New Theme To My Opera Blog

Initially, I planned for my Opera Community blog (http://my.opera.com/janihelle/blog) to be merely photos and links to interesting things. These things happen when you have 5 different blogs, covering 5 different themes. I have practically forgotten about all my other blogs, and focused on HellBroadCast (http://hellbroadcast.blogspot.com), covering news articles, politics, and human interest issues. With this in mind, I am transforming my Opera blog into a duplicate of HellBroadCast, posting all articles on both blogs, mainly to attain a larger reader base, having realized that the Opera Community is expanding daily. So stay posted, because I have a lot of material in the works...

Transportation Problems in Indonesia

Note to self: avoid travel to Indonesia. Can't fly a plane there because they either go missing, crash into the sea or mountains, or burst into flames on landing. Can't travel by boat because they sink or burst into flames, nevermind the overcrowding... How else does one travel to and around country composed of thousands of islands?

US Intelligence Hot On Bin Laden's Trail, Again/Still...

Armed with fresh intelligence, the CIA is moving additional troops and equipment into Afghanistan and Pakistan in an effort to find Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri, playing down doubts that the trail for bin Laden has gone cold.

Wait, haven't they been "hot" on his trail for over 5 years now?

It seems that concerning Bush's War on Terror, a bin Laden, alive and well, taunting the United States from some cave in a far off land is more beneficial to the terror doctrine than a bin Laden rotting in jail or six feet under. It's the classic comic book superhero/archnemesis scenario: On one hand you have the superhero, protecting society from evil; on the other hand you have the supervillain, the superhero's archnemesis, who the superhero persistantly engages in battle, fending off his minions all the time; at times the archnemesis sits back to plan his next move, whilst the superhero spends everyday fighting evil, be it small crooks or other supervillains; the archnemesis strikes at those closest to the superhero, which makes the public beg for the superhero to come and save the day; before the final battle, the public loses love for the superhero for his methods and behavior; the superhero can't attain victory over his archnemesis and the public until the very end of the saga.

Now let's translate that into today's world: Bush is the superhero, Osama is Bush's archnemesis; The War on Terror drags on relentlesly; The United States and Bush battles Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups all the time; Osama has been in hiding for years; The Bush Administration engages in battle everyday against insurgents, terrorists, as well as rogue states and their leaders such as Iran and Ahmadijaned, and North Korea and Kim Il Jon; Osama attacks American soil, American troops around the world as well as American targets, not forgetting Bush's allies; the public rallies behind Bush, sending his approval rating up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks; the ensuing and faltering wars in Afghanistan and Iraq pull Bush's approval rating way down; the hunt for Osama bin Laden continues as time begins to run out before Bush's tenure in office is over.

With Bush's second and final term in the White House drawing to an end, it's time for the superhero to catch his archnemesis. With the known capabilities of the US intelligence agencies and military forces (in addition to the capabilities the public isn't aware of), one would have thought that finding one man wouldn't be too difficult. Maybe it's not time to find him yet. Maybe the Bush Administration has a really good, solid idea of where Osama is at any given moment. Catching Osama right before the 2008 Presidential Elections would be a giant victory for the Republicans, rallying more support and votes, as well as saving Bush's legacy, making him forever the man who caught Osama bin Laden, the devil himself. If Osama is caught by US forces within the next few years, especially around the summer of 2008, the long and arduous hunt for Osama bin Laden will have been a mere political game. Think about it. It makes sense.

By the way, although Osama bin Laden might really be a supervillain, Bush's archnemesis, I am not suggesting George W Bush is a superhero in any sense of the term.

Sources:
CIA Rushing Resources to Bin Laden Hunt - The Blotter
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/03/cia_rushing_res.html (via Digg)

http://digg.com/world_news/USA_hot_on_Bin_Laden_s_Trail

Bush Announces New Aid To Latin America - What About America?

Just days prior to his five-nation tour of Latin America, US President George W Bush announced that the United States will expand U.S. aid for education, health care and housing in the region. His "message is simple: the United States has not forgotten its neighbours to the south." Bush said that "the working poor of Latin America need change and the United States is committed to that change."

If you've been following the news in the past weeks, these issues have truly been in the news lately. Not concerning Latin America, but in the United States.

A great percentage of the American public want change in the American health care system, many wishing for universal health care. Medicare and Medicaid saw their budgets cut for the 2008 fiscal year. Wounded soldiers returning from overseas duty in Iraq and Afghanistan have been ill-treated, poorly compensated for injuries suffered in the line of duty protecting the nation and patriotically following the Bush Administration's agenda in Iraq. The poor received a break from the Democrat-led Congress in the form of higher minimum wage, which sceptics say will possibly lead to more layoffs and unemployment, as small businesses see their profits fall. The American education system needs more funding to educate to future of the United States to the best of their abilities. All this while the United States spends some $100 million every 12 hours in Iraq. (Newsweek) On top of it all, the surge on Baghdad isn't producing results, but rather more American casualties (9 US soldiers killed today in Baghdad).

At the very least the Bush Administration and the republicans are showing a humanitarian side, although one could argue that this is mainly concerning the legacy of the dwindling Administration, as it seems almost certain the next Administration will be led by the Democrats.

One would think that issues at home would be more important in securing America's stance in the world's eyes in the coming years, as the current administration's foreign policies have significantly increased the anti-American sentiment all over the world.

