Merry Christmas

I'd like to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Hopefully 2008 will bring us many more joyous times :)

Blogging will resume in the beginning of January.

Happy Holidays.

Raffe

Coming Soon: A Palestinian State?

Well it seems we are finally on our way to statehood for the Palestinians who left and were removed by Israeli forces in the wars of 1948 and 1967.
For those that don't know after Israel's declaration of Independence the surrounding Arab armies declared war on the new country. Fighting back, Israel managed to overcome the odds and proclaim victory, however there was a dark side to the celebrations. Confident of wiping out the new state the Arab governments convinced the Arabs that lived in Israel that they should evacuate and return to their homes once the fighting was over. Those that didn't choose to leave were incorporated into the new State of Israel as citizens.
In 1967, with another major war on the horizon, Israel launched preemptive strikes against it's enemy neighbors and claimed victory within 6 days. However, when they beat the odds they also became responsible for the welfare of over a million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, territory captured by Israel.
Over the last 40 years this has caused significant headaches for the Israeli government as the Palestinians living an squalor blame Israel for their mess. They have, on hundreds of occasions, launched terror strikes against the Israeli populace leaving thousands upon thousands of civilians dead in their wake.
Their latest weapon of terror is constant barrage of missile attacks (there have been over 3000, with 700 in the last 12 months alone) that are leaving more and more people dead.
The recent peace conference in Annapolis has led to a very recent conference of world economic leaders who are raising money for Palestinian statehood. The world has so far pledged 7.4 billion dollars (with Australia pledging 45 million) to see the creation of infrastructure and to raise the standard of living for Palestinians.
I'm personally quite skeptical about this, the last Palestinian leader to be in control of the economy ended up on the Forbes Rich List.
However this could be a step forward for peace. Once the Palestinians living in Gaza see how good the West Bank-ians have it then they'll throw off the shackles of the oppressive HAMAS government.
Lets hope that in the next several years we will see a strong, stable Palestinian economy and an even stronger Palestinian state.

The Death Penalty

I'm often asked why I can be anti-capital punishment yet support Israel's right to extra-judicial assassination such as in the wake of the Munich Massacre or against Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
I'm very much against the death penalty. No state should sanction the killing of someone that is already within their custody and secure from any further harm against the public. Should the prisoner escape and once again threaten the public then any protection they had from state sanction death is void.
A government has a right to protect itself but it doesn't have a right to be vengeful, it has a right to punish but it doesn't have a right to kill (shamelessly stolen from West Wing).
Extra-judicial assassination on the other hand is a very different matter. It is (in many cases) not based on vengeance but rather on pre-emption. If someone is coming at you with a spear then you stab him before he can stab you.
Case in point; Yahya Ayyash (aka The Engineer) who was a HAMAS bomb maker and caused the deaths of over 90 Israeli's and wounded hundreds of others. After a massive man-hunt lasting months it was decided that the best way to proceed was to eliminate him. A source was given a mobile phone that contained a small explosive, as soon as Ayyash put it up to his ear it was detonated killing only him.
In this case it was a more feasible option to eliminate the target rather than risk the lives of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians to bring him in front of a jury.
Whilst I don't believe that all governments should pursue this course of action to apprehend criminals, the assassination of generals and terrorist who have openly declared war on your people (this declaration of war was repeated just hours ago at the HAMAS 20th Anniversary) then they are legitimate targets for assassination. Had the Israeli's arrested Ayyash then he would have ended up in front of a civil court and been given numerous life sentences. There has only been one occasion when Israel has used the death penalty in a civil courtroom and that was in the 1960's with Adolf Einchmann, architect of the Holocaust, a unique case if I ever saw one. Governments should make every attempt to bring terrorists to justice under a civil judiciary however if doing so openly risks the lives of the soldiers and the civilians that they hide behind then targeted assassination is the only option.
That, my friends, is why I differentiate between capital punishment (of which I am against) and targeted assassination of terrorists (of which I am for)

Socialism...a nice idea

There have been a lot of reports in the international press about Hugo Chavez and his hijacking of the Venezuelan political system by attempting to abolish term limits. The move was put to a referendum and voted down by the people. Chavez's increasing erratic behavior in the international community, for instance his speech to the UN in 2006, has led me to believe that whilst socialism is a fine theory it is a terrible political practice.
Socialism is an ideology based on the overthrowing of Capitalism and retaining the economic production and exchange for the community as a whole. There is nothing wrong with this political stance. Any political movement that seeks to maintain equal rights for all people and to ensure that the indigent within society are well looked after is a movement that I support wholeheartedly.
Indeed the Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoe has helped implement a number of successful programs including the 'Free Bicycles' which aims to provide Parisians with easy, cost-effective and healthy alternatives to move around Paris.
Whilst Socialism appears to work on a local level such as with Paris it does not work as well on a National level. My primary criticism with Hugo Chavez are his anti-Western attitudes. These attitudes are not diplomatic qualities. Regardless of Mr. Chavez's personal criticisms of the Bush administration (i personally have many) he must realise that the world depends on America. As the lone superpower America provides aid for the world as well as military might. Whilst i agree that the Bush administration has overstepped its bounds in Iraq I am also a realist when it comes to international foreign policy. The newly-elected Rudd government in Australia made it clear to the people that they value the US-Australia alliance on par with the commitment to the United Nations.
Socialism is a perfectly viable ideology and it has worked will on a local level however it has failed on a national level. Chavez has been increasingly demonized by the international press and lately by his own people because of his fierce anti-American rhetoric.
The socialist ideology works when there is little international involvement such as with local communities or towns however once you begin to deal with the international community then the people will demand someone that can represent them diplomatically without leaving them open to hatred by people around the world.

An Open Letter to George Bush

Mr President,

I've just finished reading the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran and Nuclear Weaponry and i'd just like to ask that this not deter you from the goal of regime change.
I for one am relieved to know that Iran halted the enrichment of uranium from 2003-2007 but on the other hand i also understand the threat that Iran poses to US troops in Iraq and other states around the world.
The threat of terrorism by Iran, through their proxy Hezbollah, is one of the greatest dangers that the world faces.
Hezbollah has been responsible for countless murders throughout the world. They kill without caring who they maim or harm and like many organizations based on terror it seems that one dead body isn't good enough.
Whilst you and I don't see eye to eye on many issues I support your stance on fundamentalist terrorism.
A bombing campaign against Iran appears, for now, to be off the table and I couldn't be happier. However you must support groups in Iran that wish to overthrow the current regime of Ayatollahs and bring democracy back into the country.
Cut off the bank account of Hezbollah and free the people of Iran and that shall be your legacy sir.

Regards,

Raffe Gold

Once more....Aussie Politics

To those who don't care about Australian politics i urge you to skip this post because that's what it's about :)

Brendan Nelson has just been announced as the leader of the Liberal party (now in opposition after losing to Kevin Rudd's Labor government on Saturday) in favour of Malcolm Turnbull.
Brendan Nelson is the member for my electorate of Bradfield and i've met him on several occassions and each time i've been less than impressed.
I voted for him in the 2007 Federal election because the labor candidate, Victoria Brookman, was a 22 year old who was much, much further to the left than i am comfortable seeing in Parliament.
Whilst Nelson has won each of the Federal Elections since 1996 and has held several positions within the Howard government I believe that he was the wrong choice as leader of the party right after the disasterous election defeat of John Howard.
Nelson is an arch-conservative who held education back 30 years in his criticisms of the new NSW HSC English syllabus which has now been adopted to several countries.
I only hope that this is a meticulously planned tactic to win in 3 years. After 18 months when everyone is disheartened by Nelson then they'll bring in Malcolm Turnbull and he'll reinvigorate the party to victory.

