A Nazi in the EU parliament

It is a bit scary that a politician like UK’s Nick Griffin gets as much power as he does when entering the EU parliament.

Griffin is the leader of Britain’s National Party (BNP), which is a far-right political party. He recently announced that he thinks boats carrying illegal immigrants should be sunk. In an interview with BBC he said:

“The only measure which is going to stop illegal immigration and stop large numbers of sub-Saharan Africans dying on the way to get over here is to get very tough with those coming over. Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats. Anyone coming up with measures like that we’ll support.”

When the BBC reporter confronted him with “EU is not in the business of killing people”, he replied:

“I didn’t say anyone should be murdered. I say boats should be sunk. They can throw them a raft so they can go back to Libya. Europe has sooner or later got to close its borders or it is simply going to be swamped.”

This scares me. A man with so much power comes up with such things as this and claiming that it is allright that people he doesn’t like, could die. When you sink a boat, it is more than possible that people will die. This man will now get an enormous political stage to spread fascistic, anti-liberal and immigration hostile messages. Statements like these ones is making me think of the Nazis and their illusion of a society where some people were less worth than others because they were different. I also see elements of doctor Mengele here. One of his “research projects” was to find how to best “elimnate” as many Jews as possible in the shortest amount of time. Statements like the one about the boat looks very much like this to me.

I am very positive to the idea of freedom of speech. Through that he is allowed to express what he does, but this shows an attitude which claims that some people are worth less than others. That is discriminating. Such things will always be an issue when it comes to freedom of speech. I somewhat agree with editors who say: “let them speak and let the people make up their own opinion”. That was what was done in Norway when David Irving, who denies that holocaust ever happened, was in Norway a while ago. Many of his publications are poorly researched and full of mistakes. But he looked like a fool in front of most Norwegians.

But Griffin is in another position. He has so much power to persuade the people, and other representatives in the EU parliament that this is the right thing to do. The history shows that politicians like that might do well in trying times like now. Look at Hitler, Franco and Lenin. The came to power in difficult times. I hope that the EU parliament and the people of UK stops taking this man seriously. He wants to kill people, which is a crime. We can’t let him do that.

Ryanair have lost it

Well, if you didn’t already know, the Irish-based low price flight companyRyanair is extremely creative when it comes to cutting costs to sell cheaper tickets. Everything from plenty of extra taxes on tickets to have to pay to use the lavatories. Here’s a list:

They want people to stand on the planes. No, just not being allowed to stand up during the flight, but standing throughout the entire trip, like you were riding the local bus. Very safe I would say. What if the plane catches turbulence, which happens every now and then? People falling, hurting themselves or others. Oh yes, I would love to stand the whole way throughout a three hour flight.

Another interesting way is to make passengers pay to use the planes’ lavatories. What if you really have to go and don’t have any coins? Should you wet your pants? Very nice for your fellow travellers. Or even better, not long ago Ryanair announced the idea of taking the lavatories out of the planes, in order to save a little on fuel costs. I would really be happy to have kids vomiting in the cabin and parents not being able to change diapers, which again would make the rest of the passengers vomit becasue of the smell….. I would choose the alternative and pay a little more to avoid that. I can’t think of anyone who would willingly choose that.

They also charge you to pay by credit card on their websites. This is the type of reservation which gives the company the lowest administration costs and of course you have to pay extra for that. Maybe I should pay extra to use credit card in the supermarket to make it easier for the check-out staff. You also have to pay to check in on Ryanair’s flights. It costs them more to have staff there than to install machines who can do the same job, and only have a little staff to take the luggage. This is what many other flight companies have done now, it works perfectly well and saves them a lot of money. But I guess Ryanair haven’t thought of that yet.

Ryanair also proposed to induce an extra tax for fat people to fly. That was one of the things they didn’t do, because it would discriminate a group of people. I agree with that decision, but so far, this is one of the fairly understandable taxes. The fatter people are, the more fuel they will need. Plus they probably take up more space than a normal weight person.

