Showing posts with label guardian.co.uk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guardian.co.uk. Show all posts

Friday, October 17, 2014

$3,650

"The richest 1% of the world’s population are getting wealthier, owning more than 48% of global wealth, according to a report published on Tuesday which warned growing inequality could be a trigger for recession.
According to the Credit Suisse global wealth report (pdf), a person needs just $3,650 – including the value of equity in their home – to be among the wealthiest half of world citizens. However, more than $77,000 is required to be a member of the top 10% of global wealth holders, and $798,000 to belong to the top 1%.
“Taken together, the bottom half of the global population own less than 1% of total wealth. In sharp contrast, the richest decile hold 87% of the world’s wealth, and the top percentile alone account for 48.2% of global assets,” said the annual report, now in its fifth year." the.guardian.com: Richest 1% of people own nearly half of global wealth, says report
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A net worth of $3,650, €2,859 or SEK26,214 doesn't really sound like that much, does it?

The fact that this low amount of wealth places you securely among the 50% richest people in the world is a scary and sobering thought.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

The Barilla Boycott (Updated)

Poor Guido Barilla, he has had a hell of a long weekend due to his big mouth and airing his thoughtless bigotry.

One would think that chairpersons of large International companies had staffers to coach them and guide them at every step, especially when meeting the media, but somehow it is refreshing to sometimes actually hear one of them speak his honest opinion, even if it is to the detriment of his family and their business.

The guardian.com.uk has this brilliant summary of how it all started going sour for poor Guido on Thursday:
Guido Barilla, who controls the fourth-generation Barilla Group family business with his two brothers, sparked outrage among activists, consumers and some politicians when he said he would not consider using a gay family to advertise Barilla pasta.
"For us the concept of the sacred family remains one of the basic values of the company," he told Italian radio on Wednesday evening. "I would not do it but not out of a lack of respect for homosexuals who have the right to do what they want without bothering others … [but] I don't see things like they do and I think the family that we speak to is a classic family."
Asked what effect he thought his attitude would have on gay consumers of pasta, Barilla said: "Well, if they like our pasta and our message they will eat it; if they don't like it and they don't like what we say they will … eat another."
In response, Aurelio Mancuso, chairman of Equality Italia, accused Barilla of being deliberately provocative. "Accepting the invitation of Barilla's owner to not eat his pasta, we are launching a boycott campaign against all his products," he added.
Although poor Guido, his family and the company have since worked tirelessly trying to rectify his faux pas with a written statement and a video of poor Guido being forced to read the statement (both posted prominently on the company website), these attempts however don't have the same honest ring to them as when he spoke from his heart. They therefore fail miserably in convincing anyone.

Bock in SecondLife recommends all its readers (gays and straight allies) to follow the recommendation of poor Guido Barilla himself and refrain from purchasing any products belonging to that particular group of bigoted misogynists and homophobes. I am joining the Barilla boycott and will certainly not be forcing my pink money on products from a company that doesn't accept me and my kind. The thing I will miss most due to this decision is actually not the pasta, but my preferred "knäckebröd" (the Swedish hard-rye crisp bread) from Wasa.

The brands in the Barilla Group are
Barilla,
Mulino Bianco,
Voiello,
Pavesi
,
Academia Barilla
,
Wasa
,
Harry’s
(France and Russia),
Misko (Greece), 
Filiz (Turkey),
Yemina and 
Vesta (Mexico)
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Update September 30, 2013
Josh Rimer, a Canadian YouTube Marketer, has made a parody of poor Guido's insincere apology. My thanks to Anonymous for informing me about it in the comments to this post.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Alan Turing May Be Posthumously Pardoned

Alan Turing, 1912-1954
"The Renaissance Man" (Courtesy of Tumblr, Strangeland)
 "Alan Turing, the Enigma codebreaker who took his own life after being convicted of gross indecency under anti-homosexuality legislation, is to be given a posthumous pardon.

The government signalled on Friday that it is prepared to support a backbench bill that would pardon Turing, who died from cyanide poisoning at the age of 41 in 1954 after he was subjected to "chemical castration"."

