I had just ended a very good conversation with a friend on MSN when I looked about my room. It was past midnight, and I hadnt moved from my chair much in hours. Another night has come. Then I noticed on the wall, there came a spider crawling. My first reaction was "Eww!" - i suffer greatly from arachnophobia and I just wanted to kill it. But then I thought - live and let live. The spider does not directly bother me. I guess the spider sees me here, in front of the computer, and it thinks "ouch! It must not see me! [crawl carefully to the left] Oh no!!! It looks at me!!! [crawl some more to the left, then to the right] Please don't kill me, pleasepleasepleaseplease" and it panics, and it falls from the wall, and hangs in its thread of spin, and gains contact with the wall again, and finally reaches out of my direct sight, going behind the desk and down.

That spider could represent all kinds of things, my fears, my deepest fears, monster. Monster, monster. Monstrare - face - showing - terror - hurt - lies - deceit - war.

During the last weeks I have had this thinking about face. My English professor once said something about the link one usually makes between physical aesthetics and moral superiority. I.e. that if you are physically beautiful your soul is beautiful too.

When one wishes to represent something evil, it must always be twisted. Twisted horrible face, troll-like, goblin-like. To me, the spider is the ultimate evil. (well, not literally, but you know what I mean). It strikes some deep panic within me when I see one.

When I was a child, 5 years old or so I went to sleep at my grandmother's big house in my room and in the evening I noticed a big spot on the wall a bit higher from my head. I didnt think further about it, but then next morning after I had gone up and eaten breakfast my mother called me and said "look what I found in your bed!" and showed me a HUGE spider that she had killed. It was terrible-looking. Since then I have been so scared of spiders. :)

Now, where were I.. Oh yeah, aesthetics and ethics. Pictures... Pictures of Bush which makes him look like some monkey. Gorilla or whatever. Images of angry angry muslims with beard who stare at the camera like they are Lucifer himself. Evil intent blabla. Especially after September 11th these kind of images were spread around a lot. I noticed it very clearly, and I felt sick to my guts I remember.

Images are of crucial importance.. Images in media cannot be underestimated as tools of propaganda. We can only refer to the German images of the Jew in the 1930's... :(

Live and let live I say. Let not our fear terrorize us and make us twist our image of others. Let us not create even more images of others as twisted souls. Let us see the beauty in all.

- - - Even in scary little spiders.

Listening to the US federal hearing on the Sept 11th issue by the 'independent' commission, and listening to the testimony of Colin Powell and Armitage.

I have been listening to this now for almost two hours, and now and then I just feel like banging my head in the desk.

Simplistic emotions aside, what are the crucial questions here?

* Could the US have prevented the Sept 11th events?
* Does the US administration really think that they can become invulnerable to similar terrorist attacks in the future?
* How will the US develop as a society within this constant fear of

Powell just recently talked about terrorist organisations entering the US vs going elsewhere and doing crimes in order to send their "Message to the world on their philosophy and evil intent". Is the US becoming more safe with the finger printing of anyone entering the country? With the tougher visa requirements, or the other airport and airplane security measures? As one member of the commission asked: "Why has there been no major attack here since September 11th? Is it luck? Some of these measures? What is it?" (roughly paraphrased)

The attacks in Spain are a case in point. Despite all the measures imposed by the EU and the wider authority by intelligence agencies, and the narrow down on the space of privacy - despite all this they had (it seems) NO CHANCE in stopping these terrorists attacking those trains.

What does this say about national security - homeland security? That one must do more to protect the nation? That the US must be even More strict? That we should naturally suspect any middle east-looking man carrying a heavy bag as a potential terrorist? Should we have big gleaming crescents in red as tags which every muslim should wear?

I am sorry about that last sarcastic point, but all I mean to say is:

How does one intend to protect a country in these times where the enemy is not some major military force, but instead it could be 11 individuals with a total amount of 1/2 million US $ at their disposal.

I am deeply worried about this development, and I think that with this whole 'War Against Terrorism' we are not listening to the “Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater".

Whether we intend to or not, our actions do have a wider effect than those we want to harm. Are these side-effects acceptable? To what extent? Is it acceptable that say 25% of those who are termed "enemy combatants" and placed on some military base on Cuba are indeed Innocent?

Out of the closet I go:

I have been an avid online gamer in my spare time since 1996.

From 1996 to 1999 it was Valhalla - a fantasy MUD based on the DIKUII system.

