De kongeliges levestandard

May 8th, 2008

http://fpn.dk/penge/article1327563.ece

Kongelige hofleverandører får 106.000 kr. i kassen om dagen fra kongehuset. Så stort er nemlig de kongeliges forbrug. Dronning Margrethe og prins Henrik shopper ind til en klar førsteplads. 38,8 millioner kr. brugte dronning Margrethe, prins Henrik, prinsesse Mary, kronprins Frederik, Joachim og Alexandra sidste år på varer og tjenesteydelser, oplyser Ekstra Bladet, der har studeret kongehusets årsrapport for 2007. Og den afslører, at de kongelige fik 7.779.165 kr. retur for moms, som de i første omgang har betalt, men siden har fået refunderet af staten.

(Beløbene omfatter ikke udgifter til lønninger; disse er ikke er momspligtige. Det fremgår ikke om fx. materialer til vedligehold af de kongelige ejendomme også er inkluderet.)

Til sammenligning vil jeg gætte på at mit omtrentlige årlige forbrug er på 50 kkr (mad, transport, it-tjenester, hardware, bøger og diverse tant og fjas). Men jeg er jo heller ikke kongelig.

Den gale Søvndal

April 29th, 2008

Berlingske Indland den 27/4-08:

“Der har bestemt været ført kulturkamp i denne regerings snart syv år. Samtlige oråder af kulturen er blevet bekæmpet, bortset fra de to eneste kulturministeren forstår: sport og cirkus.”

(- Villy Søvndal)

Udover den almindelige nedladende facon giver manden her udtryk for den (for nogle, mig selv inklusive) velkendte venstrefløjsfilosofi - at der ikke findes nogen kultur, medmindre den er statssponseret, og dermed statskontrolleret. (Dette er udstikkeren af den centrale venstrefløjstese om at individer ikke i sig selv har noget værd eller indhold - de er formet af samfundet og omgivelserne, og er i de historiske og økonomiske kræfters vold.)

Civilsamfundet er i venstrefløjsoptik ikke selv i stand til at have en kultur uden at staten dikterer den, fortrinsvis med statsudpegede kulturpersonligheder i udvalg m.m., samt at statsuddannede og -subsidierede “kunstnere” med partibogen/ideologien i orden dominerer den ‘kulturelle’ sfære. (Anne Marie Helger, Flemming Jensen, Savage Rose, Iben Hjejle etc.). Og naturligvis de Rettænkende bag roret i ‘Tinget - Thorning, Søvndal, og hvad det nu er for en gal kommunist der sidder i spidsen for liste Ø for tiden..

Det er iøvrigt sjovt at Søvndal nævner Circkus (i konteksten “Brød og Cirkus” a la det antikke Rom - dvs. ligegyldige distraktioner der leder offentlighedens opmærksomhed væk fra det politiske liv) - for det er netop hvad den statskontrollerede “kultur” er blevet i dag - opium for folket, blot med mindre indhold og mindre vanedannende. Og Søvndal og kammeraterne vil levere den for os umælende individer…

Der skrives nu også om dansk politik her…

April 29th, 2008

(For int’l readers: This is in Danish and probably not of interest to you).

Jeg opretter hermed en dansksproget kategori om hjemlig politik.

Indledningsvis kan jeg observere at på hjemmefronten nåede 1 liter Blyfri ‘95 oktan 11 Kroner i dag. Om et par år spår jeg at du betaler 15 kroner literen - så start hellere nu på at planlægge hvordan dit liv skal tilrettelægges når privattransport bliver så dyr som sådan en literpris vil gøre den…

Recent news

March 20th, 2008

Cuba lifts computer ban

- following Fidel’s circling of the drain, his brother, Raul, took over in 2006 and though he is just as much a communist hardliner as El Fidel, he has shown signs of softening up to… well, lets say, the modern world.

An internal government memo seen by Reuters on Thursday said the appliances long desired by Cubans can go on sale immediately, although air conditioners will not be available until next year and toasters until 2010 due to limited power supplies. Only foreigners and companies can buy computers in Cuba at present, while DVD players were seized at the airport until last year, when customs rules were eased. Now Cubans will be able to buy them freely, paying for them in hard currency CUCs, or convertible pesos, worth 24 times more than the Cuban pesos state wages are paid in.

