of guns, MORE PEOPLE WILL DIE! Franklin

ROBOTS WITH BRAINS...

The world's first Frankenstein-like creature has finally been created. This week's New Scientist (out today) reports that scientists at the University of Reading have created a so called "animat", a robot with the actual brains of rats. Before I explain how it works, I would like to refer to the actually article, as this will prevent me from making mistakes.
The story is great though. What the scientists have created is a robot that can learn! If the robot 'sees' a wall, the brain will tell the 'body' to stop or even go back, because the brain 'knows' that it cannot go through walls. A video on how this looks like is available here.
I think this is by far one of the most interesting scientific breakthroughs in quite a while. This is the first time that scientist can study in detail how a brain works. The information they might gather can lead to a cure of illnesses such as Alzheimer's.
Schreiber

WHY WAS THERE NO JOINT STATEMENT?

A very important statements came from America today: Peaches Geldorf married her boyfriend, Max Drummy. And, let’s be honest, it was about time for them to get married - they have known each other already for nearly four weeks!
Okay, that was not quite the statement I was actually thinking of. Instead, I was thinking of statements made by US President George W Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Both politicians demanded that Russia ends all military operations in Georgia, as they have promised to the EU Presidency (being represented by Nicolas Sarkozy at the moment). In an impressively direct and Russia-critical press conference that was broadcasted around the globe, Mrs. Rice warned Russia of consequences, but failed to name any.
Looking at Russia’s ongoing military intervention way beyond the actual zone of conflict (many journalists reported that Russia continues to bomb Gori, a city outside of South Ossetia), Mrs Rice said: "I have heard the Russian president say that his military operations are over. I am saying it is time for the Russian president to be true to his word." The Secretary also warned Russia, saying that “things have changed” since the end of the USSR.
Not knowing what the consequences for Russia could be, it is not quite clear yet, if they will lead to an end of the war.
Mr Bush gave an equally important press conference earlier today, saying: "The United States stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia and insists that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected." Whatever one may think about the US-reactions to the crisis, one cannot but notice that these statements should have been made by a EU-European politician.
And yes, you may say, European politicians made similar statements. This is in fact true, but only on national levels. What worries me, however, is that the EU was (once again) unable to come up with a common policy for the crisis. At the beginning of the conflict I was rather confident that the EU would find a common South Ossetia policy, however, I was wrong (at least that's how it looks like at the moment).
It might have been the wrong decision to sent Mr Sarkozy to deal with the crisis and enforce some sort of ceasefire. Maybe it would have been better to send a EU politician and not an (after all) ‘national’ politician. But, to be honest, could Javier Solana (the de facto and to a certain extend also de jure EU Foreign Minister) have made a big difference? Would Russia be truer to its words, if the ceasefire would have been promised to Mr Solana instead of Mr Sarkozy? I am not too sure about it… I only know that it is truly shameful for the EU to not be able to find a common policy on this problem.
However, it is not too late yet. There is still time for statement of all EU members demanding that Russia stops its unlawful military intervention in Georgia immediately. The EU would also have to promise South Ossetia and Abkhazia that their self-determination as a state can be guaranteed by the Union.
Schreiber

