Finland's Ovi

Cartoon of the Day

“Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has vowed to use an “iron fist” to crush people who threaten security in the city of Basra. Mr. Maliki’s comments, aired live on Iraqi TV, came as he visited the southern city with the aim of halting in-fighting between Shia factions. He has accused “criminal gangs” of holding the city’s lucrative oil exports and other trade to ransom. Factional rivalry and sectarian tension have recently eroded Basra’s reputation as one of Iraq’s calmer cities.”

I was reading BBC news when I stopped to this. I think after all this time we are getting used of officials from everywhere asking for an end to the civil war that is obviously starting in Iran; so used that we are missing the reality. Reading a bit more the truth hit me like a shock: “The past few months have seen a drastic decline in security, with Sunni mosques being forced to close down and in-fighting breaking out between rival factions in the Shia-dominated city. A Shia faction has threatened to sabotage oil exports through Basra to exert leverage over the Iraqi government.”

It is all about oil all over again. Doesn’t matter the innocent lives, doesn’t matter that a kid grows up inside a battlefield with certain possibilities to see alive adulthood, nothing really matters, what really matters is oil.

Even writing that I was thinking, damn whats the surprise. You always knew it. Yes I always knew it but does that mean that it shouldn’t bother me any more?

Thanos

“Green League Chair Tarja Cronberg is proposing the decisions on any further expansion of the nation’s nuclear energy programme be delayed until the term of the next cabinet.

Addressing the Green’s party conference in the city of Hämeenlinna on Saturday, Cronberg said that if resources were put into renewable energy sources, any talk of constructing more nuclear capacity could be forgotten.

Although key Green leaders have said that the issue of nuclear energy would not be a bar to participation in the next cabinet, Cronberg stressed that the party is unconditionally opposed to nuclear power.”

This is from the Finnish news. I wanted to add too many other things and lately in an article for Ovi magazine I say a few things but reading that …. Makes me just too angry.

I think the only commend I can do is: are they connected with their brain?

They can’t be serious still thinking if they should oppose the decision or not. They cannot be serious of even thinking about it. They should never cell themselves Green Party, they are not!

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he is ready to negotiate peace with the Palestinians but not until Hamas rejects violence and recognizes Israel.

“I extend my hand in peace to Mahmoud Abbas, the elected president of the Palestinian Authority,” Mr. Olmert said in a keynote speech to the US Congress.

That was on BBC today and sorry but it doesn’t really make sense to me. The new Israeli prime minister who doesn’t recognize the new Palestinian administration and considers them as terrorists asks them to start talking about peace with him, after they recognize Israel and reject violence. And he’s doing that through the recognized Palestinian president who was part of Jaser Arafat’s organization that according the Israelis was the beginning of all the problems in Palestine. Are they a bit confused there or am I missing something?

Has been removed, thanks to the dmca.

I just cannot resist. There is a whole conversation the last two days in the Greek media about the Eurovision contest winners, the Finnish Lordi. The surveys shown that the group was mainly voted from young people all around Europe so the question was why!

Physiologists, sociologists and I’m not sure what else, might astrologists coming out with things like “Well is natural when we let our kids watching all these violent cartoons!” or some even better “The monsters in Harry Potter films and the Lord of the rings were uglier!!!”

I give up. One thing I always believed and now I believe more, is that all these experts, physiologists, sociologists and whatever else; in the end they are part of the problem and sometimes they are even responsible of the problem.

Does anybody remember Billy Joel in his first period? He was wearing heavy make up and he was singing romantic songs, the Kiss, even David Bowie’s alter ego Ziggy, Bono’s alter ego, the Satan in the Zooropa?

What all these people need to understand that is just entertainment, show business.

I said that Lordi will be making the doubters choke on their disparaging words and they have done just that. The group have stunned the bores by winning the fifty-first edition of the Eurovision Song Contest with a record number of points.

The win ends many dubious honours the country have amassed since the debut in 1961. They had participated the most times without winning and from the 37 entries, they have finished last on eight occasions, received zero points three times, have not received full marks for a song since 1977, are the only country to perform last and come last and the 1982 entry from Kojo is mathematically the worst song ever.