“Based on the improved availability of electricity, the government at the highest level has approved the sale of some equipment which was prohibited,” the memo said. It also listed television sets, which were already on sale, electric pressure cookers and rice cookers, electric bicycles, car alarms and microwave ovens. Raul Castro, 76, has led Cuba since July 2006 when his older brother Fidel Castro provisionally handed over power after intestinal surgery from which he has not fully recovered.

Welcome to the 80’s, Cuba!

The sale of many electric appliances was banned in the 1990s when the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived Cuba of billions of dollars in subsidies and oil supplies, resulting in an energy crunch and daily blackouts of as long as 18 hours.

You know you’re running a shitty economic system when your entire nation must recieve external subsidies to stay afloat.

Raul Castro has encouraged debate of Cuba’s economic woes and has received a torrent of complaints focusing mainly on poor wages and limited access to consumer goods that are priced in hard currency.

The wonders of state socialism, eh?

source.

The digital universe is now 281 exabytes large

- IDC/EMC estimates that the digital universe of humanity is now around 281 exabytes in size. By 2011, it with be 10 times the size that it was in 2006 (which as 161 exabytes).

Interesting stuff.

Gold breaks 1000$/oz

- or rather, the dollar broke 1/1000 oz of Gold - downwards. This happened on the 14th of March, and is the lowest level for the dollar, ever, even lower than the post-Nixon gutting of Bretton Woods. This is following that the Fed has been inflating the dollar for years, and lately, Bear Stearns crashed from trading at around 60$/share to a miserable 3$. JPMorgan stepped in to buy out BSC, with the aid of the fed who propped them up with 200e9 $.

Making money out of thin air. *shrug*

Arthur C. Clarke

March 19th, 2008

1917 - 2008 (90 y)

Arthur C Clarke
One of the greatest SF writers ever.

More.

I’m back.

March 19th, 2008

Right. Half a year of inactivity when my last post said that I was in fact not dead. Sorry if I had you fooled.

My life has been a bit proverbially turbulent since then, and some database trouble on my blog server was a wall I didn’t have the energy to climb and get past - until now - hence the lack of posts.

A lot has happened since last time. New technology, news in economics and politics. Lets see when I can be bothered to recap it. Hopefully in less than 6 months. ;)

- P

World of Warcraft

September 12th, 2007

No, folks, I’m not dead, i’ve just become immersed in this wonderful game. Unsurprisingly, I’ve become hooked on the internal economics of the WoW world, and i’ve managed to make a small fortune.

Here is a snapshot:

Sunset Over Dustwallow

Beautiful. You’ll hear more from me about this, i promise you that.

AT&T customer fuckage

August 7th, 2007

AT&T CEO says no one wants $10 DSL

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson apparently subscribes to a different school of marketing and demand than most others — speaking with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the telecom boss flatly denied that AT&T’s $10 DSL plan is hidden on the company’s website, and went on to say that “customers haven’t been clamoring for it,” and that since the 768Kbps “user experience is not what I would consider really state of the art,” he doesn’t really want to sell it to anyone. Of course, customers don’t usually clamor for a product that barely anyone knows is available and that requires absurd hoop-jumping just to get set up, but don’t let them pesky facts get in your way, Randy.

(source)

Ah, the scourge of corporations. Yuck. “Net neutrality” is looking better every day. :/

Why NOT to use MSN Messenger

August 6th, 2007

Censorship or just a coverup of MS’ incompetence at making safe software? You decide:

I tried to send a message, but got an error that says “Could not send; a connection error occurred.” What does this mean?

It may mean that MSN doesn’t like your message.

MSN censors messages containing particular fragments of URLs. Previously, the message would simply be dropped with no indication to either side that it went away; now, at least, you get an error message (inline in the message view).

Pieces of text that are known to cause MSN to throw a message into the memory hole:

* .info
* profile.php? (including ‘?’)
* download.php? (including ‘?’)
* gallery.php
* pics.php
* ListAllTopics.php
* .scr (source)

There may be others.

Can you fix it?

This censorship is server-side. There’s nothing we can do about it. We could encode URLs, but MSN could always plug that hole and we’d be back where we started.

Why do they do this?

The reason that Microsoft has stated is that it is because they may be URLs to exploit Windows or Microsoft Windows Live Messenger security holes.

