Execution Fever

A few last words for the year.

Is it just me, or has the news media become increasingly morbid in recent years? Yesterday there were barely any news articles or reports not dedicated to the execution of Saddam Hussein. Don't get me wrong, his demise is certainly news, and I'm quite sure he will spend eternity in hell with his new room mate, Augusto Pinochet. Assuming there is a hell, of course.

But do we really need to see the same few seconds of video from his execution and that picture of his corpse over and over again? I've been studying French for a while, so I decided to tune in to the new France 24 news network. What I saw was practically the execution video in a loop for the duration of the newscast. Suffice to say, I didn't pick up much French from that newscast.

Is there really such a desire among the public to see people die? Fine, Saddam was an evil, evil man, but what do I get out of watching the noose tighten around his neck 4,000 times over that I wouldn't be getting from the news anchor simply reporting that Saddam had been executed? Not only that, but was the execution truly such a news event as to be to the exclusion of other news that might have been of interest? Honestly, who didn't know the moment the trial started a few years ago that the only possible verdict would be death?

At this rate, it's only a matter of time before executions are regularly televised. And then you can enjoy the hangings in public town squares of years past in the comfort of your own home.

Happy new year!

A Confederacy of Boxes

I recently had my biannual box purging festival, during which I cut up all boxes I've acquired in the last six months and unceremoniously dump 'em in the recycling station. It used to be an annual event, but it seems my ability to amass large quantities of boxes have increased in recent years.
Here's just a select few boxes that went the way of all flesh...carton just recently:

• Vacuum cleaner carton box
• Coffe makeer carton box
• 3x Amazon.com carton packages
• Book shelf carton box
• DVD burner carton box
• Printer carton box
  

And so on. No wonder Finland is so reputed for its paper industry, there is quite obviously a market to sustain it.
Maybe all of these boxes are indicitative of me buying way too much stuff. Nah. Then again, should I ever be unable to pay the rent, I can always move in with all my stuff into my box collection. Seriously, I could rebuild New Orleans with all that carton!

Freedom's Just Another Word

With cartoons causing worldwide riots and opponents of frivolous wars immediately labeled terrorist sympathisers or worse, it seems freedom of speech has taken a bit of a beating lately. The recent assassination of a notable Russian journalist critical of the Putin government serves as a less subtle example.
Here, in little ole' Finland, the issue at hand seems to be what school teachers may or may not say. It's an issue that in some ways parallels accusations of a liberal bias among American colleges and alleged censoring of conservative viewpoints on campuses and in class. Surely teachers have the same right to freedom of speech as the rest of us?

In an interview with Finnish newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet, a Finnish high school teacher proudly proclaims himself to be a homophobe, having no qualms about comparing homosexuality to paedophilia, or murder. Quite naturally this caused immediate outrage among parents in the school district. The school board have distanced themselves from the teacher, but aren't planning any further action against him.
My personal opinion is that freedom of speech should be abridged as little as possible (with notable exceptions like the oft-mentioned yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre), so this person has the right to say pretty much whatever.
It seems to me, however, that his statements are indicative of him being a terrible teacher. His students are practically all between 16 and 19 years old, that tender age when you first might realise you're homosexual. I think that would be difficult enough, without having a rather influental person condemning you as a murderer. Through his statements he reveals his own obliviousness to the problems his students may face, and perhaps a certain arrogance that's not too uncommon among teachers, but is a terribly quality for a teacher to have neverttheless. I've had several opinionated teachers, and while I wouldn't always agree with their views, I would always be treated with respect, and I would certainly never be compared to a paedophile. A good teacher can and should have opinions, but a good teacher shouldn't cause unnecessary conflict and angst among his or her students. Maybe it's not an issue of freedom of speech at all, maybe it's an issue of competence. A quality this teacher seems to possess very little of.

There something to be said for provocateurs, of course. If his statements serve to further discussion in class, then why not? But one has to wonder why he, if that's the case, chose to raise the issue in a national newspaper, rather than in class, and furthermore, couldn't he have chosen less inflammatory language? People like Ann Coulter, whose writings seem designed merely to cause conflict and not to seriously debate an issue, add absolutely nothing but noise. It seems to be the case with this teacher as well.

Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 predicts the emergence of a world where only the most sanitised and censored forms of "art" is allowed to exist, and everything deemed not politically correct is summarily torched. It is a cautionary tale of what may happen if we compromise too much on the issue of freedom of speech. As far as freedom goes, though, if I was a parent, I would very much like to have the freedom not to have my children being taught by bigots.

The Rumors Of My Death...

...have been greatly exaggerated. I know there were concerns I've might have been kidnapped by Islamofascists or whatever fancy boogeyman they'll introduce next, but I haven't run into any lately.

Actually, I've had an insane amount of stuff to do. I've been balancing studying and working for a while now, and from time to time my schedule thus becomes absolutely swamped. Much as I enjoy writing, it ain't happenin' on a regular basis. Well, good to be busy, I suppose.

New Swedish Government Stumbles Out Of The Gate

The new centre-right Swedish government is off to a good start. Five days old, and already two scandals, one of which threatens to force one of the new ministers to resign.

The new Swedish Minister for Foreign Trade, Moderate Maria Borelius, has apparently illegally hired a nanny, and failed to pay taxes for it. Her excuse? She couldn't afford it. Which would perhaps be believable, if it weren't for the fact that she's a millionaire. With the Moderate Party campaigning as the "new worker's party," perhaps the millionaire's club would do well not to piss on their voters. Just a suggestion.

The other scandal is that two other ministers, Minister of Culture Cecilia Stegö Chilò and Minister for Migration Thomas Billström, have both neglected to pay TV license fees for 16 and 10 years, respectively. One may question the merits of having TV licenses and public service television at all, certainly, but perhaps ministers in the cabinet ought to follow the laws, or at least have the good taste of following the laws until they've had them repealed. As far as civil disobedience goes, this is not exactly refusing to sit in the back of the bus, this is just a matter of a few rich persons who'd rather spend their money on redecorating the interior of their yachts.

Add to that the surprise appointment of former Moderate Prime Minister Carl Bildt as Foreign Minister. Within minutes of the press conference starting, Bildt, who is an old-school Moderate, as compared to the more centrist new Moderates like Reinfeldt, started criticising the new government's domestic policy platform and suggested immediate tax cuts. Bildt will be excellent on foreign affairs, I have no doubt, but it remains to be seen whether he and Reinfeldt will be able to get along.

So, all in all, not a very good first week for Reinfeldt. On the plus side, he has about four years to convince the Swedish people his cabinet is not made up exclusively of upper-class twits. If he can't, he'll end up back in the opposition.

Which isn't to say that the centre-left Social Democrats haven't had their fair share of corruption. But that's one of the reasons they lost this time around. You can't campaign against it, only to be exposed for being exactly the same a freakin' week later!

Swedish Elections: Postmortem

Last post on the Swedish parliamentary elections, promise!

So Reinfeldt's gambit paid off. The "new", more left-wing Moderate Party had its best elections, ever, while the Social Democrats had their worst elections, ever. The right-wing bloc won a narrow seven seat majority in the Swedish parliament. SDP leader Göran Persson will, quite understandably, step down as prime minister and party leader.
It remains to be seen what a coalition government led by Reinfeldt can accomplish. Having stepped to the left in the campaign, the Swedish center-right parties will have to sacrifice large portions of their agenda. Which won't make their normal constituencies particularly happy. Personally I quite like Fredrik Reinfeldt, although I have my reservations about some of his coalition partners. The Liberal People's Party in particular, who've campaigned on quasiracist themes such as mandatory language tests (and, while the right-wing bloc overall was successful, the LPP suffered heavy losses). Hopefully only campaign posturing.
Thankfully, the truly racist Sweden Democratic party was nowhere close to gaining seats in parliament; unfortunately they were a lot closer than four years ago.

