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Showing posts from November, 2012

(12d) UN global warming summit.

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26/11/2012, another climate summit starts, this time in Doha, Qatar. I thought that a good reason to write this article in the hope it will waken up those politicians and business people who still deny the existence of climate change in the name of making more profits. Although recently, even very large financial institutions called for measures to tackle climate change, not to save human lives but in the name of making more profits as natural disasters start to become too expensive and thus reduce profits. Here I will discuss as a non-specialist what I understand of climate change and what I think may happen. I base this on what I read in journals throughout the past decades and my own reasoning. I urge those in Doha to think serious about reducing the speed of pollution and moderate our way of living. I wonder whether we only have to fear atmospheric climate change due to our burning of fuels, gasses, coal and trees that release CO2 and other gases in the atmosphere, causing a r...

Protest against gay marriage in France and elsewhere

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Last Saturday, it seems that according to the police at least 70,000 people took to the streets in Paris while there were other demonstrations in the cities of Lyon, Toulouse and Marseille. The protests were against proposals to allow gay marriage. Those on the streets of France included Catholic groups and other backers of traditional family rights and I read many wore pink in a cynical way because it is the colour gay people use to remember the colour Hitler used to recognise gay people so he could destroy them. It also seems many mayors are against the proposal to allow every person in France (and eventually on this planet) to marry people they love. And this in a country that allegedly separated state and church more than 200 years ago because of the corruption within both of them. Even the pope urged bishops to speak against gay marriage in civil law, although in a polite manner because he claims that gays are a threat to family (as if the pope and priests know much about star...

(09e) Greek stories: Today

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Here I will discuss how Greece has changed from its early days we still admire to what is happening at this moment. Of course, many Greeks are not to blame, but still ... . It will also show how much Europe changed within a very short time. It starts with the release of Mr Vaxevanis, ordered by the Greek Court, showing that not the whole of the country is corrupt. What is the story? Mr Vaxevanis is a Greek Journalist who, according to his account, was arrested by a large police force as if he was one of Greece most important criminals. What was his crime? He did what every self-respecting journalist would do: he published a list he discovered containing more than 2000 names of high-earning Greeks who had failed to pay taxes because their money is on an HSBC-account in Switzerland and they didn't declare this money. He was arrested on charges of breach of privacy (in an earlier article I wrote that the only time journalists should publish about someones privacy is to expose crimi...

(09d) Greek stories: Oedipus' life and the Oedipus complex.

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Here I will re-tell the famous story of Oedipus and the Oedipus complex as explained by Sigmund Freud and how I interpret it. It also shows that these stories can be interpreted in as many ways as there are humans as even in my explanation I allow different explanations. Oedipus: the story The story of Oedipus speaks of a man who was born in Thebes as the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta. He was cursed with a prophesy: one day he would kill his father and marry his mother. The parents were terrified and tried to prevent this so they left the baby behind in nature in the hope the boy would die. I think this shows the father and mother would go to any length to save their own lives, even when that meant killing their own son before he could proof he would be a danger to his parents. But the baby was found and raised by King Polybus and Queen Merope in the city of Corinth. They didn't tell him he was found and thus he thought they were his biological father and mother....

(09c) Greek stories: The five steps of creating Greek society

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A few evenings ago I watch the documentary Gods and Goddesses made by the History Channel . It mentions the history of the Greek Gods and Goddesses, from their origins until the time of Jesus and how the Greek society evolved. It mentions the emergence of the notice of democracy as well as Oedipus and the Oedipus complex as invented by the psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. I make also a reference to our own times and the dramatic changes that are taking place. These will be told in three consecutive publications. Four Ages of Gods Before man existed, it is said there were four Ages of Gods and the last age resulted in the well known Greek Gods and Goddesses such as Zeus and his wife Hera, Apollo (god of both good and bad things such as healing and plagues), Ares (god of war), Athens (amongst others goddess of wisdom and warfare). If you are interested, I advice reading about this and what follows because these are interesting stories that shaped humanity as one person interpre...

(12c) Collapse. When nature destroys civilisations.

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The title of this article is taken from the front page of New Scientist (4 August 2012) that referred to the cover story about the influence of climate changes on the decline of societies. Studies suggest this influence is much larger than previously thought while some scientists still doubt its effects because they say some civilisations continued even after long periods of changes in the climate. Here I will discuss why I think that indeed climate changes were responsible for the destruction of many civilisations while some civilisations did survive. Why and how I think societies collapsed due to climate change. First of all, I find it obvious that changes in the climate can have dramatic effects and can lead to the collapse of civilisations. The best known and accepted example of the decline and collapse of a civilisation due to climate change was the Mayan Empire . After hundreds of years of growth, resulting in impressive buildings and even scripture (until now it was the on...