Of course, any URL can be an exploit URL. The correct solution would be to fix the bugs that evil URLs would exploit.

(source)

I’ll propose a better alternative: Jabber. Get it, use it, and spread it. Open, free and safe.

News Chirp; end of July ‘07

July 28th, 2007

I’m not back yet, but I thought I’d bring you a few pieces of news:

DRAMeXchange says that by fall, Apple’s iPhone and iPod nano products will gobble up 25% of the total worldwide flash memory supply; this will drive up prices together with the fact that a new flash process technology that has recently been launched is producing lower-than-expected yields.

IFPI Denmark says that the CD sales revenue has, for the first half of the year, dropped 10%, compared to H1 2006. I figure that this is due to market acceptance of the online music stores, but my guess is also that the fuX0rs at, say, RIAA and their ilk will say that it was due to piracy… :p

Cisco is killing the Linksys brand. Linksys was founded in 1988, and acquired by Cisco in 2003 after their succesful entry into the router market.

Seagate will immediately cease production of hard drives with the old PATA interface, known for their 40-pin sockets, and the need for manual master/slave configuration - good riddance! Seagate will thus solely produce SATA units from now on. This signals the soon-to-come end of the line for the Parallel AT Attachment interface that saw the light of day 21 years ago. (PATA drives still comprise 33% of desktop sales and 50% of portable drive sales.)

Away

July 20th, 2007

Sun-Illustration2

I’m on holiday - dunno when i’ll be back. Before too long, I hope.

Ciao folks.

Die you murderer, DIE!

June 19th, 2007

Kim Jong Il is (finally!) about to check out:

South Korean intelligence officials are investigating information that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s health has deteriorated recently, a source said.
“The National Intelligence Service has obtained information that the reclusive leader Kim’s diabetes and heart disease have been worsening. This information is more reliable than former rumors,” a government official said.

Source.

Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s reclusive leader, has been so unwell that he could not walk more than 30 yards without a rest, western governments have been told.

Diplomats in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, are increasingly convinced that the 65-year-old dictator needs heart surgery to restore his apparently flagging health. He has had to be accompanied by an assistant carrying a chair so that, wherever he goes, he can sit and catch his breath.

Speculation about the state of Kim’s health was heightened when a team of six doctors from the German Heart Institute in Berlin flew to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, for eight days last month. Kim, who also suffers from diabetes, was believed by diplomats to have been among those on the list for treatment by the combined medical and surgical team. But a spokesman for the German team said they had only treated three labourers, a nurse and a scientist.

Kim’s public appearances have been curtailed this year and he has appeared in public only 23 times, compared with 42 times at the same point last year - an indication, observers say, of his declining health. The suggestion that he underwent an operation offered an apparent explanation for his recent month-long disappearance from public view.

Source.

Countering the revisionism about civil casualties in Iraq

June 18th, 2007

A lot of the whiners shouters about the war in Iraq are making excessive claims about the number of civilian casualties in Iraq these days. Following the publication of the Lancet study, it is common to hear claims of hundreds of thousands of dead in Iraq, and now, even some are claiming that more than a million Iraqs have died due to the war effort since March 2003.

IraqBodycount.net tells a different story:

Iraq Body Count Press Release 16 October 2006

Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates

Hamit Dardagan, John Sloboda, and Josh Dougherty

Summary

A new study has been released by the Lancet medical journal estimating over 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq. The Iraqi mortality estimates published in the Lancet in October 2006 imply, among other things, that:

1. On average, a thousand Iraqis have been violently killed every single day in the first half of 2006, with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms;
2. Some 800,000 or more Iraqis suffered blast wounds and other serious conflict-related injuries in the past two years, but less than a tenth of them received any kind of hospital treatment;
3. Over 7% of the entire adult male population of Iraq has already been killed in violence, with no less than 10% in the worst affected areas covering most of central Iraq;
4. Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued;
5. The Coalition has killed far more Iraqis in the last year than in earlier years containing the initial massive “Shock and Awe” invasion and the major assaults on Falluja.