Swedish Elections: Election Day

My blogging will be utterly sporadic for a while more, as I have a ridiculous amount of stuff to do.

So today's the day. Sweden will be holding their elections. The latest polls seem to suggest the right-wing bloc have a commanding lead, and if those numbers hold, Fredrik Reinfeldt, party leader of the Moderate Party (the largest right-wing party in Sweden), is the probable new prime minister of Sweden. It will follow one of the dirtiest election campaigns in Swedish history (from both sides), and, in the bizarroland that is Sweden, Reinfeldt will have accomplished this by moving his party significantly to the left. In other countries, it's usually the left having to move to the right to win (see Clinton and the Democrats, Blair and Labour). Somewhat paradoxally, one of the MP's alliance parties, the Liberal People's Party, have made a lot of noise about restricting immigration during the same campaign. This all will make for an interesting four years, as a right-wing Swedish government will have to feature at least four parties (see my previous post on the elections) with somewhat different agendas. The SDP, should they end up in opposition, will be sure to use that to their advantage; I don't expect them to be down for long.

Swedish Elections: Ugly, Ugly, Ugly

Never have so many people flung so much dirt in so little time. Well, if you don't count every other election held, like, ever.
But this year's Swedish parliamentary elections seem dirtier than previous Swedish elections, at the very least in recent times.

The dominating party in Sweden is the Social Democrats (SDP), who have been in government almost continuously since 1940 (they were in opposition only between 1991 - 1994 and 1976 - 1982). In recent years, the party have formed a minority one-party government, while being backed up by the Left Party and the Greens in parliament to form a voting majority.
The Swedish government's tepid response to the tsunami disaster in late 2004, when about 550 Swedes died, caused major outrage^[1] and drew heavy criticisms from just about everyone; the investigations into the failings of the government on this issue are on-going as we speak...write. Several key officials in the government had to resign over it, including foreign minister Laila Freivalds and head of the Office of the Prime Minister Lars Danielsson (as recently as last week, with only a few weeks to go 'til the elections).

The Left party have concerns of their own, as they lost their charismatic party leader Gudrun Schyman, who, while controversial, also proved to be a voter magnet. And thenGreens are always balancing on the edge of the 4% threshold^[2]. Some polls suggest the Left Party may fall under that 4% threshold as well. The Swedish left is in a bit of a bind, in other words.
The right-wing bloc, consisting of the Moderate Party, the Liberal People's Party, the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats, is thus eager to finally get back into government. If they ever had a chance of doing so, this year would be it. Although, the Christian Democrats are also precariously near that 4% threshold in recent polls, as they too lost a charismatic leader in Alf Svensson.
Polls so far suggest the two blocs are dead even, with the right-wing bloc occasionally ahead, and it seems this will be a race to the bitter end.
Oh, and as always there's a plethora of small parties, vying to get enough votes for seats in parliament. Right-wing extremists, BitTorrent leechers, former reality show stars, you name it. They all have a party.
The stage is set, time to get dirty!

First it turned out an SDP operative had been sending anonymous e-mails, ridiculing and making libellous comments about MP leader Fredrik Reinfeldt.
Then there was the spying scandal, where a member of the Christian Democrats attempted to infiltrate the SDP by posing as an activist (although doing so badly enough to get caught).
And now an operative with the Liberal Party has allegedly hacked into SDP computers, getting hold of data on, among other things, SDP election strategies, travel itineraries for the Prime Minister and security details of several government officials. The hackings have taken place over the span of a year. The scandal broke just this week, and Swedish papers are already drawing comparisons to Watergate.
What effect, if any, will this have on the outcome of the elections? I haven't a clue. Between now and September 17, all bets are off. Anything can happen. For all I know, given this apparent win-at-all-costs strategy everyone seems to be employing, the losing side may attempt a coup d'état on September 18.

Aah, Democracy. It truly brings out the best in us, doesn't it?

^[1] To be fair, some of that outrage being politically motivated, though most of it being quite genuine.
^[2] A party needs at least 4% of the nationwide popular vote (or 12% in one of the 29 electoral districts) to gain seats in the Swedish parliament; this is to avoid a multitude of small parties with only one or two seats that would make it difficult to form a government. Thus if your party wins more than 4% of the vote, you're apportioned a certain number of seats on the basis of your popular vote. If your party wins 3.9%, you get no seats at all.

WHERE IS THE BOMB?!??!?

Fifth time is apparently the charm if you're Kiefer "Jack Bauer" Sutherland. He'd been nominated for an acting Emmy five years in a row for his role in 24, but lost out the first four times. This time around, however, he managed to win!
The show also received an award for best drama series. About time too that 24 receives some recognition. There are (far too) many of these serialized drama-thrillers on TV these days, that is series whose episodes aren't self-contained but rather small parts of a larger, long-term plot, stretching out over one or several seasons. Lost and Prison Break are other good examples. But 24 is truly the grand-daddy of the genre, and five seasons running, no one does it better.
Congrats to The Kiefer!

A is A

Growing up, there are certain things you learn to take for granted. The earth is round^[1], one plus one is two, Finland doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the Eurovision song contest, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, and so on. One of those things you learn at an early age is that our solar system has nine planets.
Well, turns out our solar system only has eight planets. Pluto has been voted off the island, so to speak.
Pluto was, when first discovered in 1930, considered a planet, because the most accurate equipment and calculations at the time pegged Pluto to be of approximately the same size as planet Earth. As measurements have become more precise, however, Pluto's size has decreased to the point where it's smaller than our moon. And we just can't have that, can we? Some fancy-schmancy organisation called the International Astronomical Unit has been debating how to define a planet. And yesterday they apparently reached a conclusion.

Thus, as of August 24, 2006, Pluto is not a planet, but a dwarf planet. Not only that, but the asteroid Ceres in the asteroid belt is now also a dwarf planet, as is 2003 UB₃₁₃, who apparently is larger than Pluto.
Adding insult to injury, Pluto's moon Charon may be promoted so that Pluto and Charon may be considered a binary planet system. Man, Pluto just can't catch a break this week, it seems.

This is an outrage! School curricula throughout the world will have to be changed. I feel as if everything I've been taught is a lie. How can I now trust anything our teachers have told us? Heck, is this even English I'm writing? For all I know, it might actually be Azerbaijani.
This brings back memories from second grade. No, not about being beat up by sinister third graders, I've repressed all that. Through the kindness of the Finnish educational system, we had just received brand spanking new atlases. Like all good atlases, it contained maps of the world. Then the Soviet Union folded, and about half of the atlas was invalidated. This was the early 90s and Finland was deep in a recession, so we were freaking stuck with those atlases for years! Heck, with Czechoslovakia splitting up and Yugoslavia descending into chaos, the damn thing gradually became even more inaccurate!

Well, uh, my condolences to Pluto and its relatives. Because, clearly, if I was a trans-Neptunian object, I'd be very concerned with what the ants living six planets over are calling me.<sup>[2]

[1]</sup> Eeh, close enough.
^[2] Yes, self-aware planets are part of my belief system. Haven't you people read Solaris?^[3]
[3] Well, okay, I haven't actually read it either, but I've seen the movie!^[4]
[4] Well, okay, I haven't actually seen the original Tarkovsky classic either, but I've seen the American remake!

Pac-Man: Destroying Our Children?