Read the rest of the article at guardian.co.uk; Enigma codebreaker Alan Turing to be given posthumous pardon.
...

About time!

Saturday, February 16, 2013

The European Trade in Horsemeat

More than 60,000 tonnes of horsemeat was traded by European countries in 2012. This data, from the Eurostat internal trade database shows exports of Equidae over the year - that is, 'horse-like' animals, such as horses, donkeys, mules and asses. Roll over the buttons on the left for details of where each country received its equidae from.

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While considering how I have been lied to by the manufacturers and traders of meat over the last 20+ years I am on the verge of becoming a vegetarian.

Friday, December 21, 2012

NRA Calls for Police State


"The National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the U.S., has called for armed security guards to be posted in every school in the country and insisted that the only solution to gun violence in the wake of the Newtown massacre was more guns.
A week almost to the hour after a gunman blasted his way into Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut, killing 20 first-grade children as well as six staff members, the NRA's executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre finally broke his silence and delivered a defiant message to the nation.
Throwing down the gauntlet to Barack Obama, he declared: "The only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." That is a mantra that he has used after several previous mass shootings."
Quote and video from guardian.co.uk.
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I have never heard a more blatantly cynical and stupid a**hole in any of my entire two lives.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Are Men Endagered?

"Vitruvian Man" by Leonardo daVinci
"For a long time, evolutionary psychologists have claimed that we are all imprinted with adaptive imperatives from a distant past: men are faster and stronger and hardwired to fight for scarce resources, a trait that shows up in contemporary life as a drive to either murder or win on Wall Street. Women are more nurturing and compliant, suiting them perfectly to raise children and create harmony among neighbours. This kind of thinking frames our sense of the natural order.
But now it seems as if those fixed roles are more fungible than we ever imagined. A more female-dominated society does not necessarily translate into a soft feminine utopia. Women are becoming more aggressive and even violent in ways we once thought were exclusively reserved for men. This drive shows up in a new breed of female murderers and also in a rising class of young female "killers" on Wall Street. Whether the shift can be attributed to women now being socialised differently or whether it's simply an artefact of our having misunderstood how women are "hardwired" in the first place is at this point unanswerable and makes no difference. Difficult as it is to conceive, the very rigid story we believed about ourselves is obviously no longer true. There is no "natural" order, only the way things are."
The quote above is an excerpt from an extract of an intersting book by Hanna Rosin in todays Observer/guardian.co.uk. Read more here "Hanna Rosin: are men an endagerd species?" (url)

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Interesting Twist, Julian

Susan Benn, from the Julian Assange Defence Fund, addresses the media
outside the Ecuadorean embassy. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
Julian Assange delivered a statement to the press yesterday, through a spokesperson outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London, in which he, among other things, said:
"Although it is normal procedure, Swedish authorities have refused, without reason, to make the three hour trip to London and to interview Julian causing him to be trapped in the UK under virtual house arrest for 561 days and an additional 10 days in solitary confinement – all without charge. Instead they have issued an Interpol red notice and extradition requests."
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Nice try Julian, but you get no bananas from me. You cannot blame this on either the prosecutor Mrs. Marianne Ny or Sweden, because it is all your own fault by the course of action you have chosen. 

It is up to the prosecutor to decide in what manner to best conduct the investigation and if it is possible and suitable for the full investigation of the alleged crimes to question a suspect abroad. It is never a right for the suspected criminal to ask for special treatment or to tell the prosecutor how to do her job.

Read the full article guardian.co.uk; Julian Assange to sit out standoff over extradition at Ecuadorean embassy.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Galloping Paranoia Analyzed

Photo: Matt Dunham/Scanpix
As I am temporarily suffering from a mild bout of "rainbow overdose", I will try to direct your interest towards this interesting article by Nick Cohen, which was published on guardian.co.uk on Sunday; Nick Cohen: Definition of paranoia: supporters of Julian Assange.

