2014 Exit

So Afghanistan’s weak president announces that he wants full security control over his nation in 5 years. Meaning, the US and NATO forces have now an exit deadline for end 2014. Wow!

I wonder if that is optimistic, realistic or day dreaming. Clearly Karzai came to power in a very shaky fashion after a collapsed democratic process. And meanwhile, without any doubt, the bearded Taliban are just sitting in their mountain caves awaiting the harsh winter to pass by. They are not defeated nor retreated nor on the run. They are re-planning, re-organising, re-arming for a spring offensive. April in Kabul looks like an uncertain future.

Not too far from there lies Iraq. Land of death and destruction. Land of hope. Land of pitfalls. Land of rotten politics. There was a dream and a plan to have elections in January. That just got shot down as the election plan didn’t pass the parliamentary process. Shot down. Back to the drawing board.

Tough times in the region! And also the Palestinian elections in January will be a shaky affair. Do the Palestinians have any hope left?

Human behaviour will face a crucial test.

From instability and a very uncertain future to religious insanity.
Islamists in 5-star chaos Somalia have stoned to death a 20-year old women accused of adultery,.... although she was divorced. Welcome to the 21st century! Some people just seem to wanna go back to the stone age. In the name of religion. More like in the name of ultimate stupidity and bestiality.

The stoning took place in front of a crowd of about 200 people. Fellow nutters. Bloodlust freaks. And check the unbalanced line of thought in their prehistoric thinking. The woman gets brutally killed. The man she slept with gets 100 lashes. The lashes as such are without any doubt pretty brutal and beyond humanity too, but compared with being stoned to death it’s even more surreal.

The world should catch those bastards and castrate them. Maybe Tarantino’s blockbuster Nazi hunters, The Inglorious Bastards, should be sent after them.

So Obama went to Asia. Talk, talk, talk. Asia is certainly the future. If you look at population and economic growth of India and China, then you know what’s coming. It’s take-over time! There seems to be some optimism for some (little) breakthrough at the global warming talks in Denmark next month. World leaders will gather to face reality. Many of them will refuse to accept reality because it clashes with their election programs. The majority of people on planet earth will accept the reality of global warming when it is too late. It’s sad. The data is there. The vast majority of scientists sing the same song. Just some wackos here and there are day dreaming after intake of alcohol and heroin. It’s real and happening. The world is warming up because of human development and the warming up will have pretty shitty effects. Pretty devastating for some, like farmers in Africa or islands like the Kiribati group. But unfortunately for many people, especially in the Western world (and even in India and China) the global warming warning is far from their daily work-junkfood-TV-sleep rhythm. And thus it’s not easy for politicians to take decisive measures that will to a degree hurt day to day live for the unknown citizen. Because that citizen won’t understand why these actions are taking and will have a limited scope and thus reject that politician. And thus many politicians can’t handle that pressure. Good leaders lead, but weak leaders capitulate. And there are just too few strong, good leaders. So I fear that the Denmark summit is a nice try but nothing more.

I hope I am wrong.

Human behaviour is a joke and based on little knowledge and too many emotions. Change, even little baby-step-change, is just too much to handle for the vast majority of earth’s citizens. Till catastrophy comes to town. Wait and see.

Throw out. It’s out. The self-titled, debut album by supergroup Them Crooked Vultures. A new project/ban consisting of Dave Ghrol of Foo Fighters and Nirvana stardom, Josh Home of Queens Of The Stone Age, and 63-year old John Paul Jones of the legendary Led Zeppelin. What a mix of talent! I heard 3 tracks of the album so far and it sounds to me like the Led Zeppelin of the 21st century.

C-Ya

collateral – November 2009 is just cruising along