Herald Tribune...

Spend the whole flight back from Prague reading thru HT... good stuff.
Very informative story about how French economical and political elite is formed/has formed for long time (thru Ecole Polytehcnique and thru ENA) and how's it's now under fire with the Kerviel catastrophy.
Great story about how some of Iran's former lead revolutionalists and key political figures Ibrahim Yadzi (former deputy prime minister and first foreign minister) and Abbas Abdi (lead figure behind US embassy former hostage horror) have been strongly disaggreing about how republican & democratic Iran should be build... and they have been set aside. Not how I thought it's there..
Iran and Syria hunting down together a mysterious killig of Hamas leader in Syria. which Israel so firmly denies of being responsible that makes really wonder who it was - who videotaped that ?
Interesting story on Sarkozy's wierd "how to teach 10 years old to school kids about holocaust"-plan.
Another horror gunman incident in Illinois - after giving up medication a normal person shot 20. Basic trust to fellow beings/anyman slowly degrading - breaking one of the corner stones of our society ?
Eco anxiety moms strike back with community services - Looks like real change on our living values is taking place - promising, wakes up hopes for the future.
California 5150 - ex drug addicts shout for help to improve eg mentally disturb persons' and drug addicts' possibilities to survive by improving their relatives possibilites to force aid on them. But still keeping in mind the thread of misuse - standard theme in horror and thriller movie scenes.
Did someone actully temper with Kerviel's and his mates IM dialog to make them look bad ? propably yes, and head will drop soon in the bank ?
Very interesting article about firms (again) cultivating loyalty by investing in worker clubs and worker benefits in US. Competition for the competent people and their loalty is tough in US - in Finland it seems that outside of SME scene competences do not really interest corporates ... expect of course management competence ;o) Let's hope that current lack of true interest for competences will not be eventually the achilles heel for bigger Finnish corporates.

...and finally a familiar face in the last page - big picture about Tanja Poutiainen who won the slalom in Zagreb.

Loads of stories - time to expand Sunday morning's Hesari hours with subcription of HT ?

Fatal separation of the act and the consequence... I'm becoming old ?

A young guy kills his little sister with a hammer and a knife after a heated debate over a math calculation. Then he also kills his other sister who is just coming back home so that she would not see her little sister dead. The boy says that nothing would have happened if the hammer would not have been lying next to him.

Four young guys aged 17, 19 23 break into a random appartment. They torture to death 66 years old man and his 33 old son and then burn the appartment. They get some money.

The horrible incidence in Jokela at end of last year, and in Myyrmanni 5 or so years ago, and actually now when I think of it the list of such deeds seem to go on and on ...

I cannot help thinking that commodization of the violence in everything we see (TV series, TV news, movies, games, ...) has managed to permanantly separate the act and the consequence from each other in the minds of our new generations, and that the results can now be seen everywhere.
Not a world and future which I specificly would like to live in and nor do I like the idea that it's where the boys have to live for the next 60orso years. I feel old.

1971 Grange, horse races, taxi licences and rare coins...

This xmas I bought 5 course dinner in Postres for Nina. While I waited for her in the restaurang I had my hands on a great looking magazine Fine - Scandinavien fine wine magazine if I recall it correctly... very interesting story about Penfolds Grange as an investment. Had a good spontanous "räkänauru" when I bumbed into this: "For many year Access Economics was using 1971 Grange as measurement for economics. As an investment it beat other top alternative investments as horse racing, taxi licenses and rare coins" ;o)

well actually not too much to laugh at since 40x return on the investment is not too bad ? just that the combination of top investments was so odd

WidSets adverts...

Pretty awsome to see WidSets adverts in Metro station, inside metro, inside busses ...

Eco cars ? Ego cars ....

Sort of tragicomic ? Since once we now start downscaling (in terms of fuel consumption) why not then really downscale (also in terms of our oversized "egos") - who really needs them that big and for what ?

This is how it should work...

Anguished by the vanishing snow and shitty rain I was searching for "Äkkilähdöt laskettelu" with Google... the 1st sponsored link was
"Hiihtokeskus - www.google.fi/igoogle Snow Report iGoogle Gadget tietää aina missä lunta riittää!"
Click and wham ... I got a very comforting and (sort of) usefull gadget for following weather, piste and snow info in the preffered centers.

For me this was the first time I saw it all working like it really should.

We do because we can....

A thought from Pentti Linkola's 75-year anniversary interview in Hesari has been wondering thru my mind ever since I read it ... "People buy SUV's because they can." Unfortunately that is true - we buy big consuming cars as long as we can, we fly long and short distances for our holidays and work as long as we can, ... then when it's over we do something different which we yarn for as long we can. In intellectual level total costs matter but unfortunately in emotional level way too few of us (me including) just do not act as we say we should.

One of driving things for mankind but also main source of our disasters...