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM THE WAR

The war is over for now. This is great news for everyone. Firstly, it is great news for the people of the Caucasus (obviously!), but then, it is also good news for us people in “the west”, as the oil market will stabilise again, after going berserk in the past few days. Russia called a halt to military actions this afternoon, however, making clear that it would re-intervene, as soon as it is judge necessary. Dimitri Medvedev, who was relatively quiet during this war, declared that Georgia was sufficiently punished. This is an utterly dangerous statement, who does Mr Medvedev think he is? Is he a one person war crimes tribunal?! But instead of criticising a man, who is criticised by everyone anyway, let us have a look at what we have learned from this terrible and devastating war. 1. We noticed that despite all predictions of having reached the End of History, as many commentators predicted after the fall of the Berlin Wall, history did not quite yet come to an end. A great mind, Chrystin Freeland of the FT, actually says that instead of having reached the End of History, we have entered the New Age of Authoritarianism. I agree. For the first time since the fall of the USSR, Russia fights a war outside its own territory again. (This is true as long as you see Chechnya as Russian territory). No-one was able to do anything against this pointless bombing. Not even David Cameron’s comparison between Russia and Nazi-Germany helped much (apart from reminding Mail readers that we all have to fear a Russian Blitz). Even politicians who actually have some power (in contrast to Mr Cameron), could not do very much. Dick Cheney’s demand that Russian “aggression […] must not go unanswered,” does not really mean much. Nicolas Sarkozy, at the moment the head of the EU, might have had something to do with Russia finally agreeing to a ceasefire, but his role in all this is not quite clear yet. It is not only Russia though, that represents the New Age of Authoritarianism: we see “oil-powers” across the globe turning autocratic. This is the case in many African and Asian countries, but also in South America. We even enthusiastically watch the Olympics in a country that does not value freedom too much. 2. We learned that Mikhail Saakashvili is one of the least clever politicians around. I mean, let’s be honest, attacking a wannabe independent and Russian-backed South Ossetia and thinking that people won’t notice by the world because of the Olympics?! That’s just chuckleheaded, to say the least. Nevertheless, Mr Saakashvili was clever enough to represent himself well in the Western media. Today, people actually forget that it was he who started the war. Yes, Russia’s reaction was wrong and, no doubt, over the top, but it was Georgia that went to war with a semi-independent country that does not want to be part of an “unstable, immature, chaotic, corrupt, but hopeful” Georgia (to use the Guardian’s words). 3. We discovered that Vladimir Putin is most definitively still the macher in Russia. Dimitri Medvedev was not as prominent as his predecessor Putin during this war. There are a few more things we have learned from this terrible and unnecessary war, like how some UK papers preferred reporting about Maddy McCann, Sienna Miller, Stella McCartney and the like on their front-pages instead of the war. However, Mr Franklin and I are trying to keep the blog entries relatively short… Schreiber

Georgia v Russia on the beaches....

The fighting between Russia and Georgia is ceding as I write; tomorrow it is due to move from the familiar territory of Georgian blocks of flats to the less familiar territory of the beaches. Not in true D-Day style but on the manufactured pitches of the volleyball arena in Beijing. In scenes reminiscent of the 1956 Melbourne games when Russia invaded Hungary hours before their water-polo match, their men's volleyball teams will face each other.

The last match ended with Turkey victorious but with one player seriously injured in the bloodiest Olympic contest ever, (discounting the Ancient Greek games littered with lion mauled slaves, but you see the point), monikered the, 'Blood in the Water match.'

So tune in on the 13th August, my money's on Georgia, I never could resist an underdog. Unless of course the Russian withdrawal is on the condition of Georgia taking a fall, they wouldn't, would they? Imagine cheating at the Olympics, who'd have thought it! Franklin

Spooks:Code 9 BBC Drama or Vanguard for Police State Britain

Anyone tuning in to watch the new series of Spooks by the BBC was in for a shock, gone are the slick characters, racy tensions and faintly believable plots. In their place are a bunch of squabbling children, justifying an almost complete breakdown of civil liberties in a post(terrorist)-apocalyptic Britain.

To denigrate the BBC series Spooks with this bastard offspring is sheer sacrilege and an insult to the many previous fans. So, they are going for a younger audience with a new (perhaps to them) premise, but those of us that grew up in Cold War Britain were all to familiar with harrowing apocalyptic dramas that played on everyone’s fears and it’s not an era we wish to return to.

The BBC or Auntie as us media hacks call it, is a British institution and publicly funded, this comes with its own responsibilities. Its dramas are not purely entertainment they are meant to educate and inspire. The BBC’s latest offerings, see; Bonekickers, Spooks:Code 9 and Lab Rats are nothing more than cheap ratings grabbers. The plan in Spooks to blow up London so everyone has to more up t’ North was genius, think lower costs, think BBC, think rubbish.

If you did manage to suspend disbelief long enough and to actually see through cringe wincingly awful acting to finish the first episode, you were treated to a lead character being shot and a 19 yr old maths geek (think Numb3rs) taking her place as head of the Field Office (incidentally there was not a muddy boot in site despite every character doing field work). Quite how a 19 yr old is meant to have finished University and joined MI5 before most students can solve a quadratic is passed over. Of course Auntie hasn’t forgotten her leanings and there are the prerequisite obnoxious female characters that seem to have surpassed conversation, taking it to a higher form by simply shouting statement at each other and scowling a lot (think CSI mixed with Alan Sugar).