Another suggestion was that you can bring as much luggage you want on a Ryanair flight. As long as you are able to carry it out to the plane yourself. I guess the airports would love several hundred passengers carrying their luggage on the areas around the planes. Yep, we all love accidents and lost children on the runway.

Screw Ryanair. I will gladly pay a little more to get the pleasure it is to be able to use a lavatory in a three hour flight and have someone putting my luggage into the plane for me.

Nipple surgery – why on earth?

Is silicone implants out? It might look like it. In UK a new trend is coming.

Lift, lower, shrink, change colour. Nipple surgery is the new trend. Why change them? As long as they work as they’re supposed to, I don’t see any good reason for doing anything with them.

According to UK’s Daily Mail the nipples are on women’s surgical agenda now.  London’s “Harley Medical Group” reports a 30 percent increase in nipple surgery in the last 12 months. The website www.bosomfriends.co.uk. which sells nipple prosthesises, can also report increased interest this past year.

So what’s behind this sudden interest in nipples?  The website speculates that footballer wife Victoria Beckham’s spicy outfits lately might have triggered the interest. Many times she has been seen in transparent tops which leaves little or nothing to the imagination. The former Spice Grils-star has fixed her breasts three times, latest a reductiton. Now British tabloids speculate if Beckham’s nipples are fake too.

What’s this thing all about? It is ok to technically show your breasts, but not your nipples. Just ask Janet Jackson. It’s notthat big a scandal if your breats are nearly falling out of your top, but god forbid if someone sees your nipples. The other day I passed some Americans outside a store window in Oslo, Norway. They were terrified that the mannequin’s nipples could be seen through the clothes. I don’t understand. Every single person in this world has nipples. They are the reason why we were fed properly as babies.

The most common thing in nipple surgery is to fix introverted nipples because it can give women trouble breast feeding. That’s ok. It is actually a medical condition that could be harmful to the baby and the mother.

I don’t say that we should display our nipples everywhere, but see them through a top? Come on! It’s a big deal if a paparazzi catch a celebrity in the street with a tight top, no bra under and you can see the nipples. That’s why we got a market for nipple “stickers” so no one could see that you actually have nipples. I would be more surprised if I saw a person without nipples.

When will the Jews understand?

I keep wondering: when will the Jews understand that criticism of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitism?

When I criticise Israel for their actions in, for instance, the Palestinan territories, it has nothing to do with Jews, but what the Israeli government is ordering their soldiers to do. I don’t mind if they are Jewish, Muslim or Christians, what they did was wrong. The majority of the rule in Israel is though Jewish, but that has nothing to do with it.

Allthough there are about 1.5 million, or about 20 percent, Muslims in Israel, they only had 5-6 percent of the representatives in the Israeli parliament, Knesset. You may say that this is because very few were elected, and that may be right. But notice the “had” when it concerns representatives. The few who were there were forced out of there by the majority, which represents the Jews.

But that still has nothing to do with them being Jews. Too many, in my opinion, with this religion take every criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. It is not.

The Christians, the Muslims, the Hindus and plenty of other religious groups have been criticised for doing wrong things. But it is very rare to see a country, let’s use Italy as an example, where most people are Catholics, claim hate against their religion just because their country is being criticised for doing something wrong.

I have nothing against the Jews, but I strongly dislike  being called a racist or anti-Semite when I criticise Israel or any other countries for doing something. I recent many of the things USA did under George Bush’s rule, but that doesn’t mean I dislike his religious belief and his like-minded when it comes to religion.

If you want to be in the game…

…you have to pay the price

I’ll never understand celebrities. They struggle and do everything to become famous, and when they get there, they’re only complaining about the lack of privacy.

Celebrities pop up from everywhere, it is enough to claim to have had sex with a famous person. Or take a look at Paris Hilton. She is only famous for being Paris Hilton. Some would maybe disagree these days, but she doesn’t possess any special skills, except being annoyingly rich and stupid.