Sounds familiar...

A new government

Australia has a new government.
Whilst i expected this it's still quite a surreal feeling that after 11 years of conservative rule we've thrown out the old guard and brought in 'new leadership'. Kevin Rudd, our new PM, has been leader of his party for the last 50 weeks and based his campaign on a re-energized party who was ready to take the reins from a stale, old PM who was past his use by date.
It was an amazing campaign to watch unfold and the government did their best to try and strike them down. For weeks it showed Labor ahead of the government but in the final weeks it seemed that the government was closing in. If you had asked me what the results would be on Friday night i would have avoided the question. As a member of the Labor party i'm happy to see a new government and as a lover of democracy i'm also happy to see that Labor has not full control of both the Lower House and the Senate, which is an oversight body for the States. We can't have a democracy when a single party has control of the states, lower and upper houses.
It seems that Peter Costello, former Treasurer and deputy leader of the Liberal party, will not be seeking the party leadership. He wants to continue his time as a normal MP.
Looks like it's between Malcolm Turnbull, Brendan Nelson and Alexander Downer.

Election

John Howard has just conceded defeat to Kevin Rudd,
The Centre-Left Opposition has now taken control of the House of Representatives.
This is going to be a very interesting three years.

Apologies

Many apologies for the lack of posts over the last week or so but i'm in the middle of my exam period at uni so i'm trying to cram six months worth of education into six days. Not an easy task i'm afraid. Blogging will continue on the 26th of November after the election :)

University...stuck in the past

I'm in the middle of my exam period.
For anyone that has been hit with a succession of exams knows that you lose any social life and/or self control.
You're stressed about everything and you tend to take it out on the nearest person (i'm sure it has led to many break-ups).
It all comes down to a 2 hour exam which generally means at least 50% of your grade is based on 2 weeks of stress and trying to cram as much of your course into your brain and eloquently reiterate on paper.
It is, without a doubt, the worst aspect of university life there is.
It's also extraordinarily archaic.
The point of exams is to ascertain to the professor exactly how much you've absorbed during the six month course.
I'm taking a class (War and Peace in World History) which has given me 3 essays.
The first was a 1500 word essay on indigenous conflict.
The second was a 2500 word essay on suffrage and world war 1
and the third is my exam.
I received it yesterday and i have until the 23rd till i have to hand it in.
It's a 3000 word essay on a topic based around everything we have learnt during the course.
We're advised to write it under exam conditions (on a computer) but this can't be enforced.
We can write it over a period of days or in a 3 hour stretch.
This is the smart way to handle university courses.
However there is still a chance that all of this could be written by a family member in lieu of the student.
This is why we have tutorials.
Tutorials are ways for a professor to ascertain that his students are working correctly, doing the readings and writing proficient essays. Over the course of the semester it's easy for any professor to recognize whether or not one of his students is allowing someone else to write the essays.
If only all classes were like this.
No Stress
No Cramming
No Lashing out at the people near you
An easier, smarter university experience.

Now if you'll excuse me, i have exams to study for.

The political theorists would be proud....or ashamed

It seems over the last several years we've been entering a society that was envisioned by by both major social contract theorists, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.
Hobbes fled persecution from the English Civil War and was in exile in France where he began to work on his most famous work, The Leviathan. In it he talks about mankind, the state of nature and society. He says that in the state of nature (the time before the state) there were no rules and people could essentially do what they like. He advocated for a strong leader, known as the sovereign, who would have ultimate power over citizens provided he protected them. He had the ability to kill, to take away property and the like.

John Locke on the other hand also fled persecution in England. He did so because of his role in attempting to overthrow a tyrannical dictator. Locke agreed with Hobbes that the state of nature was an awful place however he placed a much greater emphasis on civil liberties. He called his ruler, the magistrate, believing that whoever ruled society did so at the request of the people and should the majority of citizens be unhappy with the magistrate they are allowed to violently rise up against him and depose him from office.

I mention these two theorists because i've seen something over the last few years that only the extreme left are commenting on.
The US PATRIOT act, the strengthening of ASIO laws, warrant-less wiretapping and the CIA's extra-ordinary rendition (i.e. torture) are degrading our civil liberties.
Whilst terrorism is a vile and disgusting ideology that only seeks to murder innocent human beings under the cause of either national liberation (PLO/HAMAS/Islamic Jihad), religious convictions (Al Qaedia) or political ideology (Action Directe, Baader Meinhof) it has almost a 100% failure rate.
The State of Israel still exists, the Americans are still attempting to quell the violence in Iraq and communism failed despite the terrorist attacks that have occurred.
Yet to torture and to restrict civil liberties is not the answer to fighting terror.
Mass bombing campaigns create animosity and anger. Torture breeds humiliation against occupation and the restriction of civil liberties create paranoia amongst the civilian population.
We may fight with a hand tied behind our back but at least our hands will be clean when we clasp them in victory.

A blow to the Founding Fathers

I'm a firm believer in Democracy.
Despite Winston Churchill's criticism that democracy is the worst system of government (except for all the others) it is the only system of government that allows a relatively free and transparent election (with the exception of the Bush administration in 2000). But it seems, once again, that Democracy has been shunted.
Stephen Colbert has lost his bid for President of the United States. This is despite the fact that he was actually polling higher than several Democratic candidates
It's a wonder that he was dismissed. The South Carolina Democrats claim that it was simply a ruse to further Colbert's comedic career. That may be so but he would have brought attention to issues concerning the democrats.
Comedians often have a way of bringing serious issues to the forefront of the media by mocking them in such a way.
Prominent Examples include:



and



The first video mocks George Bush's style of speech and his ability to form a coherent sentence. As the President is the diplomat for the United States he must have some basic skills in elocution; something George Bush sadly lacks. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney and other candidates are all able to hold their ground in debates.

The second video mocks the history of American foreign policy. This issue, especially since the Iraq fiasco, has become prominent in the election. However, not enough time is spent on the policy of 'buying yourself out of trouble', something that the American's are doing more and more with their reliance on foreign aid.

So why can't Stephen Colbert run for President. His candidacy may be a joke but he'll speak more sense than alot of the other front runners.

A thousand apologies

Well. You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few days and for that I am sorry.
I regret to inform you that my PC, after years of faithful service was tragically lost to me on October 25th 2007 at 6:04pm
It died of what i can only assume was some sort of computer aneurism and could not be revived despite mouth to air-vent resuscitation. Luckily i back up everything weekly so i was able to keep all my most essential files.
On the upside of this tragedy i finally went out and bought the laptop that i've been eying for quite some time. I am now the very happy owner of a beautiful white macbook. It's quite possibly the most exquisite machine that i have ever used and am now hooked into my universities free wireless access.

More posts later my good friends.

Apparently Celebs are just like us.