Some of Assange's supporters say that the women have no right to put allegations of sexual abuse before a competent court. Instead, they denounce them as "feminazis" in language so extreme that the women's lawyer said his clients were "the victims of a crime, but they are looked upon as the perpetrators". I doubt that posterity will recall much that Assange said. But it ought to remember his assertion that "Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism". In one sentence, Assange encapsulated the special pleading and misogyny of a rotten "progressive" culture.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Justice Denied

guardian.co.uk has interviewed the legal representative of the two Swedish women in the Assange-investigation and give us the following report: Julian Assange asylum move is ´a tragedy´ for his accusers, says lawyer (url full interview) :
"Julian Assange's decision to seek asylum in Ecuador is "a tragedy" for the two women who have accused him of sexual assault in Sweden, their lawyer has said.
Claes Borgström, who represents the two unnamed women with whom the WikiLeaks founder had sexual relations in Stockholm in August 2010, told the Guardian the women were frustrated and disappointed by Assange's decision to seek asylum rather than face investigation in Sweden over claims of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.
"They are disappointed, but they are getting used to this by now," said Borgström, who has represented the women throughout Assange's sequence of appeals against extradition in the British courts.
"They know that all they can do is wait. I have told them I am not sure, but I think he will still be extradited … it is a tragedy for the women. I don't know how long it will take for him to be extradited now. Victims want to put these things behind them in order to be able to get on with their lives. The tragedy is that he doesn't take his responsibility. He should have come to Sweden."
...
I totally agree with Mr. Borgström, justice delayed is justice denied for the two women.

Given the constant problem with most sexual crime allegations, that there are only two people present with conflicting versions of what occurred,  this may be a difficult case for the prosecutor to gather enough proof to bring charges against Assange and then to get him convicted by a court of law. I - like everyone else - do not yet know what supporting evidence the prosecutor may be in possession of. Delays are usually not at all helpful in crime investigations.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Political Asylum

The embassy of the Republic of Ecuador to the United Kingdom today issued the following statement:
"This afternoon Mr Julian Assange arrived at the Ecuadorian Embassy seeking political asylum from the Ecuadorian government. We have immediately passed his application on to the relevant department in Quito. While the department assesses Mr Assange's application, Mr Assange will remain at the embassy, under the protection of the Ecuadorian government. (...) The decision to consider Mr Assange's application for protective asylum should in no way be interpreted as Ecuador interfering in the judicial processes of either the United Kingdom or Sweden."
Read the full report by Beatrice Woolf of the guardian.co.uk, "Julian Assange seeking asylum in Ecuadorian embassy in London." (url)
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Another imaginative and interesting development in this case to further delay the investigation into the criminal charges complaints for rape and sexual molestation made against Assange by two Swedish women. 

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Assange Loses Extradition Appeal But...

Photograph: Geoff Caddick/AFP/Getty Images
guardian.co.uk today reports:
"Julian Assange has lost his appeal against extradition to Sweden at the supreme court.
By a majority of five to two, the justices decided that a public prosecutor was "judicial authority" and that therefore his arrest warrant had been lawfully issued.
But lawyers for the WikiLeaks founder submitted an urgent request to the supreme court asking for permission to challenge one of the points made in the judgment.
Assange, who is facing charges of sexual assault and rape, was not in court. There was no legal requirement for him to be present. According to his solicitor, Gareth Peirce, he was stuck in traffic
The court granted Assange's lawyers 14 days to present their arguments that crucial issues related to Article 31 of the Vienna convention, on which the majority of the justices based their decision, were not raised during the hearing.
Assange's lawyers can also, at the same time, begin the process of appealing against the judgment to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg."
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So we have another delay, even if this last emergency application hinges on a crucial legal point in all democracies. No one should be judged on grounds that the involved parties haven´t been able to discuss in the case. If it is true, it would be a bit tragicomic that such a fundamental mistake is made in a high-profile case by the finest judges, but shit does happen...