‘Tom Tom Tom’ had saved Finland’s blushes by placing sixth in 1973, but that is all history as Lordi bring home the trophy and the contest will be in Finland next year.
Congratulations Lordi on reminding Europe (and the other countries) that the contest is supposed to be fun.

Rock on!

A typical scene in a Helsinki restaurant during the prohibition era looked superficially serene. Customers would sit at their tables sipping cup after cup of tea. The tables also had bowls of crisp bread which nobody ate. Whenever a customer would leave the restaurant, the bread would be moved to another table, where the customers also ignored it.

No, the people of Helsinki at the time were not so fond of tea that they would have bothered to go to a restaurant and drink nothing else. The cups contained what was known as “hard tea” - half tea, half pure alcohol.

 The crisp bread was a bluff, used to ward off the sobriety monitors, or “breath sniffers”.

read more here…

 Hey there… I myself am a german and can be proud of our printing technology, cars, albert einsteins and many other things.. but isn’t it funny on how fast I can turn into a person that is NOT proud of his country just because of the actual politics going on?

I’d like to talk a little bit about a German-Turk named Murat Kurnaz. This guy was born in germany having turkish parents that raised him in germany. To tell you a bit of what you will find after this text, it’s about the fact that USA kidnaped Murat Kurnaz into Guantanamo Bay (USA Torture Prision) stating he was connected to Al-Quaida and was a terrorist. In fact there are enough official documents where officials stated that there was NO evidence or reason to believe he had any contact with terrorists.

The bummer on this whole issue is that after 4 and more years sitting and being tortured in guantanamo bay pleading for his release and leading a good conduct, etc… Guantanamo Prision actually admited that there was no proof to hold him longer in prision.. but NOW that he could be released.. the same mother fukin germany (Angela Merkel and CO.) who pleaded for his release WON’T let him back into germany!

WHY you ask? Well.. now that they now that there was NO reason for Murat Kurnaz to be in prision and that he never supported the idea of terrorism or anything against USA.. they are “AFRAID” that thanks to the time in guantanamo he “MIGHT” have changed his point of view about  terrorism and now is a “a danger to public safety and order”.

Here a bit from the german newspaper SPIEGEL:

At Camp Delta, Guantanamo, Murat Kurnaz is seen as one of the less troublesome prisoners. Unlike some of his fellow inmates, he doesn’t save his urine in dusty plastic bottles to throw over the guards. Nor has he taken part in the hunger strike that 84 of the prisoners are holding. The Turk from Bremen even assured a US military tribunal, “I hate terrorists.

I’ve lost several years of my life because of Osama Bin Laden.” He wants to give the German authorities any information voluntarily “to show that I don’t support terrorism, so that I can sleep peacefully.”

This good conduct has done little to help Kurnaz so far. The “Bremen Taliban” has been held prisoner at Guatanamo for four years and whereas almost all the other European terror suspects have been sent back to their homelands — Britain, France or Sweden — nothing seems to have moved in Kurnaz’s case. That might be about to change.

The German government is now making discreet moves together with the Turkish government for his release. Kurnaz is the son of Turkish immigrants and has a Turkish passport, although he was born and raised in Germany. Shortly before Christmas the German embassy in Ankara confidentially sounded out the Turks on whether they would be open to working together for Kurnaz’s release.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s foreign affairs advisor, Christoph Heusgen, explained that the new government would plead for Kurnaz’s release on “humanitarian grounds”. The Federal Foreign Office has confirmed “contact at a diplomatic level” but would not give any further details. Turkish officials have already hinted that Kurnaz could possibly be free by March.

It’s the most movement there has been so far in the case. Until now the Turks have shown little or no interested in Kurnaz. After three years of fruitless contacts with the embassy and consulate  his mother Rabiye finally went to Ankara in the spring of 2005 and spoke directly to an official at the Turkish foreign office, who simply acknowledged that they were aware of the case.

“If the Germans don’t get involved,” Rabiye Kurnaz complained, “then the Turks won’t lift a finger”…

..read more on spiegel about this here: Guantanamo Prisoner

CANNES, France - Journalists gave eagerly awaited film “The Da Vinci Code” a cool reception at its first press screening on Tuesday, a day ahead of the world premiere of the adaptation of Dan Brown’s controversial novel.