Via Slashdot^[1], I found this rather interesting article. A Dr. Kimberly Thompson of Harvard University testified in front a congressional subcommittee investigating violence in video games and the current ratings system in use, and she cited a study in which they concluded that one of the most classic video games, Pac Man, contained 62% violence. That is, according to the article, during a 90 minute period of game play, the player engages in violent behaviour during 62% of that time; 56 minutes out of 90. Plenty of other classic games turns out to be rather violent as well, such as Centipede (93%) and Digg Dugg (67%) (interestingly enough, Ms. Pac-Man turned out to be only 54% violent).
Aaron Stanton, the author of the article, seems mystified as to how that can be, and argues the study is flawed, stating

The results of the study deviate so much from what the average person would consider to be significant violence that the results are almost inconsequential. Still, this is the research that the U.S. Senate is listening to when deciding if the ESRB system should be revamped, and the gaming community should be paying attention.

Dr. Thompson responded in an interview at Joystiq.com. Here's some choice quotes:

We only played and coded some older arcade games because we were interested in examining the progression from abstract and repetitive portrayals of violence in early video games to more realistic portrayals in modern video games.

We have never and would never use the percentage of violent game play to make a ridiculous claim that a game like The Legend of Zelda is more "violent" than a game like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City...

As we have noted in our papers, people can reasonably disagree with us, but we did not believe that it was consistent to not count this as violence even though it is quite abstract.

So, all in all, a big hubbub over absolutely nothing. A tempest in a teapot, if you will. Perfect fodder for a blog entry, in other words!
That said, of course, I wouldn't trust the US Senate all too much when it comes to subject matters relating to computers and technology. The President pro Tempore of said legislative body and chairman of the Commerce Committee just recently compared the Internet to a series of tubes, after all.

^[1] Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don't know.

A Royal Presidency?

According to this article in The Independent, the current frontrunner for next year's French presidential elections is Ségolène Royal of the French Socialist Party (PS), who, if elected, would be France's first woman president. The article goes on to cite a poll in which Royal would defeat the main right-wing contender, Minister of the Interior and Douchebag-at-large Nicolas Sarkozy (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) 55% - 42%.
It remains to be seen if the French left can get its act together, however. 2002's elections was a rather embarrassing affair, with extremist right-wing bigot Jean-Marie Le Pen inching out then Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (PS) to move on to the second round. Royal hasn't formally announced her candidacy yet, and PS won't pick a candidate until November (ironically enough, one of the other possible PS nominees is François Hollande, Royal's spouse), but barring any unforeseen circumstances, she'll very likely be PS's nominee. On the issues she seem alright, if a bit "third way". She's previously been rather conservative on issues relating to homosexuality, but recently promised to introduce a bill legalizing same-sex marriage and adoption, should her party form the next government.
The main criticisms against her seem to be a lack of experience in foreign policy. But what's the worse that could happen when you elect a president with little or no foreign policy experience? Oh...
Seriously, though, after twelve years of this guy, France could use a woman's touch.

The Weekly Box Office Commentary: Motherf**king Snakes Edition

The movie everyone's been waiting for^[1] made its way to theaters this week, and it did...okay. Snakes on a Plane brought in about $14 million, good for second place behind Yet Another Will Ferrell Comedy. Given the early buzz, I would have expected it to do more business (say in the 20 million range), but given that the movie apparently was pretty cheap to produce, it'll bring in a profit, albeit not a big one.

In other box office news, Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Boatloads of Cash crossed $400 million this weekend, and it's going to overtake Spider-Man's gross within a week or so. Whom did Orlando Bloom sell his soul to, is what I wanna know!

Other than that, not a whole lot of interest:

• Oliver Stone's 9/11 flick World Trade Center is doing rather decently
  
• Clerks II came and went without making too much money
• An Inconvenient Truth is now the third highest grossing documentary with about $22 million in the bank. It might make it to $24 million, but not much beyond that
• Miami Vice is doing decently, but could have been much bigger. Breaks my heart, Michael Mann is one of my favourite directors!
• British flick The Descent has been out quite a while on DVD in Europe and opened only a few weeks ago in the US. Usually it's the other way around
  

^[1] Oh, c'mon, pretend.

New Lordi Members, part three

A while ago I set out to line up replacement members for Finnish monster rock superstars Lordi. This to ensure the continued popularity and vitality of the band. After many months of searching all over the world, particularly in Mongolia, I'm now prepared to name another new Lordi member.
And the third replacement is none other than...Zinedine Zidane!

(Zidane's the one in the bottom left corner.)

As you can see from the image, Zidane was extremely happy to be landing this gig!^[1]
Of course, with reports of Fidel Castro being in critical condition, I find myself having to look for a potential replacement for him as well. Man, this band is shedding more members than Kiss! Anyway, I've found an understudy for Fidel, who'll be ready to take over in the event of Castro's death.
The new understudy is...Mel Gibson!

(Gibson is the one in the middle.)

To be continued...

^[1] Not my best Photoshop work, but what the hey! I'm busy, I ain't got all day to work on this stuff!

Bridge over Troubled Waters

Apparently they're constructing a new bridge over the Danube in Budapest, Hungary. And someone thought of the brilliant idea of conducting an online poll to name the bridge. Of course, the international media caught on. Now everyone from Chuck Norris to Steven Seagal is getting votes. Well, obviously there's only one logical choice, especially considering this is a Hungarian bridge.
I'm talking of David "The Hoff" Hasselhoff, of course.
You people think it was Ronald Reagan or John Paul II or Lech Walesa who won the cold war. Bullshit, I say. David Hasselhoff is the man principally responsible for tearing the iron curtain, despite what the revisionists may say.
Currently, however, he only has a paltry 225 votes. What the hell? He's the world's most famous lifeguard, for Pete's sake! Who better to name a bridge after? Clearly, if there's any justice in the world, The Hoff would win this in a landslide. I ask you to join me in making this a reality. Get off your ass and help out The Hoff!

1. Go to http://www.m0hid.gov.hu/vote
2. Select "ABC szerint" to easily find The Hoff
3. Scroll down to and select "David Hasselhoff híd"
4. Scroll all the way down and click "Elküld"

Now, I know my blog has a fairly limited readership, so spread the word! If everyone chips in, he'll win this in no time!

Wesley Snipes: What Went Wrong?

The other day I saw one of Wesley Snipes' latest movies, the straight-to-video b-flick The Marksman. It was quite terrible. It was released in 2005, not a year after the theatrical release of Blade: Trinity, which, while a bit of a disappointment, by no means could be considered a flop. Snipes in fact seems to have made a boatload of stv movies lately, and has several more of them lined up (hint: if an American-produced movie is being shot in Bulgaria, chances are it's a b-movie.). So what gives? How does one go from having a decent Hollywood career to b-movie land within less than year? Other action stars like Jean-Claude van Damme or Steven Seagal suffered a string of box office flops before being relegated to straight-to-video, and someone like Bruce Willis hasn't been able to headline a box office hit in years, but still regularly gets work (and don't get me started on director Uwe Boll!).

Maybe Snipes did burn a few too many bridges over Trinity. Reports of altercations with director David Goyer surfaced during production of the movie, and after its theatrical release Snipes at least threatened to take movie studio New Line to court, alleging breach of contract. That said, plenty of movie stars are, if you pardon my French, pricks. Many of them seem to be doing fine nevertheless (I'll concede that the jury is still on whether Mel Gibson can survive his recent scandal).

Another possible theory, and one I find more likely, is simply a matter of money. Snipes was recently suspected of tax evasion, witholding millions in taxes. Starring in a bunch of these stv flicks is easy money. Even c-movie star Dolph Lundgren receives a million bucks a movie. And his movies generally have a budget of less than five million! Compare that to Snipes' stv movies, which all seems to fall in the 10 - 20 million range, of which at least 10% ought to be Snipes' salary.

Whatever the case may be, Snipes deserved better. Unlike other action stars like Van Damme or Seagal, Snipes had decent acting chops, and regularly appeared in more serious drama movies. Wesley, get over yourself and make Blade IV!