Sitting in the train this evening, minding my own business and reading my book, my eyes were drawn to the person sitting next to me. Not so much to her but to the magazine that she was reading.
It was a celebrity gossip magazine (i never saw the cover and there are so many out these days it would be futile to try to narrow it down) and there was a large heading that stated "celebrities are just like you" and it then showed half a dozen celebrities who were doing normal things such as multi-tasking, getting a cup of tea, getting a manicure and having breakfast with their children.
Honestly, before i read that magazine i thought that celebrities were gods sitting upon Olympus, strumming their harps and deciding mankind's fate against mythical creatures.
Since when have celebrities been put on a pedestal and if so....why?
I admire the work of George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and countless other celebrities who are using their star power to try to make a difference in the world. Whilst some may simply send money to charity organizations these people are putting their careers on hold to try to raise money for those in need.
However, what i don't appreciate is the celebrities that everyone is fascinated in. Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton (who seems to be replaced by Kim Kardashian, another young woman who is famous for doing absolutely nothing) are people that have been introduced to fame at such a young age that it has literally destroyed their lives before they turn 25.
Lohan is now apparently broke after spending millions of dollars on shopping and parties and has just gotten out of her second stint in rehab, Spears has lost custody of her kids after refusing to take a drug test, Hilton spent time in jail and despite claims of repent has done nothing to help the poor and Kardashian....honestly i don't even know how she benefits society other then the fact that she released a sex tape and is posing for playboy.
So once again the gossip magazines plague us with the life of people that we shouldn't care about or idolise.

As normal. The Daily Show sums up my entire point of view.

Election time is here

To all my Australian readers, i imagine you'd be aware of this already (if not then you've been living under a number of rocks with no access to any kind of media whatsoever) but we're heading to a Federal Election.
Prime Minister Howard called the election for the 24th November and it seems that both the Labor and Liberal candidates are gearing up for a dirt-slinging match. It's always entertaining and fun to watch both sides try to wear down their opposition but admittedly it does get a little repetitive.
Negative advertising has been around for years and now thanks to the genius of youtube and the rest of the internet it's now cheaper than ever to trash your opponent.
I join the chorus of many, many others who wish for a clean campaign filled with debate about policy.
I'm not, however, holding my breath.

Still nothing official....but

Pretty much the first thing i do when i wake up in the morning is check all the various major national and international newspapers. Alot happens in the 8 or so hours that you sleep and because the internet is a 24 hour party much of the websites are updated and what you read last night isn't necessarily going to be front page news anymore.
Opening up the New York Times, this was the most updated story:

Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports.

You may remember that in early September I noted the attack by Israel on Syria was extraordinarily suspicious due to the silence from all sides of the equation. The Israeli's had a media blackout, the Syrians were making a very quiet protest, the Americans were keeping mum and there was absolutely no condemnation from any Arab state even Iran. Obviously not everyone is happy about a nuclear Syria (ditto with a nuclear Iran).
It seems that Israel is recovering it's deterrent powers since the war against Hezbollah last year. I imagine that this sort of story is one that i'll be reporting on for years to come.


What a great time to start a blog :-)

Society is stuck in neutral

Last night I watched Australian Idol.
I didn't mean to, i would have avoided it if it all possible but it was all because of Channel 10.
I had tuned in to watch Law and Order: SVU because i love a good mystery and rather than that i was treated to 11 minutes of a sub-average singer trying his hardest at a consolation song as he'd just been knocked out of the competition.
My first reaction was anger, i had put academic work off for only an hour and ten minutes of that hour was Idol because the programmer had decided that it was better to run over time than to miss out on squeezing another few dollars out of advertisers by increasing the amount of commercials in the program.
My second reaction was disbelief, as the camera panned around the audience I saw that some people were crying at the fact that this young man had just been kicked off. These were people that i'm sure had never met the boy but for some reason felt drawn to the fact that he, and his awful singing voice, had just lost. But he lost in front of millions of Australians and i'm sure a number of record company executives.
It was then i realized that society had not gotten any better in the last five years, since the introduction of Big Brother, American/Australian Idol, The Apprentice and scores of other reality programs that we've seen society has not suffered nor has it benefited.
It seems that society has reached a plateau.
We can do much better but we could also do much, much worse. Take a look at a Communist, Socialist or a Military Dictatorship and you'll thank almighty God that you were born in an advanced Western civilization but on the other hand we haven't really improved our society enough to be proud of.
It seems that everyone is vying for their 15 minutes of fame regardless of the cost to their reputation, well being or mental stability.
YouTube has been inundated with thousands, upon thousands of videos of young men doing stunts which could lead them to serious physical injury, Lonelygirl15 became an internet phenomenon and a young man named Matt created a video of him dancing around the world.
Reality television has stalled society, no longer are actors and actresses attending drama school to learn the skills of the trade or script writers creating masterpieces like Schindler's List. Rather they've unleashed a torrent of imbeciles living inside a house and interacting with one another.
Please can we get back to our roots and not be obsessed with getting our faces on television.

and the bloggers shall inherit the Earth!

I'm sure that if you pay attention to any kind of print or television media you've seen the violence and bloodshed in Burma/Myanmar.
Pro-Democratic monks are marching against a military Junta (Spanish for committee) and in doing so are being gunned down by soldiers. This happened before, 19 years ago on August 8th 1988 (known as the 8888 revolution) resulting in the deaths of thousands of people, but almost no one had heard of the country let alone the march.
Things changed this year. Monks marched again and were gunned down again but there was something different. People heard. People saw. People reacted.
It turns out that some of the marchers had cameras and internet connections and that can be more deadly than any gun.
Images and videos of the protests and the accompanying violence spread around the world and the internet population recoiled in horror.
To date, a single internet social site, Facebook has over 400 different groups with one of them reaching as high as 135,000 (it should be noted that only several hours ago when i first checked it was numbered at 133,000)
This explosion of care could only have come from the increasingly small world and the impact of technology and globalization.
Just several days ago George Bush in his address to the United Nations cited the violence in issues that needed to be solved. The government of Myanmar went so far as to shut off internet access in the whole country for over a day.
We've seen the power of the internet, lets see what happens when it's combined with the power of the human heart.


UPDATE: It appears that the Burmese/Myanmar military Junta has shut off the internet once again. It's now been disconnected for at least 3 days.

UPDATE #2: As of now (2:20pm 3rd October) the facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24957770200&ref=nf) numbers more than 290,000

Hmmmm

Well, once again, a crazy person has addressed the United Nations. Last year it was Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, today it was Mahmoud Ahmidinejad. He made claimed that the Iranian nuclear program was peaceful whilst at the same time stating that 'calamities will befall the world...of those that did not submit to the will of God' and that American and Europe will soon be free from Zionist oppression. Wow...this sounds like the kind of tough talk from someone that wants a nuclear weapon.
This small, petty dictator has led his country down a dangerous path. There's every chance that America or Israel will launch an attack against Iranian facilities because saber rattling with Israel is just not an action that is supported by your life insurance contract.
Countries of the world must be united in stopping an nuclear Iran. Help stop the bloodshed by stopping Iran.

Something's goin down in Syria.

Almost 2 weeks ago an Israeli plane flew into Syria and dropped munitions. Due to my obsession compulsion with the knowing everything first and the fact that i have Drudge Report on my favorites I was the first of my friends and family to know about this and despite the fact that I consider myself very knowledgeable about Middle East issues I had no idea what was going on.
There was a complete media blackout in Israel, which would be strange in any country, but Israel is a haven of free press and there's 10 different opinions for every 2 citizens. It wasn't for a few days then things became clear. This wasn't a mistake or some screw-up by a cocky pilot rather it seems that (as of 24 Sept. 2007) Israel was making sure that Syria didn't get the bomb.
Only a few days ago i commented on the danger of Iran becoming a nuclear state, Syria would be just as dangerous.
The raid itself appears to be one of daring and audacity. From what i've pieced together from various news reports it seems that Israeli commandos, dressed as Syrian soldiers, infiltrated the target building and escaped undetected with fissionable material and then targeted the building for an air-strike. WOW!
If that was indeed true then it's a pretty amazing operation. The Syrian's appear to have been in bed with the North Koreans as several Syrian officials visited North Korea after the attack.
What's amazing isn't the reaction from the Western World. Rather the reaction, or lack thereof, from the Arab world. If Syria was indeed building a nuclear weapon it seems that no one, not even their Arab neighbors, wanted them to have it. There's been the typical condemnations from North Korea, Russia and Iran but that's it.