If these assertions are true, they further imply:

* incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries, on a local, regional and national level, perfectly coordinated from the moment the occupation began;
* bizarre and self-destructive behaviour on the part of all but a small minority of 800,000 injured, mostly non-combatant, Iraqis;
* the utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas;
* an abject failure of the media, Iraqi as well as international, to observe that Coalition-caused events of the scale they reported during the three-week invasion in 2003 have been occurring every month for over a year.

In the light of such extreme and improbable implications, a rational alternative conclusion to be considered is that the authors have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data. In addition, totals of the magnitude generated by this study are unnecessary to brand the invasion and occupation of Iraq a human and strategic tragedy.

***

The debacle in Iraq is indeed a major humanitarian tragedy, but it is important to realize that you weaken your credibility and your case by making untenable claims about the extent of the human losses and damages caused by the war.

daily tasteless

June 17th, 2007

Seen in alt.tasteless, in a thread labeled “Mrs Billy Graham”:

“Rapidly stiffening.

Minge”

***

“On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:16:59 GMT, Daniel Minge <minge@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Rapidly stiffening.

OK, but what about Mrs. Billy Graham?”

***

“Not Me wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:16:59 GMT, Daniel Minge <minge@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Rapidly stiffening.
>
> OK, but what about Mrs. Billy Graham?

She was dead 27 minutes ago or some time around 3PM
Is that stiff enough for you.”

***

(Then it starts getting interesting:)

“On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:37:31 GMT, Pantheras <PopeJoan@Vatican.Org>
wrote:

>Not Me wrote:
>> On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:16:59 GMT, Daniel Minge <minge@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Rapidly stiffening.
>>
>> OK, but what about Mrs. Billy Graham?
>
>She was dead 27 minutes ago or some time around 3PM
>Is that stiff enough for you.

I was also confused. I though that Mr. Minge was making some
observation about the condition of his own genitalia.

And, point of order, rigor mortis won’t be happening after 27 minutes.”

World poverty milestone reached

June 16th, 2007

For the first time ever, there is less than one billion people in the world living on less than 1 US$/day (which is the defining characteristic of extreme poverty). Comparably, in 1981, there were 1,479 million people living in extreme poverty.

Press release from the World Bank:

WASHINGTON, April 15, 2007 — Global poverty rates continued to fall in the first four years of the 21st century according to new estimates published in the World Development Indicators 2007, released today. The proportion of people living on less than $1 a day fell to 18.4 percent in 2004, leaving an estimated 985 million people living in extreme poverty. By comparison, the total number of extreme poor was 1.25 billion in 1990. Two-dollar-a-day poverty rates are falling too, but an estimated 2.6 billion people, almost half the population of the developing world, were still living below that level in 2004.

Next milestone to reach is bringing the number of people on less than 2 US$/day below 1 billion; today there are 2.6 billion of those.

Solar output variations too weak to explain current climate changes

June 15th, 2007

The new review in Nature examines the factors observed by astronomers that relate to solar brightness. It then analyzes how those factors have changed along with global temperature over the last 1,000 years.

Brightness variations are the result of changes in the amount of the Sun’s surface covered by dark sunspots and by bright points called faculae. The sunspots act as thermal plugs, diverting heat from the solar surface, while the faculae act as thermal leaks, allowing heat from subsurface layers to escape more readily. During times of high solar activity, both the sunspots and faculae increase, but the effect of the faculae dominates, leading to an overall increase in brightness.

The new study looked at observations of solar brightness since 1978 and at indirect measures before then, in order to assess how sunspots and faculae affect the Sun’s brightness. Data collected from radiometers on

U. S. and European spacecraft show that the Sun is about 0.07 percent brighter in years of peak sunspot activity, such as around 2000, than when spots are rare (as they are now, at the low end of the 11-year solar cycle). Variations of this magnitude are too small to have contributed appreciably to the accelerated global warming observed since the mid-1970s, according to the study, and there is no sign of a net increase in brightness over the period.

Source.

tasteless: It could have been worse

June 14th, 2007

Surgery for sodomy victim

Tuesday, June 5th 2007

SURGERY was performed on Sunday to remove a coconut from the body of a man who was sodomised with the fruit during an attack by a gang of men.

Ste Madeleine police are now investigating the case, in which the 27-year-old victim was found at the side of a canefield road at Golconda Village, near San Fernando.

Police were told that the man was seen drinking alcohol in the hours before he was found, and a group of men who picked him up are being sought.