A Solution to the Israel-Lebanon Crisis

A lot has been said about the recent conflict (or should I say, the recent flare-up in a longstanding conflict). My take is rather simple: All people, regardless of nationality, religion or ethnicity have the right to live in peace and prosper. Anyone seeing that happening anytime soon? Yeah, me neither.

The French have been desperately seeking a solution to the crisis, but I think it's time for them to bring out the big guns. They have a secret weapon so immensely powerful it could very well end terrorism as we know it and bring about everlasting peace.

You all know what I'm talking about, right? Yep, you guessed it: Zinedine Zidane. Here's my proposal: We send Zidane to Lebanon, where he proceeds to seek out Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and headbutt him straight in the chest. Hezbollah will be powerless against the ZCD™ (Zisou Chrome Dome™). Crisis solved! Then it's on to Afghanistan to seek out Bin Ladin.

To spare the civilians, my other proposal is that the UN flies in vast amounts of bicycles, and whatever the hell Floyd Landis injected up his ass. There is no rocket or bullet the civilians won't be able to outcycle.

Now, no need to thank me, but this December I better be the recipient of a prestigious award in Oslo, Norway.

People Powered Politics, Connecticut Edition

I've been following American politics for quite a while, and this Tuesday's primary election in the small US state of Connecticut was certainly one of the more interesting events in recent times. In fact, it was so interesting even French TV network TV5Monde reported on it in their nightly newscast last night, much to my surprise.

Three term Democratic senator, 2000 vice-presidential nominee and 2004 presidential candidate Joe Lieberman lost his party's nomination for the midterm elections in November. He lost to a political novice, Ned Lamont, whose only previous experience as a candidate was city politics and a failed bid for the Connecticut state senate.

How does a long-term, scandal-free and relatively popular senator, with the support of the party establishment, lose against a challenger no one's even heard of a year ago, in a country where some 95% of all non-retiring incumbents are re-elected? In fact, this past May, Lieberman led Lamont by an insurmountable 65% - 19%!
Lieberman's almost unconditional support (with some token criticism) of President George W Bush in a time when only about two persons in the entire US actually approve of him couldn't have helped.
Another essential reason is the war in Iraq. As the war has gone from bad to worse to hell on earth, Lieberman is one of few still supporting the war, being enthusiastic about it even. Contrary to conventional wisdown and spin, discontent with the war alone would not been an issue enough to defeat Lieberman. That said, without the war in Iraq, there would have likely not been a primary challenge to begin with.

Of course, one cannot forget the biggest reason for Lieberman's loss: Lieberman. By all accounts, he seemed to have run an extremely inept primary campaign, which included him announcing mid-June that he if he didn't win the primary, he would still run in the general election as an independent, a terrible performance in the primary debate, and generally making statements to the effect that he "owned" his seat in the Senate and that the voters had little right to take it away from him. All in all, not an effective campaign strategy.

The Republican candidate for Senate, Alan Schlesinger, is a non-entity. Not only is Connecticut heavily Democratic, Schlesinger has to fight off a gambling scandal, involving him incuring massive gambling debts under an assumed name. In other words, the winner of the Democratic primary would likely be the winner of the general elections as well.
But the story doesn't quite end there. Lieberman, immediately after conceding the race, announced his candidacy for the election in November, as a candidate for his own newly formed party, "Connecticut for Lieberman", the plan being to win over enough Republicans and independents to win in November. I don't think he has much of a shot, though. A poll taken prior to the primary indicated that in a three-way race, Lamont and Lieberman would be tied at 40% each (and Schlesinger receiving a paltry 13% of the vote). This was before Lamont was a winner and Lieberman was a loser, and this was before the entire Democratic establishment unconditionally backed Lamont (by virtue of him winning the primary). Lieberman has also lost most of his Democratic campaign staff, and building a new staff from scratch with only a few months to go will be a difficult task indeed.

Back from Vacation

As promised, I only posted sporadically, if at all, during my vacation time. Well, back to business. There's a lot going at the moment, so my postings may be somewhat infrequent for a while still, but hopefully I'll manage to spare a few moments on writing future entries. One of those future entries will feature Jean-Claude van Damme. Stay tuned. Or not.

People Powered Politics

Wow. Now that's a demonstration!
Depicted on the image to the left^[1] is just a scant few of the 2.4 million who were out demonstrating in Mexico this past Sunday.
They were out marching in favour of leftist presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who lost by 0.58% against right-wing conservative candidate Felipe Calderón a few weeks ago (López Obrador got 35.31% to Calderón's 35.89%, the difference being approximately 244,000 votes out of about 30 million votes cast between the two candidates, according to the official count). López Obrador has not accepted defeat, however, alleging irregularities in the voting process and hence demanding a recount. Florida 2000 anyone?
The outcome will ultimately be decided by a special tribunal called Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación, whose primary purpose is deciding electoral disputes. Certifying the validity of the presidential elections also falls within its jurisdiction, and it's within the tribunal's discretion to order a recount or an entirely new election.

2.4 million. Mexico has about 107 million inhabitants, meaning approximately 2.2% of the entire Mexican population was out demonstrating. I wonder what, if anything, could inspire that kind of passion in 2% of the Finnish population...oh yeah, Lordi. Though, perhaps that's a sign of just how well off we are in Finland...or how bad things are in Mexico. Whoever ends up winning the elections certainly has his work cut out for him.

The Wikipedia entry has more information on the elections.

^[1] Update: The picture was removed from the website I was linking to, so I removed it here as well.

Vacation

Yours truly goes on a well-earned vacation, so for the next couple of weeks I will only be posting sporadically, if at all. Everyone have a great summer!

Seacrest out. No, wait...surely I could think of a better sign-off than that. Hm...eh...hmm...aahh...
Good night, and good luck? Nah....hmm...
Take care of yourselves, and each other? Eeh....
...aah, what the heck. Seacrest out.

Newt Gingrich: Jackass

Is there a bigger jackass in politics today than Newt Gingrich? I mean, apart from every other politician.
He rose to fame as the brains behind the Republican take-over of the US congress in 1994. He was subsequently elected Speaker of the House and made Time Magazine's Man of the Year. It's all downhill from there. After a government shutdown, ethics charges and leading the charge to impeach Clinton, all the while having an affair himself, he resigned from the house altogether in 1998.

Okay, this is all well and good (and lord knows I left out some of the nastier stuff about his personal life, which can be found elsewhere), although it's nothing new. However, these recent comments (via Political Wire) about the conflicts in the Middle East are new:

Gingrich said in the coming days he plans to speak out publicly, and to the administration, about the need to recognize that America is in World War III.
...
"This is World War III," Gingrich said. And once that's accepted, he said calls for restraint would fall away...
...
There is a public relations value, too. Gingrich said that public opinion can change "the minute you use the language" of World War III. The message then, he said, is "'OK, if we're in the third world war, which side do you think should win?"

My God. People are dying left and right, and this guy's worrying about the PR value? How brazenly cynical a human being must one be to think of death and destruction in those terms? Can such a person even qualify as a human being? I'm by no means a naïve person and I'm well aware that politics is a dirty business, but this really takes the cake.
So, thought of the day: Newt Gingrich is a jackass.

Defeat of the Will

According to an article in Sweden's premiere tabloid rag (which is in Swedish, of course), a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research, Wolf Singer, contends that a criminal can not be held responsible for the crimes he committed, as human beings do not possess free will, at least not in the sense it's commonly understood.

All the choices we make are the result of a pre-determined biological chain of events, with the choice being made before we're even aware of it. In a sense we are programmed by our upbringing and other environmental factors to react in a predictable manner to choices we are to make. A criminal is a human being with a faulty programming.

I'm neither a neurobiologist nor a philosopher. I am a blogger, though, which is all the credentials one needs in this day and age.
What little I know of how the brain functions, Singer's proposition of us being programmed to act a certain way makes sense.
And, as an aside, clearly there's something not quite right in the head of a murderer.