I'll hopefully have more over the coming days when things become clearer.
It seems that this is one of those operations for the record books

The Dangers of Academic Boycotts

With all the hubbub regarding the British boycott of Israeli academics by the University and College Union you've got to take a step back and just look at all the facts.
The UCU in May 2007 voted to 'consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions'.
So basically any Israeli academic should be refused invitations on the grounds that they are members of the state of Israel. Essentially this is a collective punishment against the Israeli Professors due to the government of Israel; so even those that did not vote for Kadima (the current Israeli government) are being caught in this net of anti-Israel sentiment.
What's most surprising is that the academics of Israel are generally those that are most opposed to military action against the Palestinian population. Traditionally academics are generally anti-war and this sentiment has expanded throughout the last 40 years to include anti-globalization, anti-imperialism and in some cases anti-Western attitudes. The academic boycotts only harm the peace process. There are plenty of ways to initiate violence but only few ways to create peace and one of those ways is through the citizens debating the actions of the government. Academics are considered some of the most well educated individuals in the country and they are being banned from speaking their mind to foreign audiences. If this continues then their voices of debate and reason will be drowned out in all the accusations by the citizens and government of anti-Westernism.

“If we are to look at Israeli society, it is within the academic community that we've had the most progressive pro-peace views and views that have come out in favor of seeing us as equals....If you want to punish any sector, this is the last one to approach.”

— Al-Quds University President Sari Nusseibeh on academic boycotts of Israel

The rise of academic, economic and social boycotts against Israel is frightening. Whilst Israel can overcome economic boycotts easily (it's GDP has grown over the last several years and has rebounded nicely since the end of the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war) academic boycotts are much more dangerous.
If academics willingly single out Israel for condemnation yet turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses in other countries, such as Darfur, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the government control of television stations and soon to be dictatorship of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, then what's to stop them from teaching their biased view to their students. Academic bias against the West is also on the rise with major American universities conducting internal investigations against their own professors or in some cases promoting their staff's bias.
How are students supposed to learn both sides of the story when their tutors, the people that students are meant to trust the most, are filling their head with propaganda (on both sides of the political spectrum) and limiting their chances for debate.

The very real danger of a nuclear Iran.

There are few more frightening prospects than a nuclear war. Nuclear weapons have only been used twice in history and both were used to end wars that had already ravaged much of the world and left a generation of young men on the fields of battle to die in a heroic way, far away from home.
Iran wants to use nuclear weaponry to start a war, not to end it. They've made claims that there technology is for peaceful purposes but these claims have been debunked by anyone with a knowledge of nuclear technology.
The program was launched in the 1950's, ironically, with the help of the United States but since the election and rise of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad it has perverted the course that the United States originally wanted it to take.
A nuclear Iran doesn't only threaten Israel but also the Europeans and the rest of the Arab world that finds itself at odds with Iran such as Turkey. Very recently the French government told the world to 'prepare for war' in regards to Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The fears that people have of a nuclear Iran are very real. It's well known that Iran funds various terrorist groups throughout the world, Hezbollah for instance received weapons and support during their 2006 war with Israel, and Iran also supports the terrorists in Iraq.
What would happen when Iran creates this nuclear weapon, who will they target first? US troops in Iraq? Turkey? Israel perhaps?
This will in turn lead retaliatory attacks on Iranian facilities and towns, the death toll will be enormous and will easily reach into the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
There are two options at our disposal.

-Diplomacy.
This could possibly work, by forcing Iran into a corner and shutting down their nuclear activities then the problem will be solved. This would only work if the United Nations can impose harsh enough measures to make sure that the Iranians understand that the only way out of the hole they've dug is to give up their ambition of a nuclear bomb.

-Surgical Air Strikes and Commando Raids.
The Iranians have made sure that their reactors aren't going down without a fight. They're extraordinarily well protected and underground. To fully destroy them Special Forces would have to enter the facilities and fight their way to the core before detonating explosives and escaping before the airforce bombs the remaining facilities. This will lead to deaths on both sides and will officially lead to international condemnation (but behind closed doors there will be thousands of sighs of relief)

-Do Nothing.
Best Case Scenario for this would be only a few thousand people dead from nuclear fall-out. More likely the bomb will be aimed at Israel which could leave up to between three to five million people dead not to mention the destruction of the Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and Church of the Nativity. This in turn could lead to religious turmoil throughout the rest of the world with retaliatory attacks against Iranian and Muslim communities.

Diplomacy is the idea solution to this problem but the radical and unstable regime of Ahmedinejad makes it less and less likely. As Iran enters the point of no return i'm quite sure that many jets will be fueled and many guns will be loaded. Another preemptive strike perhaps, ending lives to save many, many more.

Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Friends,
Please don't forget that tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_like_a_pirate_day

Once again, many apologies for little contact over the last week and a half because i've been wrapped up with uni work....and uni vacation.
Tomorrow i'll be posting about the Iran nuclear threat and in coming days i'll be looking into current events in Syria and the rest of the Arab world.

Keep reading

Raffe

Apologies

Many apologies for not updating for the last few days as uni work has kept me chained to my books. I should be back to posting as normal within the next few days.

Recent Press Conference

The US President addresses the threat that Democracy faces.

i'm amazed

George Bush just waved to me!!!
He walked out in the open street, surrounded by the Secret Service, along with our Prime Minister. Now because I was not searched i could have easily carried a grenade in and just killed 2 leaders. That was an abysmal security operation and i'm amazed he was allowed to walk out when he wasn't under any kind of bullet proof canopy.
Is this amateur hour?

1st impressions

Well it's 8:43am Sydney time and i've just arrived in the office. I'm sure the government means well but security here is so poor it's not funny. Walking down Phillip St, where I work and apparently one of the 'secure zones', I was not stopped by any police officers, nor was i searched or scanned with any kind of metal detector. There was a large show of force by the police and a 5m tall fence wrapped around the street with cars blocked off but a determined assassin could best any of those. Entering a building under the guise of a delivery person, killing the occupants inside and open firing on the president as soon as he got out of the car is a very real possibility.
I work right across the street from the Prime Minister's office and i've heard that Bush is making a visit today so it will be interesting to see what happens.

More later friends :)

here we go!

George Bush has just touched down in Sydney. His entourage includes around 300 or so Secret Service officers. Personally i'd say there were more than that because Condi Rice is joining him. Can't wait to see what happens :)

StopBush campaign

Tomorrow I will be making my way to work and shall be passing through all major rings of APEC security. I work in Phillip St, which technically has been cordoned off by the police and army but hopefully i'm going to make it through. There are several reasons that security is paramount, first of all to safeguard the leaders from a terrorist attack which is all the more real since there are several rocket launchers missing from the army. Secondly from radical socialists intent on disrupting the meetings. Good luck. This is a more extensive and expensive operations than the Sydney Olympics. The most prominent protesters tomorrow are going to be the "stopbush coalition" who's aim is to bring awareness to the criminal that is George Bush. First of all, I doubt George Bush is going to even hear the shouts of the protesters and second of all there's a good chance that it could get violent as other protests have in the past. In that case innocent people will be hurt and the protesters, who ironically protest because of innocent people being hurt, will have much to answer to.
Stay tuned for my reports throughout tomorrow of what APEC security is like :)

This is why I can't footnote Wikipedia...