Cool reception? Some of them said that it was …just nothing! There were even a few of them that howled in the end of the film. But that was not what got my attention today, in another on line media I’ve read that in some countries Christian and church’s organizations prepare demonstrations in front the cinema theaters that going to play the film. But in India and Indonesia Muslim organizations are joining the demonstrations because as they say Christ is one of the prophets!!!

No way to keep these people from demonstrating, burning some flags and occasionally burning some embassies. In the case of the Mohamed cartoons they were demonstrating against the Christians who show no respect, now they are going to demonstrate with the Christians for …what?

This is about Internet freedom. “Network Neutrality” — the First Amendment of the Internet — ensures that the public can view the smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site by preventing Internet companies like AT&T from rigging the playing field for only the highest-paying sites.

But Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress to gut Net Neutrality. If Congress doesn’t take action now to implement meaningful network neutrality provisions, the future of the Internet is at risk.

Please go to the http://www.savetheinternet.com/=faq pages and read carefully. We must protect the internet from all these sharks. Join now.

The European Commission is expected to tell Bulgaria and Romania they can join the EU next year as planned, but only if they fulfill 10 more conditions.

Like what? Democracy? Freedom of speech? The fight against corruption and organized crime? I’m not against in new European countries joining into EU, after all Bulgaria and Romania are European countries compare to the Middle Eastern Turkey that was to join. But here there are two issues. Have we put our democratic limits so low to accept especially Bulgaria next year? And if we have what stops Turkey to pretend that they got democracy as well, even though an undercover militaristic govern.

Somehow I feel that Bulgaria should make some more steps before EU comes out announcing that they will be acceptable as full members in EU after a year and they have this time to improve democracy and justice system.

Oddly enough the situation in EU seems to lead in dead lock where we all like to see it getting bigger with all the European countries joining in but the same time nobody can accept so easily how comfortably anybody can join and how much EU has bend its own principals.

The question has quizzed me the last couple of weeks and in the past my reaction to a 790 euros ticket to listen to a politician speak would have definitely been a big NO.

Think of it, for some countries 790 euros is a monthly income of a family not to say a year’s income. And you would give the same amount to watch a politician giving a speech? And YES, I am thinking of it for one and only reason. George W. Bush. The man has managed to screw things so much so I would like to hear what a former American president has to say.

I remember very well Reagan’s era but back then however over conservative the American administration was, it was different times. The Russian bear was alive and even in the end when things started changing even Reagan himself started changing and making steps to global peace and international disarmament.

Nowadays? Is like a déjà vu with the worst times. George with the most impertinent way shows us that we count for nothing and we have to live under the American dominion. Especially the ‘old Europeans’ if we don’t bend to his demands we get the etiquette of cowards. You are with us or against us, and countries that made real the existence of the USA like France and Germany became the center of idiotic mocking and sarcasm from a country that forgot its roots. And history has taught us that there is nothing worst than to forget your roots.

Under these circumstances I think I would give these damn 790 euros just to make sure that there is still hope even if it comes from Bill Clinton even if that means that he will play his saxophone in the end!!!

The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, has called for the closure of the US Guantanamo Bay. He is reported to have serious doubts about whether the indefinite detention of “enemy combatants” - as they are known - is legal or fair.

I never expected to agree with lord something but I’m glad he said what he said. The whole case with Guantanamo is embarrassing for every thinking democrat. How can you preach democracy, fair justice and equal rights when you have a place like Guantanamo?

This temple of “Bushism” in the name of ‘protecting our values’ makes all westerners look so sad and guilty of a crime equal to the one blamed every little dictator, using methods regimes like the Iranian is using.

Fair justice for all and everybody has the right of defense is part of our constitutions and both died behind the wires that surround Guantanamo. So this thing must disappear for ever.

Issue 14 of Ovi magazine is now online and is packed with all your usual favourites, plus a bit more.The topic is ‘promises’, but there is a great deal more than that.

Check it out for yourself today.

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