But "criminals can't helpt it" as an approach to lawmaking doesn't seem particularly smart at all. Not guilty of shoplifting due to insanity? Although, it might make for a viable defense, should the MPAA come a knockin'...

Things I Got Wrong

I have a habit of predicting things, being dead positive the future will prove me right. My areas of expertise are near infinite, as I dabble in politics, sports, entertainment, science, you name it. Unfortunately, more often than not, my predictions turn out to be dead wrong. Which brings us to this very blog entry. Here's a list of embarrassing predictions I've made in recent years:

• John Kerry would win the US presidential elections in a landslide
• Germany would make it to the World Cup finals
  
• Sauli Niinistö would narrowly win the Finnish presidential elections
• The Matrix Reloaded would be a great movie
• Paul Giamatti would win the best supporting actor Oscar. C'mon, George Clooney?!?
• There's no chance in hell that Finland would ever win the Eurovision
  

What can I say? Oops.

TUMotW: Below

Previous installments: Spartan, The Core

This week's movie: Below
Directed by David Twohy
Written by Lucas Sussman, Darren Aronofsky and David Twohy
Starring Matthew Davis, Bruce Greenwood, Olivia Williams, Scott Foley

Below is a world war II submarine horror movie. That sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it actually works quite well. The pedigree of the makers are not bad: David Twohy also wrote the movie adaptation of The Fugitive and directed the decent horror sci-fi flick Pitch Black (and its spectacularly crappy sequel The Chronicles of Riddick). Co-writer Aronofsky is of course an indie movie favourite whose other movies include Pi and Requiem for a Dream. Leading man Bruce Greenwood is of course a personal acting favourite, having starred in several excellent, but tragically underappreciated, features.

Clearly someone involved in the movie pissed off someone at distributor Dimension, as the movie only got a severely limited theatrical release. The movie went on to make about two bucks in theaters. Which is a pity, because this movie deserved better.

The plot is relatively straight-forward: a US submarine rescues the crew of a sunken battleship. Strange events begin to unfold aboard the submarine. Unlike many horror movies these days, Below doesn't go for all out gore and sheer explicitness. In fact, there's really only one jump-out-of-your-seat moment in the entire movie. The rest of the movie is spent subtly building up a creepy, uneasy atmosphere, greatly enhanced by the claustrophobic setting of a submarine.

Overall a highly enjoyable and well made movie.

Album of the Month: Music for the Divine

Glenn Hughes
Music for the Divine
2006, Frontiers Records

Produced by Glenn Hughes and Chad Smith

Glenn Hughes is a man who hardly needs any introduction, though I'm about to give a brief one nevertheless. Hughes is one of the best singers in the music business. He's perhaps most famous for singing and playing the bass on three of Deep Purple's best albums^[1], Burn, Stormbringer and Come Taste the Band during the mid-seventies. His career following his departure from Purple has been a bit of a mixed bag, but since the early 90s he's been regularly and consistently releasing solid solo albums. Favourites of mine include 1994's AOR masterpiece From Now On and last year's Soul Mover. To that list I'd like to add Hughes' latest album, Music for the Divine.

Music for the Divine builds and refines on the direction Hughes took with Soul Mover, which features a more funk rock approach than earlier Hughes records, though Hughes is certainly no stranger in that genre. Given the involvement of Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, who co-produced both albums, the funkier style should perhaps not be particularly surprising.
Stand-out tracks include opener The Valiant Denial, Steppin' On, You Got Soul and Black Light.

Glenn Hughes' fantastic singing voice, the excellence of the other musicians involved and the impeccable song writing all come together to create not only the album of the month, but one of the musical highlights of 2006. Highly recommended stuff, and essential to all fans of good rock music.

^[1] In my humble opinion, MkII fans need not freak out

LotW: Kumyk

Previous installments: Occitan, Luxembourgish, Catalan, Faroese

As you can see by the previous entries, LotW has thus far been rather eurocentric. Not only that, but the languages presented thus far have perhaps not been particularly obscure, but are in fact quite well known. In an effort to counter that, it's time to head out east for this week's language: Kumyk.

Kumyk is a Turkic language, spoken primarily in the troubled Russian republic of Dagestan (okay, technically that's still in Europe, but it's a step in the right direction). It's spoken by some 300,000 people in that region and in small communities in Chechnya, Turkey, Syria and Iran. There are several closely related languages spoken in nearby regions, such as Nogai and Karachay-Balkar. Kumyk has also been heavily influenced by the major languages of the region, such as Azerbaijani and Russian, and bears many a ressemblance with Turkish (which is hardly surprising, given its classification as a Turkic language).

Both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets are currently in use when writing Kumyk; by 2010 it's planned that the Latin alphabet will be used exclusively. Written Kumyk has at time also used the Arabic alphabet. The Latin alphabet currently in use are based on the Turkish alphabet, containing such special characters as ş and ğ.

The Rosetta Project has samples of Kumyk, along with grammar and orthography.
The English Wikipedia entry consists of about three sentences, so this time I suggest brushing up on your German instead. In what appears to be Russian I also found this article, which may be of use to some (ironically it appears to have been written by a Finn).

Giving Head

So you're one of the best football players in the world. You've won a World Cup, a European Cup, a Champions League, the Spanish League, the Italian League, and numerous individual player accolades. You're in another World Cup final, which also happens to be your last game. The game is dead even and you're one of the key players, if not the key player. Your place in football history being secure, how do you go out in style, in a way people are not soon to forget?

Apparently you lunge head first right into an opposing team member's chest. I don't know what Materazzi (the lungee) said to Zidane (the lunger), but clearly it must have been the mother of all insults. My theory?

Materazzi: - Yo momma so ugly even the US team could score on that ass!

The moral, if there is a moral to be had, is that sports really does bring out the best in all of us. Or not.

The Weekly Box Office Commentary: Holy F***ing S**t! Edition

The weekend estimates are in, and all I can say is wow. Just wow. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is breaking records left and right. Apart from biggest opening weekend ever (at $132 million), it managed biggest opening day ever ($50 million), and if the estimates hold, it'll be the first movie ever to cross the $100 million line in two days. Wow, just wow. Hard to say how much money the flick will ultimately make, but rest assured it will be quite a lot. Though, X-Men: The Last Stand, which also opened to over $100 million earlier this year, took a nasty beating in subsequent weeks, and looks to end up with a comparatively paltry $230 million total. The word of mouth was mixed at best, though; if PotC is better received, $400 million is not out of the question. Non-probable, but not out of the question.

Superman apparently returned a bit too soon, as it took a nasty 58% drop, making "only" $22 million in its second week, for a grand total of $141 million (which PoTC almost made in a mere three days!). Not very good news for what supposedly is the world's most famous comic book character. Here's a brief list of superheroes beating Superman: Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Jesus.

An Inconvenient Truth is chugging along, having moved up to fourth highest grossing documentary, at about $15 million. At some point a few months ago I made the prediction it would end up with about $25 million, good for third place overall, which I think will hold.

In other box office news, the star power that is David Hasselhoff propels Click over the $100 million, making it the Hoff's second $100 million hit in a row, following 2004's Dodgeball.

TUMotW: The Core

Previous installments: Spartan

This week's flick: The Core
Directed by Jon Amiel
Written by Cooper Layne and John Rogers
Starring Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart, Stanley Tucci, Delroy Lindo, Bruce Greenwood, DJ Qualls

I get the feeling my entire blog readership (yeah, both of you) is having a WTH?^[1] moment right about now. But hear me out.
Don't get me wrong. The plot is ridiculous. Here's a brief run-down:

1. The earth's core stops spinning
2. Shit happens
3. A crack team of scientists decides to nuke the core into spinning
4. More shit happens
5. Saved!