Over the last few weeks there's been numerous reports about a virus inside Wikipedia. While this doesn't harm your computer it does do alot more harm than people expect. It traces from what computer the posts were edited.
This was a crushing defeat for members of the wikipedia community simply because they had lost their anonymity and it was once again another nail in the coffin of Wikipedia's academic credibility. Last year reports began surfacing that Wikipedia was more accurate than Britannica; schoolchildren everywhere rejoiced because it gave them excuses to use the online encyclopedia for essays and projects. However those theories were quickly debunked by the various news organizations saying that Britannica had an aspect of credibility that Wikipedia could never gain. The credibility was lost again due to this virus because it showed that a variety of different organizations from Liberal Party in Australia to the CIA in America were 'cleaning up' their own Wikipedia entries....not exactly a forum of honesty.
Wikipedia is an amazing source of information. It's literally the world at your fingertips, but unfortunately it could be the internet's equivalent of Pandora's Box.

Trust, faith and the traffic light button

This morning after emerging from the train station onto the very busy street I did as every person does when they want to cross the road, I pressed the pedestrian/walk button. However, whilst standing there waiting for the little green man to appear I noticed that around half a dozen other people who were waiting to walk safely across also pressed the button.
Some of these people did it only seconds after another person had leaving the poor metallic button with more individual hand prints than Paris Hilton's breasts.
Many of these people saw that the button had been pressed by other pedestrians but chose to press it anyone. Perhaps it was in the hope that doing so would shorten the delay to the walk signal (a myth that should be tested and debunked).
What interested me wasn't so much the fact that everyone was pushing the button but that they kept doing so even once they knew it had already been pressed. It seemed that the button wouldn't work for them unless they themselves had pushed it.
Whilst this would seem a strange thing to talk about it ties in with a thought i've been having for quite some time. We, as a people, have become much more suspicious of everyone else.
It seems to have only happened in the last 10/15 years and i believe that one of the primary reasons behind this is the introduction and adoption of 24 hour network news. There's only so much news a channel can report before they simply start to repeat themselves and so they've got to fill up any gaps with as much 'must watch television' as possible.
It's often been noticed by sociologists and anthropologists alike that fear is one of our primary responses and so cable news plays with the human brain to keep us addicted to their programs.
A browse of cable news programs show such ominous titles as "To Catch a Predator" (NBC) and these highlight and create fear and panic, forcing us to watch.

Cable News is the new cocaine :)

Sleaze, Violence and Ratings

Last night I caught the premiere of Californication. It was an hour of almost non-stop sex and more nudity on television than I had seen in a long time. I was shocked but I wasn't appalled. It was also what I had come to expect of television programs these days.
The show starts off with the protagonist, a burnt-out author, visiting a church only to receive oral-sex from a nun....one of the most unusual introductions to a character I had seen in a long time but it also managed to set the tone for the rest of the episode. The producer was telling me that this was a gloves-off program that pushed the boundaries and gained viewers through word of mouth shock value.
Granted this show had more naked women (I lost count after the second) than i had seen on most other TV shows (imagine the day when the girls from Hi-5 strip off) and this obviously led to many angry letters from various coalitions in American and Australia complaining about moral decency but these letter writers are quite hypocritical in their views.
In Season 2 of Desperate Housewives a pharmacist who had poisoned the husband of a married woman in order to begin a relationship with her and in order to prove that she loved him he swallowed a bottle of pills and waited for her to rescue her. She did not because she had just found out that he (the pharmacist) had killed her husband….confused yet?
The show allowed the audience to watch a man die whilst a woman next to her did absolutely nothing.
Take the Passion of the Christ. Mel Gibson's film about the last several hours of the life of Jesus Christ. From his betrayal by Judas to his eventual crucifixion and resurrection three days later. Oh and in the middle there's 2 hours of a man being tortured relentlessly....had to remember to add that in cause it's kind of a big thing in the film.
Rather than be criticized for his excessive use of violence Gibson was praised for bringing to true detail the horror that Jesus suffered for all our sins.
What would happen to Gibson's reputation if a couple of kids, after seeing the Passion of the Christ, decided to re-enact the torture scenes to gain a greater understanding of God. Children would be hurt, possibly killed, and Gibson would walk free.
Watching other shows like CSI, NCIS or Heroes shows a death in many episodes and usually in a very bloody and graphic way. The antagonist in Heroes regularly decapitates people in order to steal their powers and the autopsy scenes in NCIS have become so realistic I feel like I’m watching a medical documentary. Have we, as a society, become so desensitized with violence that dying in a bed due to an overdose of pills just doesn’t excite us anymore? Where has this lust for gratuitous violence and sex come from? Is it from the news reports that show us the daily conflicts in areas such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the countless war zones from around the globe? Days after the 1999 Columbine massacre the community sought to find the blame for the horrendous murders of innocent school children and the people that bore the brunt of their investigation were the gaming industry, the rock music industry and the television industry. Congress screamed for blood to be spilled (pardon the pun) but was it really the producers fault? Where does the show draw a line? Compare the scenes in television shows today with those of ten years ago. At 8:30pm ten years ago you’d be watching a new episode of The Simpsons, today you’re watching a young many being decapitated. The producers are answering only to the audiences demands and we demand to be shocked and shaken to our core and then we have the audacity to point the finger at these shows when a young mind snaps and lets lose a torrent of rage on the community.
In turn to the producer's shift in programming the coalition of the moral have let loose their cries of war. The "Parents Television Council" have begun to release their list of what is safe for children to watch and what isn't (don't worry....High School Musical 2 is on the list). I'm fine with parents banding together to decide what's decent and indecent on our television sets. However on their website (www.parentstv.org)they urge people to protest to the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to "put an end to broadcast indecency". What right do a group of parents have to infringe on my television watching. The producer's of television shows mold their programs to what the public wants to see.If you don't want your children to watch the programs....put them to bed.
As our favorite ultra-Christian Ned Flander's said (when asked why his kids why he was complaining to the FCC) "Imploring people I never met to pressure a government with better things to do to punish a man who meant no harm for something nobody even saw, that's what I'm doing!"

Celeb Treatment

To be honest I consider myself above the fray of tabloid journalism (I'm also doing my best not to sound arrogant) but this is something that I found quite shocking:

Sydney Morning Herald

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office is disinclined to charge Lindsay Lohan with three drug-related felonies, a decision that could spare the troubled actress from a prison sentence, celebrity news outlet TMZ.com reported today.

Considering that Lindsay Lohan has been AWOL in another rehab center since that night one must wonder if she had anything to do with the dropping of criminal charges against her....mysterious.
You can only imagine what would happen if anyone else who had been caught for a fraction of these crimes would be facing, possibly a year in prison. We recently saw Parish (pun intended) Hilton go away for 45 days for various driving violations. I don't want to seem as if i'm on Paris's side (if i were there would be a need for Satan to wear a scarf) but Paris did her time, a short amount of time but time nonetheless, and Lindsay is getting off scott free.
Perhaps Paris's celeb treatment wasn't working for her that day? It's unfair that Paris had to server her time while Lindsay is getting drunk in a rehab center. The judge of Paris's case should reverse his decision, have Paris's criminal record expunged and recommend that she be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.


It's the least she deserves


UPDATE: Lindsay will be spending one day in jail and 10 days of community service. Justice has prevailed!!!

The man likes strip clubs....so what

For those that haven't heard:

News.com.au
It was revealed yesterday that Mr Rudd visited Scores gentlemen's club in Manhattan in 2003 with fellow Labor MP Warren Snowdon and New York Post editor Col Allan during a taxpayer-funded trip when he was opposition foreign affairs spokesman.