The man is reported to have undergone surgery at a private medical centre.

Source.

Hat tip to Unidyne, who comments: “They could have used a pineapple!”

100 km/liter cars are coming, soon

June 13th, 2007

VW (VolksWagen)’s chairman of the board, Ferdinand Piëch, reveals so in an interview with him on his 70th birthday. He promises that VW will have 100 kpl (km/l) cars on the road in 4 years - by 2011.

Piëch claims that such gasoline-powered, automotive vehicles are now marketable, because the components necessary (he doesn’t say which ones), which costs 35.000 € today, will be obtainable for 5.000 in two years.

Piëch has been calling the shots @ VW after he came on the board instead of Bernd Pischetsrieder, who was the person responsible for killing the Lupo 3L car, which, as the name implies, can drive 100 km on 3 liters of diesel, achieving a 33 km/l fuel efficiency.

Software patents? Bad, methinks

June 12th, 2007

“The legal status of the Zeta operating system that was derived from the source code Be Inc. left shortly before going bankrupt has been unclear for several years. Now, the current owner of the source code, ACCESS, claims “if Herr Korz feels that he holds a legitimate license to the BeOS code he’s been using, we’re completely unaware of it, and I’d be fascinated to see him produce any substantiation for that claim”. The sales of Zeta have been suspended and so has the development been halted as well.

And, in the true /. style, the most insight is in the comments:

It’s funny how Access owns the code, yet they’re not doing a damned thing with it. They’ve halted distribution of a product that isn’t competing with their business, and if history is any indicator, they aren’t ever going to release any BeOS-related software ever. They are an IP company, they buy stuff up, sit on it for a while then license/resell to actual inventors and manufacturers for a profit. This kind of business is one the most revolting abuses of the 21st century, because all they do is kidnap information for a ransom, potentially hiding it away forever if no buyer comes along to pay their inflated price. This type of activity precisely underlines the need for patent reform. This doesn’t help anyone except the people cashing the checks, ultimately IP-hoarding hurts everyone as it stymies technological progress.

So true. Software patents? Scrap ‘em. And of course, also patents on biological software - ie. genetic information.

Why does the US gov’t want cancer patients to die, slowly and painfully?

June 11th, 2007

The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February 2000, when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.

The Madrid study marks only the second time that THC has been administered to tumor-bearing animals. In 1974, researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institutes of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice — lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes. In 1976, President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out — unsuccessfully — to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the “high.”

The gov’t knew that marijuana offset tumor growth as far back as ‘74, and put the lid on the research that discovered this phenomenon. Why?

Is it that research into synthetic THC could make billions for the medicinal industry (IOW, corporate welfare with a new twist)? How about criminal incompetence? Or is it just plain malice (notably perpetrated by BOTH of the big US political parties)?

(D)DOS extortion: Going, going…

June 10th, 2007

Applied game theory in action:

DoS extortion is no longer profitable

In the last six months of 2006 we saw a pretty sharp decline in the daily number of denial of service attacks. Although there are likely a number of factors at play here, I think there is one primary factor: denial of service extortion attacks are no longer profitable.

DoS extortion attacks are usually carried out by a bot-network owner. Using their bots, the extortionsist has to make a successful DoS attack against a target organization. Following that they have to issue the extortion request and hope the target organization pays it.

The thing is that DoS attacks are loud and risky. Whenever a bot-network owner carries out a denial of service attack they run the risk of losing some of their bots. This could happen either because an attacking computer is identified and disinfected, or if it is simply blocked by its ISP from accessing the network. Furthermore, if the bot-network owner isn’t careful they could lose their entire bot network if their command and control server is identified. Since a DoS extortionist has to carry out at least one successful DoS attack before they can even demand their pay, they run some serious overhead risks.

So what happens if the target of the attack refuses to pay? The DoS extortionist is obligated to carry out a prolonged DoS attack against them to follow through on their threats. For a DoS extortionist this is the worst scenario because they have to risk their bot network for nothing at all. Since the target has refused to pay, it is likely that they will never pay. As a consequence, the attacker has to spend time and resources on a lost cause.

It is likely that bot network owners are now moving away from DoS extortion and towards more lucrative ventures like spam. Not surprisingly, we saw a noted increase in spam volumes in the last six months of 2006.