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

A.B.B. Indicted For Terror and Murder

 Lise Aserud/AFP/Getty Images
"Norwegian prosecutors on Wednesday indicted (A.B.B.) on terror and murder charges for killing 77 people in a bomb and shooting rampage on 22 July 2011 but said the confessed mass killer was unlikely to go to prison for the country's worst peacetime massacre.
Prosecutors said they considered the 33-year-old rightwing extremist to be psychotic and would seek a sentence of involuntary commitment to psychiatric care instead of imprisonment unless new information about his mental health emerged during the trial, due to start in April.
As expected, they charged him under a paragraph in Norway's anti-terror law that refers to violent acts intended to disrupt key government functions or spread fears in the population.
(A.B.B.) has confessed to the attacks but denies criminal guilt, portraying the victims as "traitors" for embracing immigration policies he claims will result in an Islamic colonisation of Norway."
Read the whole article on guardian.co.uk here.
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Please note that the question whether or not A.B.B. is indeed criminally insane is being reinvestigated by order of the Oslo District Court..

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Just Get Out al-Assad

guardian.co.uk informs us;
The United Nations general assembly has approved a resolution backing an Arab League plan that calls on the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down and strongly condemns human rights violations in Syria by his regime.
The vote in the 193-member body was 137-12 with 17 abstentions. Russia and China, who vetoed a similar resolution in the security council, voted against the resolution.
There are no vetoes in the general assembly and its resolutions are not legally binding, but they do reflect world opinion on major issues.
Western diplomats were hoping for a high yes vote to deliver a strong message to Assad to immediately end all human rights violations and attacks on civilians and hand power to his vice-president.
"Today the UN General Assembly sent a clear message to the people of Syria - the world is with you," US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said in a statement. "An overwhelming majority of UN member states have backed the plan put forward by the Arab League to end the suffering of Syrians. Bashar al-Assad has never been more isolated." (Full article here)
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"Fuck the hell out of there al-Assad and for fucks sake stop killing your people", is my interpretation of the worlds message to Assad in this resolution.

Not surprisingly the mass murderer by proxy of his own people Assad was supported - yet again - by Russia, under orders from the "little father" Putin and his puppet Medvedev. and the Dictatorial Republic of China.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Assange to be heard by UK Supreme Court

Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
guardian.co.uk informed us on Friday that the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has granted Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, permission to appeal against extradition to Sweden, where he faces sex crimes allegations.

The issue that the Supreme Court will decide on is "whether a prosecutor is a judicial authority".

Wouldn't it be amusing if the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny, after having the opportunity to question Julian Assange (when he has finally been sent over) decides that she doesn't have enough to substantiate a prosecution on the charges made.

The hearing has been scheduled for two days beginning on February 1st, 2012,

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Assange Loses Appeal


guardian.co.uk today informs us that the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has lost his high court appeal against extradition to Sweden to face rape allegations.

Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ouseley on Wednesday handed down their judgment in the 40-year-old Australian's appeal against a European arrest warrant issued by Swedish prosecutors after rape and sexual assault accusations made by two Swedish women following his visit to Stockholm in August 2010.

The judges rejected the appeal on all four grounds made by his legal team, opening up the possibility that Assange could be removed to Sweden by the end of the month.

Lord Justice Thomas said a date would be fixed in three weeks' time to hear any case by Assange that he should be allowed to take the case to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

To appeal again, Assange must persuade the judges there is a wider issue of "public importance" at stake in the latest decision. If he is successful in persuading the high court of that, he is likely to remain on conditional bail until a hearing in front of the supreme court. This is unlikely to take place until next year.

If he is denied the right to appeal then British law enforcement officers will be responsible for arranging his removal to Sweden within 10 days.

You can read Robert Booth´s full article here guardian.co.uk: Julian Assange loses appeal against extradition.


P.S. The picture pf Mr.. Assange was updated after the correct information supplied by my buddy Apmel in the comments.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Julian Is Back in Court

Julian Assange appeared in court again today for his appeal hearing against extradition to Sweden, where he faces allegations of sexual assault.

Read the coverage at guardian.co.uk, because I cannot be bothered to write about him right now.