Many young people wish to be famous and if they’re lucky, glitter and glory may come to them. Numerous potential super star careers have ended because they couldn’t cope with celebrity. Some vanish completely, others do a lot of strange things and their fame is built on that. Macaulay Culkin’s story is well known, the stars of the TV-series Beverly Hills and actor Alicia Silverstone has just disappeared.

X-Factor, Idol and similar programmes where young people get thrown into the circus are classical examples of artists that become victims of the media. They turn into stars overnight, love it for a week, but get disappointed about what celebrity life really is like. After a few weeks it is not so much fun to be recognised everywhere, give interviews and write autographs. Most of them have a glorified vision of what being in the public brings them.

Okay, the media is also to blame. Building up, ripping down and constantly hunting for new celebrities to play with. Use them and throw them away, so harsh and so brutal.

The situation between media and celebrities is of course two-sided. The stars depend on media to achieve their status, but are very quick to complain when they think it gets too much.

A person who chooses to live in the limelight need to think about the enormous amount of exposure they might get before they jump onto this carousel.

Celebrity life can be five star hotels, exclusive dinners, € 500 shoes, big houses, fancy parties and glory. But also photographers in your bushes and where ever you go, registering your every move and what you wear. For every new romance, the media is there. Whenever your heart is broken, media splash it out as entertainment. Jennifer Aniston didn’t get much time to grieve after her terrible divorce from Brad Pitt last year.

Everybody has the right to privacy and media overstep that border too often. Nobody would honestly live with paparazzis outside their house, following you at the supermarket and the gym. The privilege of being a normal person is non- existing for our beloved stars. Keira Knightley was “caught” coming out of the gym with a tiny bit of her panties showing. Jennifer Lopez was photographed picking her nose. No wonder paparazzi cameras are smashed. Cameron Diaz and Sean Penn are among those who have lost it on photographers.

The older stars or those who become famous when they’re more mature usually handle their status better than the younger ones. Paul Newman and Morgan Freeman don’t put on big sunglasses and a hat when they go out. They know that someone sees them, but don’t seem to care specially about it.

Jack Nicholson recently said in an interview: “I have no reason to complain. I’ve worked hard to become famous, and I’ve reached my goal. Then it is only natural that people recognise me”. This is an advice from a veteran that young stars maybe should listen to.

Nicholson himself didn’t seem that stoic when he hit a photographer’s car with his golf club some years ago.

Celebrities and everything they do sell papers, and the stars know it.

Sometimes you get the impression that both stars and ordinary people do a lot of crazy things, just to get more publicity. Like when the “innocent” Britney Spears kissed Madonna on MTV Music Awards a few years ago.

Reality stars are a new breed of celebrity, but they have no reason to complain. One should think that you have some need for exposure when you join a reality show. Participants talk about their inner secrets and have sex in front of the cameras. Afterwards they whine about everything said and written about them. They all forget one important detail: everything you say and do can and will be used against you.

Still want to be a celebrity?

If you for one minute think you can’t stand the pressure, please stay away from the public. I can’t take another whining star.

There’s no excuse for violence

We live in a violent world. We just have to admit it. The world’s most powerful man is trying to force countries to democracy by the use of guns. Footballers are punching one another and are being accused of rape.

Politicians condemn violence all the time, but they never seem to be able to do anything about it. It doesn’t help when a former race car driver, now politician, punches down a young politician because he calls him a coward. And because they couldn’t any spare money they are closing down every good place the youngsters can spend their. They end up hanging around on the corners. But that isn’t necessarily what makes them violent either. It’s the combinations of these factors. They see that their heroes are using violence. And when Joe is spending his evening on a corner and someone comes over and calls him a damn coward he might choose to punch him down. Because it is the solution he knows.

We humans are made the way that we always choose the best solution we know. But there’s a reason why. Because Joe saw someone else do that, he might do it himself. People live in herds and they follow whoever stands out the most.

The rapper 50Cent is boosting about the nine bullets in his body. Some boys might think his though or cool. I don’t think he felt the same just after he was shot. But the shooters did a poor job. So many bullets and the guy is still alive.