Bush's trip to Latin America comes at a time when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is stirring up more anti-American sentiment in the region. So is Bush's announcement and trip to Latin America merely a PR stunt, trying to keep key allies favourable to the U.S.? Do keep in mind that many of these nations Bush plans to visit are oil-producing nations, as well as hosts to many American corporations and vital economic partners.

PR, legacy, oil, money and such aside, the aid to Latin America, although a relatively noble thing for the world's wealthiest nation (a gesture which should be taken for granted), the announcement comes at a time when there are numerous other problems at home and in other parts of the world where the United States continues to battle. I am not saying the US should shun it's neighbours to the south, but rather also, in addition to extending a helping hand to those less prosperous in other countries, the United States should shift its primary aid focus on its own people, making the lifes of those who the President represents easier and more align with the image of American prosperity. Keep in mind that this is the man who the rest of the world considers America's representative. What he does, people think this is the mood and beliefs of the entire nation. There's still a long time until November 2008...

Source:
VOA News - Bush Announces New Aid for Latin America
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-03-05-voa51.cfm

Congress To-Do List, Courtesity of New York Times

The New York Times published a list of tasks to Congress of things that need to be done to overthrow the damages done by the Bush Administration. The list isn't really exhaustive. The bullet points on the list are:

• Restore Habeas Corpus

• Stop Illegal Spying

• Ban Torture, Really

• Close the C.I.A. Prisons

• Account for ‘Ghost Prisoners’

• Ban Extraordinary Rendition

• Tighten the Definition of Combatant

• Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively

• Ban Tainted Evidence

• Ban Secret Evidence

• Better Define ‘Classified’ Evidence

• Respect the Right to Counsel

• Close the Guantánamo camp

Read the full text here, with explanations to the points.

Sources:
New York Times Editorial: The Must-Do List (March 4, 2007) [via Digg]

Test Your Geography Knowledge

The first site has the well known test where one must name all 50 States in 10 minutes.
http://www.ironicsans.com/statequiz.html

The second site is map based. The objective is to find the country/state in question by clicking on the correct part of the map. (Unless you're Russian, don't even attempt to do the Russian map quiz...)
http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/

George The Jaguar And His Mean Twin Osama

You might have heard of the sad events at the Denver Zoo in Colorado last week, where a zookeeper was killed by a jaguar at the zoo. But it was an article on Yahoo! News which caught my eye.

The article was titled 'Killer jaguar had mean twin named Osama', which I though was somewhat entertaining that someone would name a jaguar after Osama Bin Laden. Reading on I noticed that the killer jaguar in this case was called Jorge, or George in spanish, and was actually named after President George W Bush.

Here are some quotes about the jaguars from the article:

"...[Jorge] was well-behaved as a young cat but his twin was so mean that his handlers named him Osama..."

"A zoo employee shot and killed Jorge when he approached emergency workers..."

"Jorge — Spanish for George — had been named after President Bush"

"Osama was always the more dominant of the two. He was always rough with Jorge. That was the relationship we saw between them."

"Jorge wasn't bad, really... I don't know what could have happened. Perhaps because he was so well-behaved, the trainer thought she could trust him. But you never know with wild animals."

Can you see the similarities between these jaguars and the human world? Osama is mean-spirited, rough with George and dominant, whilst George is well-behaved, submissive, and the one the zookeeper seemed to trust. With these descriptions in mind, which would you expect to kill someone, George or Osama? And which one did actually kill someone?

Source:
Killer jaguar had mean twin named Osama - Yahoo! News

Beer Consumption Rankings

Found this list of countries organized by beer consumption per capita on Wikipedia. I'm actually surprised that Finland is as low as number 9 on the list...

This is a list of countries ordered by annual per capita consumption of beer, as of 2004.

Rank	Country	Consumption (L/yr)
1	Czech Republic	156.9
2	Ireland	131.1
3	Germany	115.8
4	Australia	109.9
5	Austria	108.3
6	United Kingdom	99.0
7	Belgium	93.0
8	Denmark	89.9
9	Finland	85.0
10	Luxembourg	84.4
11	Slovakia	84.1
12	Spain	83.8
13	United States	81.6
14	Croatia	81.2
15	Netherlands	79.0
16	New Zealand	77.0
17	Hungary	75.3
18	Poland	69.1
19	Canada	68.3
20	Portugal	59.6
21	Bulgaria	59.5
22	South Africa	59.2
23	Russia	58.9
24	Venezuela	58.6
25	Romania	58.2
26	Cyprus	58.1
27	Switzerland	57.3
28	Gabon	55.8
29	Norway	55.5
30	Mexico	51.8
31	Sweden	51.5
32	Japan	51.3
33	Brazil	47.6
34	South Korea	38.5
35	Colombia	36.8

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_consumption_by_country
http://www.kirin.co.jp/english/ir/news_release051215_4.html

Switzerland Accidently Invades Liechtenstein

Were countries involved something like China and India, Russia and Finland or maybe even Germany and France (again...), we'd possibly have a huge political and diplomatic crisis on our hands. But, alas, it's just a two small countries, one which is neutral all the way and the other which doesn't have an army.

On a routine training exercise, a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein. (Oops!) According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered just over a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion. Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn't have an army.

Both parties played down the event and let it slip. Shit happens...

Military Ebay

Ebay has a militaristic competitor: eDisposals. The British Ministry of Defense is auctoning off its surplus and replaced equiptment. This includes boats, truck, Land Rovers, boots, camouflage gear, etcetera, etcetera. Guns and ammo aren't for sale yet...

http://www.edisposals.com