This is essentially a big budget b-movie^[2]. It's a fun, stupid movie with a stellar cast, including the great Stanley Tucci and the tragically underrated Bruce Greenwood^[3], who unfortunately snuffs it about half way through the flick^[4].

This movie essentially belongs in the same category as fellow disaster movie Armageddon: it's not high art, but it's a good way to kill a couple of hours.

^[1] What the Hasselhoff?
^[2] b₃m?
^[3] Who also stars in several upcoming installments of TUMotW...
^[4] Spoiler? I'll give you a spoiler: at the end, Bruce Willis realises he's been dead through the entire movie. I'm not saying which movie, though.

World Cup Fever. Don't Catch It.

So we got two finalists. Ample time for petit moi to jump on the football bandwagon!

I always thought Germany would get to the finals, unless they met Brazil on the way there, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

As for France, I thought they were down for the count until they beat Spain. Then, after beating Brazil, there was little doubt in my mind they'd make it the finals. Don't get me wrong, I was definitely rooting for Portugal in the semifinals. We all love the underdogs.

Also, as for football being the world's sport, looks more like it's Europe's sport, after both Argentina and Brazil getting the boot in the quarter finals.

So, for the finals. I'm rooting for France. No particular reason why, other than to stick it to all the France bashers out there.
And then I can go back to not caring about football for another four years. Or two, the Eurocup is coming up...

The Weekly Box Office Commentary

Happy July 5th! No one celebrating July 5th? Okay then.
The latest box office numbers are in, and apparently Superman has returned, bringing in 74 million over the extended weekend^[1]. About time too, apparently the movie has been in the making for some 10 years and ended up costing 260 million dollars (of which at least 100 million had been spent before filming even began!). It doesn't beat the two Spider-Man flicks or the latest X-Men one, but it's a not too shabby number nevertheless.

An Inconvenient Truth brought in $2.6 million, moving the Truth up to the fifth highest grossing documentary of all time.

Other than that, not too much of interest. Other than The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift is making way too much money. I opted out of that franchise after...the first movie, and the idea that the box office returns may well secure the production of a fourth fast and furious flick...oh, the horror, the horror.

^[1] July 4th is Independence Day in the US, making Friday - Tuesday a five day weekend.

LotW: Faroese

Previous installments: Occitan, Luxembourgish, Catalan

We've ended up in the North Atlantic for this week's language of the week: Faroese.

Faroese is a Germanic language, or more specifically a West Scandinavian language, spoken primarily on the Faroe Islands and by Faroese expats in Denmark (The Faroe Islands is an autonomous region of Denmark). There's also a sizable minority of Faroese-speakers on Iceland. All told, about 80.000 - 90.000 people world wide speak Faroese.
Thanks to the remote location of the Faroe Islands, the Faroese language has evolved quite differently than mainland Danish, Swedish or Norwegian from the (now extinct) old Norse language, which was the common ancestor language spoken in Scandinavia during the Viking ages. Faroese grammar is relatively similar to Icelandic and old Norse, although the three are quite different when spoken. The same also holds true for the nynorsk dialect of Norwegian.

Although Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are pretty much mutually intelligible, this does not extend to Icelandic and Faroese, and Icelandic and Faroese are not typically mutually intelligible either.

For further reading, check out the English Wikipedia entry, or the Faroese one if you feel so inclined.

New Lordi Members, part two

About a month ago I took it upon me to, for the well-being of the Finnish music industry, replace all members in Finnish superstar rock band and surprise Eurovision 2006 winners Lordi. Clearly winning the Eurovision is bound to go to their heads, so we might as well line up replacements now, so we're prepared for the inevitable split.

Clearly Finland's only chance of ever winning the Eurovision again is to let Lordi represent us once more. I'm just doing my part to make sure Lordi is still around for next year's debacle in Helsinki.

So, without further ado, the second replacement is...Ann Coulter.

(Coulter's the one in the bottom right corner.)

To be continued...

"Some Mother******s Are Always Trying to Ice-Skate Uphill"

Apparently Blade: The TV Series premieres tonight in the US. I quite like the Blade trilogy of movies, particularly Blade II. If you're not familiar with the Blade movies, Blade is a half-man, half-vampire, who runs around killing vampires, equipped with various forms of high-tech gadgetry. What can I say, it's a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. I know some people are not particularly fond of Wesley Snipes^[1], who stars as Blade in all three movies, but he does quite well for himself in that role^[2].

I'm not sure about this TV series though. For one thing, it stars one Kirk 'Sticky Fingaz' Jones, a former(?) rapper, as Blade. Now, I'm not familiar with Jones' work as a rapper or as an actor, but picking 'Sticky Fingaz' as your artist name certainly raises some quality concerns. Besides that, what else is there to do storywise? In Blade: Trinity, Blade fought against Dracula (ably portrayed by Dominic Purcell and various forms of CGI). Where are you going to go after that? Fighting off Predators?

I'll definitely watch the series whenever it airs in Finland^[3], but I'm not expecting much.

^[1] Whose career has since been lost to the ravages of straight-to-video
^[2] Okay, the Blade character is not much of a stretch actingwise, but you have to admire a guy who gets paid to act like a prick. Isn't that everyone's dream job?
^[3] It should premiere on Finnish television in a couple of years, if ever...

Good News Everyone!

I can't quite believe it, but it appears to be true. Futurama is being revived, and at least 13 new episodes will be produced. At least if we are to believe Reuters:

Comedy Central has resurrected the former Fox animated series from "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening and David X. Cohen. At least 13 new episodes will be produced -- the first since the series' original run from 1999-2003.

As the article then goes on to quote executives at Comedy Central, I would think Reuters aren't making stuff up. Although there's been talks about TV movies and new episodes since the series first was cancelled in 2002^[1], this time, for once, it seems to be legit. I can hardly wait! Futurama is one of my favourite series. While The Simpsons (Futurama creator Matt Groening's other animated TV series) have gone a bit stale over the years, I felt Futurama really could have gone on for a quite a while longer.

It should be noted that the new episodes won't premiere for quite a while, as we'll have to wait until 2008, some five years after the last batch of first-run episodes were aired. Still, something to look forward to!

And a special message to whatever executive at Fox that decided to cancel Futurama in the first place: Bite my shiny metal ass!

^[1] While cancelled in 2002, the last remaining episodes were aired in 2003

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Discworld

Via Slashdot^[1] I found this interesting article by Client DeBoer on the competing Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats, both touted by their respective backers as the replacement for the DVD format. DeBoer posits that neither of the two will catch on with the general public, and lists the top ten reasons for them failing to do so. The point that rings most true to me is this one:

3. HD DVD and Blu-ray are NOT Quantum Leaps in Technology
Consumers came over in droves when CDs were released back in 1982. The new format offered not only a new digital media, but also a way to instantly access tracks across an entire album. Convenience, not technology, drove this format to almost instant consumer adoption. Fast forward a bit to 1997 when the first DVD player was released. Again, convenience, not technology, drove people to the market en masse. Unlike VHS tapes, the new DVD format was smaller, easily navigated and would not wear down over time like existing tape-based formats.

Exactly right. The introduction of the DVD was nothing short of a revolution. Blu-Ray? HD-DVD? Okay, so it's better than DVD, but is it better enough?
DeBoer also mentions the spectacular failure of SACD and DVD-Audio, two competing format intended to replace the CD. The first thing I thought the first time I heard of either a couple of years ago was "eh." Audio CDs are good enough. Perhaps not for those of you with golden ears, but for us mere mortals they most certainly are.