Fortunately there’s a long way from punches to guns. But knifes are more and more common. Screwdrivers also do the same job. The police are confiscating more and more knifes, but people are being stabbed quite frequently. But there’s not only the police who needs to stop the violence. There are still a lot of healthy things youngsters do in their spare time, so that’s not the only problem.

It’s typical for people not to care. We turn around and say: “This is none of my business”. By just caring you can do a lot. It doesn’t mean you have to try and break up fights. It can actually be dangerous, you never know if someone might use a weapon. Just be there, most people think twice then.

“I was just so angry”, is usually the explanation for using violence. A man charged for a number stabbing explained in court that his victims just fell over his knife. That is one explanation. But when it comes to violence no explanation is good enough. You could always have done something else. There’s no excuse for violence.

Clean up your own dirt first

There’s a lot of talk about human rights these days. George Bush was criticising China for not following them. Not that it’s not that they don’t, that’s clear for everyone to see. But Bush should clean up his own dirt first. Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib should say it all.

Prisoners being locked up for a long time without really knowing why they’re accused. Terrorism seems to be general reason. According to the human rights it’s not legal to hold anyone for a long time without prisoner’s being charged for anything. The trials they are finally getting is a joke. They really don’t stand a chance any way in a military court.

It seems to be a thing these days, to criticise others for not following the human rights. In general that’s a good. But everyone, not only USA, should make sure their path is fairly clean before they start the crusade on others.

No fun olympics

That’s what this year’s summer olympics has been called plenty of times all over the world. I’m not surprised. The Chinese government tries really hard to give everybody that comes to Beijing the best impression they possibly can. They’re maybe trying too hard. The whole thing might end up very tense, which is not good.

People in China are told what they can’t talk to tourists about and trained how to cheer appropriately. No sex. No religion. No work. Not where people come from or how old they. Not money. Basically: nothing but the weather. By this they risk that people don’t talk at all.

China is now desperately trying to become one of the world’s grat power, something they have a potential to be. There are more than 1 billion Chinese in this world, of course they should have even more influence on the world. But now China is tring to be more and more like the Western world. I don’t think that’s the wway to go. Diversity is what makes the world interesting. And for China them being different is perhaps their largest. I don’t understand why they don’t use it.

When people travel they most often want to see what’s real in a place. That’s why they come there.All of what the government might think affect people’s impression of Beijing negatively have been removed. That doesn’t make it genuine.

But to clear out unwanted elements is not unique when you are hosting the Olympics. Norway had the winter Olympics in 1994. In Lillehammer they are lucky because not many things there are classified as unwanted elements. But to get there you have to go through Oslo and that city has many of these. Even there, four hours away from the games, junkies, prositutes, hobos and other unwanted elements were removed. Because it doesn’t look good. But these are elements in every city in this world. Everybody knows that.

China is far from unique when it comes to doing this. Every Olympic host does this. Has the lympics become such an important display for a city and country that we are willing to take away what’s genuine. The Olympics has now become more about politics and money than the joy of great athletisism. Why?

Who will be USA’s next president?

That’s the question many people are asking these days. I can’t give the answer, but there are some things that can be important.

Let’s start with Barack Obama. One wise thing he can do is take Hillary Clinton with him as vice president, if she wants to. Clinton had, and probably still has, a few million supporters around the country. That might make more people vote for a democrat. But on the other hand they are both quite dominating persons. Those don’t usual work that well close to each other. so fot the future work situation, that might not be particularly wise.

What is not good for Obama is that he is black. Many people doesn’t, for some reason, dare to vote for a black person. It is probable that many people will chicken out and vote for an old, white man in stead. Age is both a pro and a con for him. Some people might not trust a younger person, while others want fresh blood. Age is also an issue for McCain. He is much older than Obama and that might give him credit among the voters. But on the other hand, people of his age doesn’t live that much longer. Who wants a president who may not live through the entire period?