So What!
The man likes to visit a strip club, hell I like strip clubs.
It seems that Rudd is getting support from both sides of the aisle with Defence Minister Nelson saying that he himself has visited a strip club. I'm quite sure that almost every single male has at one time or another visited a strip club or viewed pornography in some way.
It seems that alot of commentators say that this makes Rudd appear "flawed" as if viewing naked women makes is a mark of humanity; if so i'm quite human.

Will good intention doom us all?

For the last few months I’ve been using Blackle which is an energy-saving alternative to Google. The entire screen is black and according to the website it produces less energy because it uses black pixels as opposed to white pixels. I was quite proud of myself, not only was I searching the web I was also saving the Earth at the same time. However my ego was shattered when a report released earlier this week saying that the black pixels not only didn’t conserve energy but in some cases it essentially produced more energy to display the black pixels. I suddenly got an image of my head of a world drowning in water and polar bears scavenging for food in the desert all because Blackle had lied to me. Did my keenness to help Mother Earth harm her in the end?
There are numerous accounts throughout history of adopting a cause or discovering a cure only to have it lead to disaster due to insufficient testing and study. During the first Gulf War coalition army soldiers were provided with anti-anthrax tablets in the case of a chemical attack by Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces. Although these were given, and produced, with nothing but the soldier’s lives taken into consideration and the best of intentions it was discovered that these pills had disastrous side effects which are being felt in America, Britain and Australia. This same result can be seen with the vigor that society is taking up in combating climate change.
There are a multitude of methods to combat climate change with the most prominent being switching to public transport, hydrogen or electric based cars or simply keeping the car at home. These, according to the website nature.org, will multiply and lead to everyone adopting to take public transport. It’s not a bad idea, it will reduce the amount of cars on the road and will eventually lead car manufacturers to create energy efficient vehicles. There’s one small problem, our public transport system is at breaking point. Cityrail has numerous delays with its current load and it freely admits in recent advertisements that it has one of the most complex rail networks in the world. A mass migration from private to public transportation would cripple the service beyond belief.
The recent Live Earth concerts were a critical and a commercial success in raising awareness for the state of climate change in the world. They were also a success in proving that practicing what you preach isn’t exactly a motto for the concert goers. Photographs of the Live Earth concerts show an inexcusable amount of garbage on the ground. From plastic water bottles to sections of banners that had been ripped down the sites in Sydney, LA and other venues looked as if a tornado had hit a garbage dump.
Climate Change is a very real issue and as a society we do need to monitor and decrease the amount of carbons we put into the air but the Western World has taken up the cause of climate change with such vigor that it’s closing off any kind of debate on the subject and labeling anyone who disagrees with the science as neoconservative’s who are in the pocket of big oil. In our extremism to save the Earth are we doing more harm than good or will this dynamism of good intention be a form of drug fever for Gaia?

Time off for terrorists

Why is it that people who traffic drugs are given eighteen years in prison or even death but those that plan terror attacks are given reduced sentences.

Yahoo News

Ten Islamic militants jailed for suicide bombings on Bali that killed more than 220 people — many of them foreign tourists — had several months shaved off their sentences Friday to mark Indonesia's Independence Day.

I could understand if these men were serving exorbitant sentences such as 150/200 years but it seems that some of them are serving as little as 8 years and the most heinous is serving only 18. Drug traffickers got more time then they did. This is a disgusting piece of information. I for one am boycotting Indonesia.

News

Apologies for the lack of posts but I do have some exciting news.
I've just purchased a domain name and a server and am currently in the process of teaching myself website design.
Hopefully i'll be up and running within the next couple of days.

Regards,

Raffe

Child Abuse

Reading some of my previous posts you could understand that i'm not the biggest George Bush fan in the world. However reading this article made me so angry.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22245585-2,00.html

It's not the fact that a play has been made satirizing the Bush administration (there have been hundreds) but rather that a teacher has manipulated the minds of his students to prove a political point.

The student performance piece Bad Knight II, conceived by Davidson High School teacher Kim Peade and featuring students as young as 12.


Students are being manipulated by this teacher simply to make a political statement. According to the Rock Eisteddfod website, the students should be learning skills such as Health, Life Skills and Creative Thinking however all they're being taught is what the teacher wants them to think. I'm very much against teacher's bias affecting their students. School's should be about encouraging debate between classes in order for students to make up their own mind but it seems that at Davidson the faculty tell the kids what to think. Someone, please call Child Welfare.

Does God exist?

Whilst I could replicate some of my previous posts and turn this into a discussion regarding mankind, the nature of religion and the unexplained miracles that are attributed to God i'd rather just come out and say it....yes he does and he's very slow in acting on mankind's prayers.
Late last night Sydney time Karl Rove, Deputy Chief of Staff to President Bush, stepped down claiming the fact that he wanted to spend more time with his family. This of course had nothing to do with his role in the Iraq war, Valerie Plame CIA affair or the fact that he looks suspiciously like a complete douche.


Rove's resignation comes as a shock to many, though quite unsurprising as it is always seen that people flee a sinking ship as soon as possible.
Though like many that hold office Rove has been offered a prestigious job once his resignation becomes effective. Whilst ex-administration officials sit on boards such as Halliburton; Rove has signed up with Sony BMG as it's next artist and they are hoping that he'll be the biggest thing to hit rap since Notorious B.I.G. Here's his first video clip


Let's hope, for all our sakes that Rove, like B.I.G, will soon find himself gunned down in the streets of Las Vegas

Shooting in East-Jerusalem....on youtube.

Following an earlier post regarding the emergence of the internet and its effect on society here's another example of how times they are a'changin. It seems that police shootouts are put on the internet 3 days after they happen. This was done to quell any rumors of impropriety by the Israeli police.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22235073-401,00.html

Israeli police have released video footage showing a fierce firefight between a Palestinian man and an Israeli security guard in the Old City of occupied east Jerusalem which left the Palestinian dead.




Once the article explains the shooting it then mentions at the very end :

Ateret Cohanim, founded in 1978, is one of several ultra-nationalist organisations that have bought land and homes from Palestinians through various means in order to place Jews in the Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, including the Old City.

What did that have to do with anything at all? It seems that it was placed at the end of the article by a journalist for no reason. The article didn't talk about occupation or Palestinian rights, just that a Palestinian had grabbed a gun, shot a soldier and ten bystanders and then been shot by police....fairly simple story. If they had mentioned Ateret Cohanim why didn't they talk about HAMAS, Islamic Jihad or any of the other ultra-nationalist Palestinian terror groups. I've never heard of Ateret Cohanim before but according to news.com.au they buy houses and put other people in them.
It seems that the papers seem to be having a go at Israel again.

open source communism

As the first bricks hit the ground on November 9^th 1989 the structure known as The Berlin Wall ceased to exist and thousands of people trapped in the grip of communism were finally freed to embrace the joys of Western Society. But the philosophy did not die, it lay dormant for almost a decade until it found the perfect host….the Internet.
The rise of open-source software such as Google aps, Linux or the ever-popular Wikipedia has brought Karl Marx’s dream to life in a way that he could never have imagined.
The classless society thrives in chatrooms and forums where users have complete anonymity and, with the exception of supremacist websites, there is no segregation based on skin colour, gender or annual wage.
There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ordinary people who create and develop applications and post them free on the internet simply for the benefit of other people. This practice has never been seen en mass in the history of the world.