Source.

The RIAA attack on culture and technology

June 9th, 2007

From a recent Slashdot article comment:

Commercial music was once one of the great joys of my life. I loved mainstream rock’n'roll, high-profile jazz artists, famous classical artists; in fact, I loved just about everything except country. I spent a lot of money on vinyl, then tape, then CDs, often re-buying the same music when a new format came along. You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve spent over the years.

I loved Napster and Kazaa when they came along because they allowed me to sample a lot of music I wouldn’t have heard otherwise. When I found something I liked, I’d go out and buy a CD. You know, to ’support the band’. Only it turns out the bands didn’t get much (if any) of the money, anyway; it went to the record companies and stopped there. Didn’t matter, because the RIAA shut the download sites down. No more music sampling for me.

Then the RIAA went on a rampage and started dragging grannies and gradeschoolers into court. That’s when I stopped buying music. I just quit completely. I haven’t bought a new CD in over four years.

I began listening to Internet-streamed radio and loved it. Then the RIAA began trying to shut that down. Now they’re going after commercial radio.

Well, screw them. I’m done. No more commercial, big-record-company music for me. The RIAA can kiss my shiny metal ass.

In the process of listening to streaming music, I’ve discovered some great independent music. I don’t need the craptactular garbage the record companies dish out anymore. Especially not if they’re going to try to fine me or send me to jail if I don’t listen to it on their terms.

Screw them. I hope they all starve, and their children, too.

I wholeheartedly agree (and I have bought a lot of CD’s since i got my first stereo system 14 years ago). Of course, the RIAA will certainly blame the evil pirates if people only buy indie labels’ music…

Sweden: The rise of the ‘free-lunch’ generation

June 5th, 2007

Who pays for Sweden’s free lunch?

Published: 14th May 2007 17:14 CET

Sweden’s generous welfare system has served to break down the protestant work ethic, argues Captus’s Nima Sanandaji.

Sweden has traditionally relied heavily on the strong protestant work ethic of its citizens. A cornerstone of the country’s welfare system has been a population which has been reluctant to misuse the system. Although taxes have been high and government benefits generous, the strong work ethic has stopped people from taking advantage of the welfare state. Alas, this attitude has been largely abandoned. As time has passed, people have adapted to the system.

Dependence on state handouts is widespread amongst the adult generations. Today around 21-22 percent of the Swedish population in working age is being supported by one form government handout or another, up from around 11 percent in 1970 (as reported by Swedish Public Television 15th March 2005).

Many unemployed people are unwilling to take jobs that pay less than their former employment. The reason is that government compensation is often almost as high as their previous salaries; taking a job that pays less than their old one might very well mean lower income than the state benefit.

In a survey form the Swedish Enterprise Institute 70 percent of companies with 10-200 employees say that they interviewed who did not even want the jobs offered. This phenomenon is explained by the fact that people seek jobs that they are unwilling to take, only in order to convince public officials that they are actively seeking employment so they can continue collecting government handouts.

As widespread as government dependence is amongst adults, it might yet become worse amongst the new generation of Swedes.

In 2006 youth unemployment in Sweden was amonght the highest in the EU, fully 21.5 percent. Many young Swedes, in particular those with an immigrant background or from low income Swedish families, are becoming more and more used to the idea that it is acceptable to live off taxpayers’ moneys. This is creating a phenomenon that can be described as a ”free-lunch generation”. A generation that does not clearly see the moral difference between earning something by hard work or receiving it from the state. The attitude is simply “anything that I want, I should have.”

The article concludes:

The Swedish welfare system is effectively breaking down the very norms that make the society function. As people become more and more accustomed on living of government one question arises: who is ultimately going to draw the short straw and become forced to pay for the supposedly free lunch?

Excellent question. Why should anyone bust their asses to work for people, who take their standard of living granted without being willing to expend any effort to maintain it, but instead vote themselves to the “goodies”?

It is clear that the “welfare” state must be broken down and abolished, before it breaks down society entirely.

I love prognoses!

June 2nd, 2007

“There are now at least 85,000 Elvis’s around the world, compared to only 170 in 1977 when Elvis died. At this rate of growth, experts predict that by 2019 Elvis impersonators will make up a third of the world population.” - The Naked Scientists, 3rd December, 2000.

Source.