Someone also said that new HD TV’s could have an influence on the election. The new generation of TV’s reveals more in a person’s face and you can see more. McCain is 73 and with his age comes wrinkles and other things not considered that pretty. Let’s not hope he copies John Kerry from the last election. He got some botox injected and all of a sudden he had a stiff face. I hope technology won’t decide who’s going to be the most powerful man in the world for the next four years. But unfortunately we have too many people who are that shallow. A president should be elected for the skills, not the face.

Luckily some of the citizens in the vast country also thinks about politics. The next president firstly needs to get the economy back on track. Too many people are unemployed and the peerson who can convince the people that they can get jobs has a good chance of winning. The way the US’ economy is also has an impact in the economic situation in the rest of the world. The oil prices and food prices are just some of the things influenced by USA. Another thing that might be important is the war on Iraq. Families want their loved ones’ home and don’t really see the point of the war there any more.

The global environment is also impacted on what USA is willing to do. They are, whether we like it or not, the most powerful country in the world. The globe is not exactly doing well now. Bush jr won’t do anything now and UN has postponed some important decisions til after the election. That’s saying a lot. If the next president says he will help do something about it, I think he will be a popular man.

Who will win? Is USA ready for a black president, or will they chicken out and go for an old white man?  I can’t say. It will be a close race and I hope people think about politics and not just looks and smiles.

Saving time for nothing

Today we have plenty of things which can make our everyday life easier. Ready-made food, dish washer soap that also dries your dish and faster trains so we can get from a to b faster and so much more. Everything so we can save time. We have time to do more things. But are all this efficient things giving us less time? We know we can do more things over a shorter period of time. Therefore we try to do more things which we wouldn’t have time to do before. Because everything takes less time. But it makes us do more things because we can. What it really ends with is that we don’t have time to do other things we really want to do.

We all try to be as efficient as possible, because then we can do even more things. There’s not much today that actually takes that long to do. Because it takes just a few minutes we can do just this. And that. A little bit of this and yet again a little bit of that. Because it dosen’t take us so long. That’s why we spend 14 hours at work every day. Four too many. You wnat to spend them with your kids, your friends or at the gym. But you don’t have time. Because you had to do all the things that didn’t take so much time.

But then comes that day when you decide that you are getting your friends over for dinnerl. We need all the helpers to be able to show off that we are so efficient that we, with our stressful jobs, actually are able to make the impression that everything is perfect around us. But have you heard about anyone who doesn’t see any type of hazzle about having 12 friends over for dinner. There’s so much you have to do. Before they come you have to make your home bacteria free with your super efficient cleaner, create the perfect meal with he help of all the kitchen gadgets that you don’t really need. If these things fail we panic and cancel the dinner because all couldn’t be perfect without helpers.

After a while we also become dependent on many of these small helpers. Take the mobile phone for example. Do you go anywhere without yours? We are all available at all time. To constantly be available has become a hazzle. It’s not good that your boss or a client can reach you at any time. Or that your kids call you to ask where the batteries for the remote is.  A GPS is another such thing. Would you find the way to a remote place without it? Many today can’t even read a map. We all have the spell check on our computers. Microsoft made sure of that. Of course we don’t do spelling mistakes. We just use the spell check. What about when you write your exams by hand? Your skills of Bill Gates’ workers can’t help. Useful to be able to write correctly.

What happens when all these helpers don’t work? When your phone line is down and you can’t send an e-mail, you might lose an important business contract. There was a computer breakown at the Oslo stock exchange yesterday. The entire financial world and lots of other businesses stood completely still for five and a a half hour in Oslo because someone pushed the wrong buttons so that a server crashed. A lot didn’t happen because of that. A lot of potentially important things.

We now “need” to phone home to say we’ll be there in ten minutes so that someone can turn on the oven so that the pizza be ready ten minutes earlier so that you got the time to do some more work while your robot vacuum cleaner finishes your floor, before you have to do your 20 minute super efficient gym programme in front of the tv. After that you put a ready made smotthie mix in the blender so that your muscles can recover faster. When all this is done it’s time for bed and you didn’t get the time to play with your kids, see that movie or spend some quality time with your beloved one.

Why are we saving all this time when we don’t get anything especially valuable out of it anyway?