Marxism is a failed philosophy. The 80 year experiment from 1918 to 1991 destroyed modern Russia, depleted it of her natural resources and annihilated the economy but it has found its perfect petri dish.
Marx’s motto “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” paraphrases the rapidly growing ‘open source movement’. As the internet has no natural resources it will not be constricted by the economic problems that devastated Russia. It's quite certain that the internet will be everlasting and so it seems that Marx's dream for communism will be realised 124 years after his death.

Anti-Semitism...alive and well.

Ah yes, Big Brother. The Norwegian social experiment/reality show that's managed to lure half the Western World into watching it and annoy the other half that it's on. The American Big Brother featured a Las Vegas waitress complaining about Jews being selfish, money-grubbing and that they can be identified by their last names and long noses. Whilst this is no surprise, anti-semitism has been on the rise it's ironic that this waitress is against Jews, seeing as it was Jewish gangsters who made it possible for her to have a job (thank you Bugsy Siegel).
The girl's claims of Anti-semitism are a regrettable truth that only 60 years since the end of the Holocaust there have been reports of 'new waves' of hatred against Jews, most notably in Britain and East-European countries. The tireless efforts of worldwide diaspora communities appear to be failing when it comes to promoting education about Jews and Israeli foreign policy.
Whilst the rise of anti-Semitism should surprise no one it is CBS's extraordinary lack of judgment that allowed this to air in the first place. Despite disclaimers throughout the credits there are laws and censors that mediate these programs. It seems that there were failures on the part of the censors, the government and the station. However the biggest failure was the ignorance and stupidity of a Las Vegas waitress.

Something in the water?

Florida Rep Bob Allen was arrested a few days ago for offering his sexual services for $20. Not only was he massively overcharging (take a look at him)




but he had also attempted to bring a bill into the House of Representatives which would ban 'lewd and lascivious behavior'. September 2006 Mark Foley, also from Florida, resigned from his position in Congress because he had sent sexual explicit emails to his congressional page (a young boy of 16) ironically Foley was in charge of putting away pedophiles and molesters. Guess he became everything he used to hate.
Is it something about power that makes these people easily corruptible or is it just something in the water in Florida?

Why Iraq will be seen as a failure in the War on Terror.

Make no mistake about it. We are at war with terror and our enemy is fanatical in their belief, battle-hardened and will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. George Bush is without a doubt the worst president in history (I include William Henry Harrison who died within 30 days of taking office, at least he taught people not to give long speeches in the rain) and the effect of his presidency will have unknown consequences for years to come.
However, Saddam Hussein was a danger and he was pursuing Weapons of Mass Destruction along with funding terrorism in the Occupied Territories which created instability in the region but an invasion was not the correct course of action. We've currently been in Iraq for 4 years and upon careful consideration I understand why the Bush administration was pushing for regime change in the country. Saddam had constantly flouted international sanctions and whilst he did not have WMD's at the current time there was evidence presented to Congress during David Kay's briefing in 2004 that Iraqi scientists had deliberately misled UN weapon inspectors due to fear from the Hussein regime. With intelligence pointing towards a covert build up on WMD’s and a mad-man who had no respect for the rule of law (including terrorizing his own citizens and torturing political prisoners) the US saw little option but regime change and I support that.
However, the War on Terror cannot be fought by an army. To instil regime change (as is quietly being done in Iran) you must first support a pro-democratic group through funding and intelligence. After supplying the pro-democratic group with enough intelligence and weaponry allow them to quickly and quietly remove any remnants of the tyrannical regime that stood before it. When the citizen’s wake the next day there will be a pro-democratic government and trade can resume with sanctions being lifted. Political prisoners would be released, a constitution would be drafted which focused on ensuring civil liberties and human rights were paramount and restricting governments to 4 years or less in order to ensure that governments could be overthrown via legal and legitimate elections.
These measures would ensure that there were limited civilian casualties during the period of transition and eventually the new government would gain international recognition and another democracy would be born.
This method is of course a best case scenario and it could lead to many different paths, some good and some bad but it is the way that the War on Terror will be won. Notice that in this scenario there is no mention of a foreign military presence and no need for hundreds of thousands of troops. The War on Terror will be fought quietly and it will take longer than any war fought in the last century. When we eventually prevail there will be no victory parade with confetti covering the troops or monument of soldiers raising an American flag because this war will be fought in the shadows and the warriors will be the smartest and the toughest that the West has ever produced. This war will be fought by the spies and the battlefield won’t be troops moving from house to house but a lone man with a silenced pistol in an alleyway. To quote the 1998 movie The Siege "The army is a broadsword and what you need is a scalpel". America may prevail in Iraq, crush the insurgents and install a peaceful, democratic government but Iraq is and will always be considered a failure in the War on Terror. It has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi's (this number is very difficult to determine due to the ease that insurgent forces have of passing themselves off as civilians) and over a thousand US and British lives that could have been averted.
Terrorism cannot be fought by an army; despite painful efforts to keep civilian deaths to a minimum, innocent people will die during aerial bombings which in turn will increase animosity to the Western World and create a never-ending cycle of violence. Carefully planned targeted assassinations dramatically reduce the amount of civilian casualties and hopefully in the years to come the scalpel that are the intelligence services of the Western World will finally eradicate those that threaten our freedoms and democracy.

University: The best option for students?

Doing some course readings in the library today i commented to a friend of mine that my course that dealt with warfare throughout world history was very exciting and he should consider taking it up next semester. His reply was something that i've heard all too often in my short university life "I can't because it won't help my course". Warfare was a subject that he found fascinating yet because it had nothing to do with his Law degree it would simply be a waste of time and delay his degree by six months. Is university about creating passions for students or just simply allowing them to take the safe course in life?
Our universities are churning out more degrees now than ever before and the job markets in law, journalism and commerce are so full that simply having a degree is not good enough anymore. Degrees have to be more open so that students can enjoy the full range of studies on offer and possibly they will find a passion that they never knew was inside of them in the first place. Reading the text of Apple CEO Steve Job's address at Stanford university he talks of taking a class in calligraphy that had nothing to do with his degree but it awoke his passions and twenty years later that same calligraphy ended up on his mac computers.
Lets expand degrees so students aren't forced to constrain their passions to a particular subject.

62 years

There's something strange about anniversaries. We use them to commemorate joyous times such as weddings or birthdays to remind us that life is good and that we are happy. But today is the 62nd anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. This anniversary is used for quiet reflection to remember those that were lost when the American's unleashed the fury of nuclear weaponry. 140,000 people were wiped out in an instant with thousands more suffering from hideous side-effects that were passed from mother to child. Hiroshima was the beginning of the end of World War II. With the victory in Europe over the Nazi forces the US was forced to quell the violence in the Pacific. The dangerous prospect of 'island-hopping' would leave hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers dead and the Japanese army and civilians were fanatical in their defence of their homeland. Did Truman have little chance but to use the nuclear weapons provided? Some believe that in doing so he saved more Allied and Japanese lives due to the quick surrender by the Emperor. Could have exploding the bomb into the sea have yielded the same result?
Even with hindsight these questions are asked but still, regardless of your answer we remember those that were lost.