Besides, I wouldn't spend money on a player of one format or the other until I'm absolutely sure the one I'm picking is the format that will ultimately prevail. Let's just say I'm in possession of waaay too many Betamax tapes for me to get into the early-adoption game again. Another important issue is backwards compability; I'm not going to replace my DVD collection^[2], so any player I buy had better support DVDs as well.

Though, unlike the VHS and Betamax, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have the exact same dimensions, and I can't imagine it being to difficult to create a player that could handle both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs. The end result might be much like the format war between the DVD-R and DVD+R burnable DVD formats: ultimately all burners just supported both, the format war essentially ending in a tie.
For the time being I'm sticking with my DVD collection, though. Until HVD comes along, that is.

^[1] Oh, don't start.
^[2] Which numbers well over 200 at this point. My salary is way too high.

Intraffication

A staple of the science fiction genre is the concept of virtual reality - an entirely artificial, computer simulated world, available at the flick of a switch. Many a science fiction story, most famously The Matrix, present an often dystopian world where one can lead an entire life being jacked in to a computer, not having to ever move a muscle while losing the very things that make us human in the process.
I submit that being a brain in a vat may not be such a bad idea after all - for one thing, one wouldn't have to endure traffic to get to work.

You see, traffic really brings out the worst in man.
For example, when you get a green light and thus are entitled to cross the road, and some jackass in a car comes within inches of hitting you, and then he has the audacity to be annoyed at you because you're standing in the way of his oh-so-precious car and hindering him from going about whatever incredibly important business he supposedly have.
Another example, you're crossing the road, only to be almost hit by three mopedists who apparently think red lights don't really apply to them. I don't know the fatality rates for collisions with mopeds, but I imagine being run over by a moped can result in rather serious injuries. If your goal in life is to die with some sense of dignity, clearly being run over by a freakin' moped is to be avoided. Standing up for freedom and democracy by standing in the way of a military tank with the very real danger of being killed is one thing, but being run over by some 15 year old punk who missed a few lectures in traffic class?

I want to believe in the inherent goodness of man, I really do. But it is very hard to do so when getting from point A to point B within a predetermined timeframe becomes more important than the people you run over in the process.

The Weekly Box Office Commentary

Here's another new pseudoweekly feature, wherein I'll comment on the latest box office figures. I've already commented on box office numbers in at least one previous entry, though that was specifically for An Inconvenient Truth. I don't intend on writing longer dissertations on the inner workings of the box office, I suggest going to Box Office Prophets or Box Office Mojo for that. Rather, I plan on commenting on a select few movies currently in theaters that I find interesting.

The number one movie of the weekend is Click, Adam Sandler's 510^th hit movie in a row. To be honest, I never did understand the appeal of Sandler. I mean, his movies are fairly amusing, but box office gold? Nevertheless, it should come as no surprise that Click is a hit, as it also stars David 'The Hoff' Hasselhoff.

Speaking of overrated comedians^[1], Jack Black apparently also has a hit movie out called Nacho Libre. In two weeks, it's taken in about 52 million dollars.

Over all, this didn't appear to be a good movie-going weekend in the US.
The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift? Man, those Japanese horror movie really are scary!
Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties? Starring Academy Award nominated actor Bill Murray...my head almost exploded typing that.
The Lake House? Yeah, because we've all been clamouring for a romantic movie starring Keanu Reeves. "Woah! We'll. Always. Have. Paris! Duuuude!"

Outside of the top ten, An Inconvenient Truth is chugging along. It's now the seventh most successful documentary of all time, with more to come.

^[1] Sandler, not The Hoff!

LotW: Catalan

Previous installments: Occitan, Luxembourgish

In tribute to the Catalonians voting for greater autonomy from Spain this past Sunday, this week's language is Catalan.

Catalan is spoken by about 10 million people primarily in the Spanish regions of Catalonia, Valencia and Balearic Islands, but also in Andorra, southern France and northwestern Italy. Like Spanish, Catalan is a romance language. It is occasionally, and controversially, considered to be merely a dialect of Occitan, which is spoken in neighbouring regions. A perhaps even more contentious matter is whether the Catalan dialect spoken in Valencia (called Valencian) should be considered a distinct separate language.

In English, the word cul-de-sac, a dead-end street, is considered to be of either French or Catalan origin. Barrack is derived from the Catalan word barraca.

Famed Spanish author Carlos Ru�z Zaf�n was born in Barcelona, Catalonia. He has written in Catalan, though Ru�z Zaf�n's most famous novel, La Sombra del Viento (The Shadow of the Wind) was written in Spanish.

For more information on Catalan, check out the English Wikipedia entry, or alternatively the Catalan one.

I Do Solemnly Swear that I Will Unfaithfully Execute the Office of President...

Over at Washington Monthly, Steve Brennan writes this interesting article: High Infidelity - What if three admitted adulterers run for president and no one cares?. The three adulterers referred to in the title are Newt Gingrich, John McCain and Rudy Guiliani (the later two being considered the frontrunners for the Republican nomination). The article is well worth a read, particularly if you recall all the hoopla surrounding Bill Clinton's penis. I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.
Personally I'm of the opinion that a person's sexual escapades are quite irrelevant with regards to a person's ability to serve in higher office (assuming said sexual escapades are within the boundaries of the law, of course). Don't get me wrong; if you cheat on your wife, you're a douche bag. Yeah, that means you too, Bill.
But while it may cost you your marriage, it shouldn't cost you your job.

Metablogging: Le Grand Blogroll

Quick question for French people: is "blogroll" a masculine or feminine word in French? Repondez-moi rapidement, s'il vous plait. Merci beaucoup.

I just noticed I've been added to the blogroll of this fine Spanco-British fellow. I felt compelled to be reciprocal and add him to my blogroll. That's when I discovered, horror of horrors, I didn't have a blogroll! So I decided to get one. If you look over to your right, you should see it. Unless you're viewing the archive, or using RSS, or Blogger breaks down and totally messes up my layout, or the post has gone so far down the list you have to scroll up to see it, or whatever. Anyway, there's a blogroll. I've added a few of my favourite political blogs there as well.
Now, all I need to do is turning on the comments feature to reach complete blogtasticness. I'll save that for some other time.

Tragically Underrated Movie of the Week: Spartan

Time to unveil another new (ir)regular^[1] feature on this here blog. As you might possibly glean from reading the title, in this feature I will present movies that I enjoyed very much...but no one else did, be it because no one saw it or because everyone else hated it.
I'm not planning on writing full-fledged reviews^[2]; I'd rather consider them reviewlets™.

This weeks movie: Spartan.
Directed and written by David Mamet
Starring Val Kilmer, Derek Luke, William H. Macy, Ed O'Neill

Spartan was fairly well received when it was released in theaters in the spring of 2004, but it didn't do much business. Which is a pity, because it is a great movie.

The story is a fairly ordinary spy thriller: The president's daughter is kidnapped, and Val Kilmer's US agent (of an unspecified agency) is tasked with getting her back. It is not so much the story that makes this an excellent movie, but rather the way the story is told.

Many persons find the rhythm of Mamet's dialogue to be a bit grating, but I found it to be rather intriguing. It worked well with the overall tone of the movie. The score, camera angles, pacing, acting...it all comes together to create what could otherwise have been a bland and unoriginal thriller.

Overall an excellent movie. Towards the end it becomes a bit too preachy in critiquing cynicism in politics, but it doesn't take too much away from the movie as a whole.


^[1] "... of the Week" does in no way suggest this will be a weekly feature. Rather, it means "whenever I feel like it."
^[2] And may it never be said I'm a good reviewer. Here's my review of X-Men: The Last Stand: "Okay."

Downloading this blog entry is a criminal offense punishable by death

In the past few years or so, just about every DVD I purchase features this unbypassable antipiracy advertisement that starts the minute you pop the DVD into the DVD player. The ad goes something like this:

"Waah! Waah! Stealing is bad! Waah! Waah! Instead of making 11.5 gazillion dollars last year, we only made 10.5! Waah! Waah!"

