The Russian “Crimson Tide”

Crimson Tide has by some been called one of the best submarine films of its time. I am not sure it qualifies for such an honour as it is not as much a film about the life on a submarine such as the German marvel Das Boot. Rather it is a depiction of a real fear, which prevailed in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The crisis in the former Soviet Union has intensified. With a nuclear base in the hands of nationalist rebels, the world is waking up to another Cuban missile crisis, and the USS ‘Alabama’ is dispatched to deep waters within striking distance of …

Juan Cole’s mistake: Conflations

Juan Cole is an American history professor, who has studied the Middle East throughout most of his professional career. On his blog, he wrote a post about the century long assault on the Muslim, which according to Cole has left tens of millions of Muslims dead since 1798. There are many problems with such a statement, but especially two stands out, which can be summed up as the conflation of the West as well as the Muslims. His first mistake is the conflation of the concept of western powers. Cole argues that the Western powers are a threat to the Muslim world because of numerous invasions on countries dominated by …

Religious violence, dehumanised victims, and the Woolwich murder

The Woolwich murder prompted a need to explain what happened. Many answers suggested that they were members of a radicalised environment, detached youths, as well as no communication between the youths and the greater community . Often lack of employment options have contributed to this. These explanations are, albeit correct, also insufficient. While they explain the underlying factors, they do not explain why such violence is possible. It is thus possible to ask, how these groups or individuals can act this way. What is it that enables such activities. The first answer is related to intra-group communication (the community), whereas the second is related to the concept of dehumanisation. The …

Jacob’s story: A story about media failure

On May 10th, various news media begin to report the story about a 14-year-old boy, Jacob, who reportedly, has a higher IQ than Einstein, and is studying to become a master in quantum physics. He is also writing his own theory of relativity because he discovered flaws in Einstein’s. This has prompted some to foresee that he is on path to receive a Nobel Prize in physics. The media, however, paid very little attention to a similar story. The American physicist, Brian Greene, demonstrated that Einstein’s theory is wrong with consequences for the understanding of the university. This post is not about questioning the merits of the 14-year-old prodigy, but …

Israel-loves-Iran, a succesful failure

Israel-loves-Iran is spawned and sparked by Ronny Edry, an Israeli, who wants to change the relationship between Israel and Iran from the bottom and up. Edry believes that by humanising the opposition, war is less likely. “Once you see your enemy as a human being similar to yourself, being expressing his love and understand he doesn’t hate you as years of propaganda succeed to make you believe, you can never go back to blind hate, then you can start to know each other and you will be ready for peace.” (Ronny Edry) Terrorists often apply the opposite method: They dehumanise the enemy, because it is easier to kill a “thing” rather than …

The defeat of CISPA and the victory of ignorance

The purpose of CISPA (passed text) bill is to “[...] provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities, and for other purposes.” This bill has been received rather negatively among especially one of the alleged power factors of the internet, the Anonymous group or at least among their supporters. According to eteknix.com’s Ryan Martin the CISPA bill was “[...] snuck through the American congress by a Republican Majority a few days ago in what can only be described as sneaky tactics by the U.S government. While the majority of the U.S general public were busy paying attention to …

The freedom of the members of the (Danish) parliament

It is not uncommon to hear how people can complain about a decision maker, who is acting as if he or she is not thinking of his or her constituents. In this post, I will elucidate on precisely that question as I think it deserves a bit of theoretical understanding. Section 56: The Members of the Parliament shall be bound solely by their own conscience and not by any directions given by their electors. The Danish Constitution of 1953 The Danish constitution of 1953 clearly indicates that any member of the parliament is bound solely by their own conscience or their own views and not by any directions given by …

Next society and a flat world

The American author, journalist and columnist for the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman, published “The World is Flat” in 2005. A revised edition was published in 2005. The book is “Truly amazing [...].” Grayling wrote for the Independent on Sunday, and he has a point. The book is truly amazing and it is encompassing. Because of this I choose to focus on the technological aspect of what constitutes modern globalism. Before addressing this, it is important with a historical recap, which Friedman delivers brilliantly. He starts his globalisation narrative in the 15th century and continue till today. He derives three concepts from this historical sketch: The first era of …

Does electronic recognitions count

Does an electronic recognition of a legal entity count? This question is fair to ask, as Google is getting attention for de facto recognizing the state of Palestine – at least on its local home page in the Palestinian territories – by dropping territories. It might be an overkill to argue that Google’s move changes anything, however, to argue that the Internet has little effect might be wrong. A quick recourse to another, allegedly, people without a country elucidates this point. In 2005 IANA delegates the .cat sTLD (sponsored top level domain) to puntCat, which among other states that to become a registrar you need to be related to the …

A response to Eichengreen’s concerns on a Grexit

In an earlier blog post, I quoted Eichengreen’s concerns regarding a Greek exit from the Eurozone (Grexit). In this post, I briefly want to sketch out Krugman’s more optimist view on a Grexit, which is based on the essentials of the Greek economy: Tourism. In an interview in  the Independent, the American economist, Paul Krugman, argues that a Grexit might benefit tourism, which is an important sector in the Greek economy as it accounts for 18 percent of Greece’s GDP. Vis-à-vis the question of whether Greece would be better off on its own, Krugman replies, The possibilities for a recovery are certainly there if Greece leaves. One of their major …