And quite how the BBC are going to get out of seemingly supporting Police State Britain and actually seeming quite fond of it throughout the series remains to be seen. I wonder if perhaps one of Tony Blair’s new positions is actually content editor of BBC One, it certainly seems possible.

What the BBC have managed to do is take a little of every successful TV show mixed it with a bit of Government propaganda, blend it together in the BBC Ideas masher and spew out meaningless pile of Channel 5 (think The Tribe) worthy drool. Franklin

P.S. Those of you watching the Olympics live of BBC’s iPlayer without a TV license expect a visit from the State Troopers, you’re breaking the law. On-demand service are not (yet) covered by the Jonathon Ross salary tax but live broadcasts are, be warned.

A TIN OF HAM FOR LONDON

Architecture gives cities souls. Or at least a reason to be remembered by the visitors. Now London might get a new and truly impressive building - the so-called “Can of Ham”, as it has been dubbed because of its shape.
Today's Evening Standard reports that the 90m tower might be built next to the Gherkin and Tower 42. (The plans still need to be confirmed by the City f London...)
Do we need a “Can of Ham”-building in the City? Yes we do. London lags behind with impressive and innovative modern buildings. London’s City or Canary Wharf cannot quite compete with Paris’s La Défense, with Manhattan and certainly not with Dubai…
London needs some great Zaha Hadid-like buildings! (By the way, there is a great feature on Zaha Hadid in the summer edition of The Economist’s Intelligent Life). The “Can of Ham”, developed by Targetfollow, will give the City a spectacular and stunning new feature.
Yeah, I admit, it might be dangerous to build a massive new building during an economically not too safe time, but let’s not forget, great buildings (such as the Rockefeller Center) were built during economic downturns.
I think the “Can of Ham” is a great addition to London! Next to the world-famous Gherkin, it will make London’s skyscame much more interesting.
Schreiber

The Chinese Communist Party isn't that bad.....

Stepping off the plane onto pristine tarmac and choking smog it must be easy to miss the signs of a country locked in a bitter fight with its ruling party. In this developing nation surrounded by the latest cellphones and consumer culture, you can see why people may ease their views of the CCP. And yes, China is still developing according to Pascal Lamy the EU Trade Commissioner. It is true that China is opening up its markets, most importantly it’s domestic ones and that it is trying to develop a transparent legal system. I’m sure for the majority of Chinese citizens life is generally agreeable. For those that live in the larger cities, have good jobs and the latest iPhone, life is comparable to a similarly placed Comrade in any developed nation, or even the US. So China is fine, that is unless you choose to believe in the next science Falun Gong, or believe that those pesky monks in Tibet should be able to have their country back (or at least be able to protest against its occupation) or if you don’t think their pseudo-communist ideals are quite the way for a super-power. This is still a country where the civil servant is perhaps the most dangerous person, one infraction of party policy can mean you simply disappear and thousands do. And then you get to news censorship, ever third person in London today has a blog, a concept any Chinese person would undoubtedly find very odd and it’s easy to see why. If you discount every blog that attacks the Government there would only be those inhabited by people who read a newspaper back to front (and I don’t mean Arabs). The BOCOG (Beijing Organising Committee for the Games) displayed its lack of any dignity today releasing a press report so warped by censorship and propaganda it was painful to read. It refers to the tragic incident involving the family of the US Men’s volleyball coach who were attacked and killed. It quickly points out it was a Chinese man who then committed suicide afterwards, crime is so much simpler in authoritarian states, it’s always portrayed as and I quote, as ‘rare and tragic’ and always handled in such a way that closure is immediately had. Further statements such as the ‘police were notified and arrived immediately’ had the sickly stench of propaganda as though this was something that deserves praise! Closing with a statement confirming the safety of the city it certainly seems likely the smog will get you long before a killer will. So would you really want to live in a country where there’s no point in buying a newspaper because it includes less truth than the Mail or where the very people charged with protecting you are actually the most dangerous. So to all the athletes saying it’s really not that bad while drinking protein shakes in their Olympic compound, just think of the peasants thrown off the land to starve or the people that died to give China its Olympic dream. Franklin