Granted, they do have a point. If everyone just downloaded all the movies they wanted to see, the movie companies would go bankrupt. Of course, one could then argue that if your business model doesn't work, perhaps it would be prudent to change business model. But that's for another blog entry (or not).
But here's where they're completely off the mark: Since I've purchased the DVD in the first place, I don't fucking need to be lectured about the virtues of buying goods! I'm with you on the whole capitalism-as-an-economic-system paradigm! And I particularly don't need to be lectured about it on every single DVD that I buy, and every single time I sit down to watch a freakin' DVD.

And while I'm in a complaining mood, what's up with those warning labels on cigarette packets?
"Smoking can cause cancer."
"Smoking is bad."
"No, seriously, smoking is really bad."
"If you smoke this, you will die a horrible and painful death."
What purpose do they serve? Are there any habitual smokers out there, who upon noticing the warning labels think to themselves "Waah! I had no idea smoking was hazardous for your health! I better stop smoking immediately!" I think not.

LotW: Luxembourgish

Part one and introduction to the Language of the Week can be found here.

Keen-eyed readers will note there was no language of the week last week. I've managed to write only one entry, and I'm already behind schedule. Damn! Well, for future reference, the aim is to post a LotW on a weekly basis, though the frequency of these entries may vary wildly.

The last entry on this subject was a bit rushed. In the future I hope to make these LoTW entries a bit more in-depth, though I'm not planning on writing longer dissertations on the subject.

With all that out of the way, let's take a look at this week's LotW: Luxembourgish.

Luxembourgish is a Germanic language, not surprisingly spoken mainly in Luxembourg and the surrounding border regions of Belgium, Germany and France. Today about 300,000 people speak Luxembourgish (it should be noted that in Luxembourg itself, Luxembourgish is one of three official languages, the other two being French and German. While Luxembourgish is spoken by most Luxembourgers, French remains the administrive language). With its close geographical proximity to two major languages, French and German, it should perhaps come as no surprise that Luxembourgish have similarities to both, with a bit of Dutch thrown in for good measure.

Many Luxembourgish words are borrowed directly either from French or Germany; as an example, the Luxembourgish word for thank you is merci (as it is in French). Other words again are derived from French or German; for example, the Luxembourgish word ech (meaning I) is clearly derived from the German ich.

One characteristic and heavily used feature in Luxembourish is the letter �, representing the schwa. Yes, the schwa. What is the schwa, you ask? Schwa is a vowel sound, whose definition is a bit fluent, but it sounds somewhat like a French e. The Luxembourgish word for Luxembourgish, l�tzebuergesch, features, as you can see, the schwa.

Europeans may be more familiar with Luxembourg than they think; one of the largest European TV production companies is RTL, which is an acronym for Radio T�l� Luxemburg/L�tzebuerg, which operates TV channels in several languages throughout Europe (apparently the company's primary owner these day is Bertselmann, originally a German company).

For further reading, check out the English Wikipedia entry on the subject. Or why not the entry in Luxembourgish?

On Gender Equality in Finnish Politics and The Swedish People's Party

The Swedish People's Party of Finland elects a male chairman over two more qualified female candidates, not weeks after the Finnish Left Alliance replaced their female chairman with a male one. Clearly, the best qualification for politicians in the first country in Europe to allow women to vote is having a penis.
(Though, Finland has more gender equality than many other countries. We have female president, and briefly also had a female prime minister.)

The really sad part of it all is that the Swedish People's Party was the first Finnish party to field a major female contender for president in '94: Elisabeth Rehn, incidentally also one of the world's first female defense ministers.
Compare that to the presidential election of 2006, when SPP fielded a conservative boring old man with disastrous results (Rehn proceeded to the second round of voting, where she received about 46% of the vote. Lax managed an unimpressive 1.6%; coming in seventh in the first round).

In Heat and Other Random Thoughts

• It's bloody hot today. Maybe Al Gore is on to something, after all.
  How do you poor bastards closer to the equator ever put up with the heat?
• Sweden got its ass handed to it. As a Finn, I'm not gloating. Not at all. Except for now: Ha! Ha! Haaaa!
• Newt Gingrich is definitely maybe running for president. Hasselhoff help us all.

The Reign of Madness, Ended

Just to post a quick follow-up to previously reported events, I'm happy to report the issue at hand came to a happy and not particularly dramatic conclusion. I mailed the CD store in question, they apologized and sent me the right CD, I sent the wrongly delievered CD back to them. They even paid the postage fee. I'm still not quite sure how such a mix-up is even possible, but I'm beyond caring at this point. I can now rock out to Savatage's sophomore album without having to worry about such matters. Well, until next time I receive a CD I did not order, at least. This was not the first time. In the future I should just buy CDs readily available in the local, offline CD stores. The problem with that is that I'm not really looking to complete my thus far non-existent Britney Spears collection.

And for those wondering whether this whole ordeal was the reason for me taking a brief hiatus from blogging...no.

Alcoholism: Fun for the whole family!

Yours truly returns to the blogging world having been MIA for a while. Life^[1] got inbetween, what can I say.

If you've read this far, you're probably thinking you're about to read some very heartfelt story, possibly with a bitter taste of satire, about my horrible, horrible struggles with alcoholism. This is not the case. No, this post is about coffee^[2].

I'm not an alcoholic. I am, however, addicted to coffee.
How do I even get off comparing coffee addiction to alcoholism, and what does all this have to do with the headline in the first place, you ask? Well, turns out it's perfectly possible to combine the two, according to this article on AOL:

Coffee May Protect Liver From Alcohol, Study Says
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, AP

CHICAGO (June 12) - Coffee may counteract alcohol's poisonous effects on the liver and help prevent cirrhosis, researchers say.

In a study of more than 125,000 people, one cup of coffee per day cut the risk of alcoholic cirrhosis by 20 percent. Four cups per day reduced the risk by 80 percent. The coffee effect held true for women and men of various ethnic backgrounds.
...
Of course, there is a better way to avoid alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver, Klatsky said.

"The way to avoid getting ill is not to drink a lot of coffee, but to cut down on the drinking" of alcohol, he said.

I'm quoting that last part from the article merely in the event some underage person is reading this blog.
Tempestas Nordica disclaimer: this blog and its author are to be in no way held responsible for any liver damage sustained in the course of reading the entries on this blog.

I've long been a proponent of coffee. For a brief period of time (a couple of weeks) I attempted being a non-coffee drinker. Or a coffee non-drinker. Whatever. Ultimately I started drinking again, was my point^[3].
I think it should be mandatory to drink coffee; coffee has so many wonderful effects.
Did you know coffee can cure baldness? Well, if the English-language edition of Pravda is to be believed, anyway:

Coffee to cure baldness

German medics arrived at the conclusion that consumption of large caffeine doses prevents baldness.

Male's hormone testosterone is responsible for baldness in men, meaning that the more testosterone a man as [sic], the more prone he is to losing his hair.
...
According to an expert-cosmetologist Adolf Klenka, ?one would need to consume 60-80 cups of coffee per day for the caffeine to reach hair follicles.?
...
"...We did prove however that caffeine should be used as an external substance that should be applied directly onto the scalp.?

Although, to be honest, my receding hairline has yet to be affected by my coffee intake. It should be noted, however, that I'm not quite up to 60 cups a day^[4].


^[1] Yeah, who woulda thunk it?
^[2] I have a feeling coffee may become a recurring theme on this blog. My first idea was to name the blog Confessions of a Coffee Addict, but obviously that had been used about a million times already. No original ideas left in this world, I tell ya.
^[3] I am a person of little will power. Thank Hasselhoff I never took up smoking.
^[4] ...yet.