Science and Religion

The other day Pope Benedict XVI, with very little fanfare, announced that science and religion could coexist peacefully. In a coup for atheists everywhere he claimed that there was enough science to conclude that there was a natural process of evolution from the Gibbon to Man. But will this acceptance of science increase recruiting numbers for the atheist belief structure?
Boarding a flight from Melbourne to Sydney recently my driver quipped that today was the most dangerous day to travel. Whilst there were no terror warnings or specific threats of weather it took me a few minutes for his comment to make sense. It was Friday the 13^th. Not a religious or superstitious man I took his comment as jest and took my flight. However I found that during the pre-flight safety demonstration I listened intently and that during every bump of turbulence my heart beat a little faster than it should have.
Why did I believe that the plane that had flown for hundreds of trips and the pilot that had flown for thousands of hours would simply have an accident on this of all days? It’s the same reason that humanity still believes in religion and superstition.
The medieval drawings of churches and townships in the 12^th and 13^th centuries show the image of God and the saints protecting the town from attack and making the villages safe-havens for true believers with heaven being simply a few short kilometers above our heads. With the invention of man-made airplanes in the early 20^th Century humankind made its first trip above the clouds and found nothing. In the 1950’s when Yuri Gagarin breached our atmosphere to become the first person in space it seemed that God had relocated yet we still attended our buildings of worship en mass.
A recent study found that over two-thirds of American scientists believe in God, the most popular book post-September 11 was the bible and several religions gained members in the 2006 Australian census. So why after discovering how the universe was created and debunking the religious theories of creationism does human kind still attend church, read the bible or even belong these organizations. Comfort.
L Ron Hubbard, a science-fiction writer, took one of his books and spun it into his own religion and if alive today he would see that his “religion” was often on the front-pages of the gossip magazines and had caused controversy in Germany. The Scientology belief system revolves around freedom from fear and doubts and purging yourself of negative energy. The doctrine of scientology include mentions of galactic overlords yet still people join this organization in hopes of being free from the drudgery and pain of everyday life. How is Scientology’s doctrine different from the New Testament where God’s only son comes down to earth to purge man-kind of its fears and doubts (under the auspice of sin). The gospels report miracles being performed which all rational people would dismiss as parlor tricks yet mainstream religion has grown in Australia despite the technological advances disproving the existence of a deity.
We seek solace to keep us safe even when there is no hope. As a people we’ve begun to collectively defy science in order to comfort ourselves from the reality of pain, misery and the many other problems of living in the real world.
One of the most popular places to discover a higher form of life is in prison. In the squalors of human misery where those shunned by society are removed from the mainstream of the population one of two things happen, they either get worse or they get God. Chaplains from all major religions routinely visit various prisons in search of disenfranchised souls to redeem into the welcoming bosom of the lord. Prison, humanities cesspool, is perfect for religious enlightenment due to the nature of our penal system. Inmates are locked away with societies worst offenders ranging from murderers to rapists to thieves and a popular theme of religion is that of forgiveness, atonement may fail on the mortal coil but God loves all his children. But in this digital age with instant communication and the world at your fingertips the most popular book of all time remains The Bible. The recounting of the creation of the world, the freedom of the Jews and the martyrdom of God’s only son has sold an immeasurable number of copies (with some theorists predicting more than 6 billion) and is believed to be one of the first books ever printed by Gutenberg in the 1400’s. The bible will continue to be printed until the world runs out of paper but by then it’s words would have been digitized (as they have already) and will continue to enlighten until the ends of the Earth
There is no true answer as to why we have, in this age of technology, reverted to the belief of God or superstition because every person has their own different experience. Some, like those in prison, do it for redemption whilst others seek enlightenment and answers to life’s frightening questions that we fester in the back of our minds, why are we here? What happens after death?. The impossible questions that science cannot yet answer and religion has been retorting for over two thousand years.
Humanity breached the clouds and saw the supposed face of God only to discover that nothing was looking back at us but still we believe in the loving embrace of our deity. Why has this happened? Only God knows.

awareness

My next musing will come soon. As of now i'm making sure that this blog is discoverable on all the search engines :)


Technorati Profile



The wonders of the internet age.

R

Brave New Internet

My friend recently announced his engagement. Proclaiming his intention to marry his girlfriend he invited everyone he knew to the party where the wine would be flowing and the conversation would be lively. However unlike the conventional engagement announcements on intricately designed paper and a party overlooking the beauty of Sydney the announcement was made via ‘Facebook’, a popular social networking site, and the party was held in ‘Second Life’, an intricately detailed virtual world where people can throw off the shackles of physics and fly around.
A recent survey from by YouGov in the UK has found out that half of all broadband users log into social networking sites and that more than 10 hours a week are spent online socializing. This works out to around 24 days a year compared with 22 days actually spent meeting friends or relatives.
Have we become so embedded in the internet that we are forsaking some of most cherished moments?
Too often the youth of today are told that they are spending far too much time in front of a screen and not enough time socializing. To our critics I say simply that we are socializing but considering the impact that the internet has had on society in the past two decades we are doing nothing wrong, its socialization that has evolved to the point where that’s all it is….a screen.
With the introduction of sites such as myspace, facebook and livejournal I’m able to interact with my friends, do my university assessments and write opinion pieces all without leaving my chair.
The internet was literally dumped in humanities laps and it took years for the shock to wear off. But whilst the older generation is still recovering from a form of cyber post-traumatic stress disorder the youth are embracing the evolving society. A globe, that has suddenly become completely inter-connected, has expanded and shrunk society at the same time. We’re able to instantaneously send files from one person to another across the world and its completely logical to assume that email will replace snail mail by the end of the century. This from the world that five hundred years ago still had large aspects undiscovered. At every stage of evolution since the axolotl rose from the primordial soup we have discarded anything that did not allow us take advantage of our surroundings. Now that man has finished evolving physically our evolution is taking place socially and with each generational leap we will leave something behind that is unnecessary.
What will the future hold for the generation that masters the internet? The dawn of the new information age is upon us. The internet is more important than any other device in the last hundred years and society is not controlling the evolution of the internet but rather the internet is controlling the way society is evolving.
Our many detractors spend their time warning parents that children are growing up without the skills needed to survive, that their progression to adulthood is being tampered by the many advancements in technology. They point out that those that were growing up were being denied “essential” skills such as map navigation because of the availability of GPS and general research because of the instantaneous answers of the internet. Whilst these people are entitled to his opinion, the future will prove him wrong. Facebook is the modernized equivalent of a phone book. Your contact details are all there and it’s easy enough to send a message to your “buddies” but for some reason contacting and socializing through a screen is considered “anti-social”. Technology has always replaced skills that eventually become redundant. Less than a five hundred years ago we relied upon celestial navigation to direct our ships, sun dials to tell the time and windows to throw waste out of. These have been replaced by GPS, clocks and indoor plumbing. Those growing up in the internet generation aren’t learning skills such as map reading or general research due to introduction of blanket wireless and the increasing reliability of computers and mobile internet, within the next century maps will not be printed on paper. Just as I was never taught how to use an abacus nor will my children be taught how to program a VCR as very soon videotapes will join the ever growing pile of discarded technology, replaced by personal digital recorders.
This generation is evolving without those “essential” skills because the internet is demanding it.
Huxley’s Brave New World could easily be used to describe the affect that the internet has had on society. Those that are controlling our future through innovation and the internet are the Alpha’s, whilst those that refuse to see the endless possibilities that the internet holds in this new, evolved society are merely the Epsilons. As the internet and technology expands even further we’ll see a host of new technologies open up to make our lives not only easier but better. We are confronted with a new period of evolution; there is no ice age and the fruits are high enough to reach but this age of evolution will have as much if not more impact on humanity. Society will learn to embrace whatever we face and if it is anything like the impact that the internet has had then we will learn to mould our lives around it and dispose of all that is deemed unnecessary.

Welcome

This is a web page dedicated to my opinion. Feel free to disagree with me as I love to debate.

Regards,

Raffe