From 1999 till 2002 I changed totally genre and started playing 'Counter-Strike', a FPS (first person shooter) which is pretty repetitive and shallow, but still has its own flavor of fun. In 2001 I actually worked as manager of a computer cafe here in Bergen, so I was pretty much 'into' the whole computer cafe environment. All this while in my 'other life' I was full time working as vice-president of my university student's union, being member in loads of different committees and travelling quite a bit around Europe too in my position as president of blabla.

From 2002 to today I really havent had any such hobby. I did some Quake III but I found it pretty boring, same with a lot of the other games. I did find 'Battlefield 1942' quite interesting though.

A few months back I started spending a few hours on "Dungeon Siege", a game in the style of Diablo or Neverwinter Nights. It, too, is repetitive, but it is hilarious how addicted one Can get sometimes.

What is your favorite game for those times of the day when you just had enough of all the 'serious' stuff? And don't say "Playing the guitar learning new Spanish Folk Tunes"! ;)

[link]

This is the second update about this issue in 24 hours for me, but I really am worried about the blossoming up of violence between ethnic groups in Kosovo and Serbia. [NATO Sees Specter of Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo]

"In Belgrade, where the Serb authorities have accused ethnic Albanians of trying to evict remaining Serbs from Kosovo, some 30,000 students marched to protest at "Albanian terror." Some carried banners saying 'New York, Madrid, Kosovo'."

30,000 Students? What students? Who are they, what are their points of view, what is actually going on here? I have been shamingly neglectful of updating myself on the situation in this part of Europe, even tho my political youth party has been quite involved with cooperation with similar organisations in Bosnia and Serbia. If anyone know more about the background for this and how come there suddenly erupted this wave of violence now, I would be happy if you could tell us about it.

dltq - not trying to blame any side here..

Bush is once again making it clear that it is the civilisations of the world vs the terrorists now and that the "coalition of the willing" must not scatter..

[link]

What I find so troubling is that there seems to be absolutely no acknowledgement of the existence of aspects about the occupation in Iraq, or the way Afghanistan has been dealt with, that could be validly critizised. I am starting to get really tired of the arrogance of the current US administration..

The last days there has been a surge of violence again in Kosovo, with some disturbance spreading to Serbia as well.

I have long felt that the situation in that region has not been fully 'accounted for' and we all need to work harder at supporting peace and dialogue in this area. Violence, be it committed by Serbians or Kosovo Albanians, muslims or christians, cannot be accepted.

My thoughts go to the troubled people involved.

Having just read a description about a seminar on "Human Rights: Universal and Islamic Perspectives" which will take place at the Faculty of Law here at the University on the 19th of April, I started thinking once more about Islam and Human Rights. Is there really a 'natural' disagreement between Islam and Human Rights, or is the situation of a lack of Human Rights implementation rather a result of other factors? Socio-cultural? Economic?

From the presentation of the seminar (translated into English by myself):

At the seminar fundamental questions related to the relationship between international/universal human rights and the religion of Islam will be discussed. One question is whether Islam bars the realisation of the human rights, or whether there are other reasons for violations of human rights in Iran and other muslim countries. Another question is whether the human rights can be joined with new and important dimensions, and at the same time become more universal by letting the islamic world view in a higher degree be included. The speakers will from their respective academic basis raise questions with relevance to the understanding of the relationship between Islam and the human rights.

What is really meant by the "islamic world view" here? What are examples of this, related to human rights? And is there at all any possibility of 'universal' human rights? Personally I am a strong supporter of the UN human rights declaration, but still I must ask myself this question. If we are talking about human rights, but really are meaning a lot of add-ons which basically means we wanting 'them' to think more like 'us' - .. how does that affect cross-cultural dialogue?

I will be attending this seminar in April, and will try to come to a better understanding of the issues before then so that I could perhaps participate more actively.

But what do you think? Is there a natural disagreement between Islam and say the UN human rights declaration?

"I feel very happy. The government had to change... because of the Iraq war" - Spanish law student, to the BBC.

The Socialists of Spain got 42% of the votes, while the Popular Party won 38% of the votes. The result is that Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the leader of the Socialists, will take Aznar's position as prime minister.

Spain's retiring government was the government which strongly supported the US in Iraq despite a 90% popular opposition in the population.

What will the policy of the Socialists be now? Well, they do not have a majority in the Paliament so there will have to be some trade-offs with the Popular Party, but still, they largely define the future path of Spanish politics.

"My immediate priority will be to fight all forms of terrorism," Mr. Zapatero said in a victory speech on Sunday night.

How will this fight be conducted?
Only time will tell.

It seems like the turnout at the election in Russia will be above 50% and that Putin will have a 'landslide victory'.

I have for a long time been quite sceptical towards Putin and his policies, but I really do not know enough about Russian politics to have a good alternative that I believe in. It seems like there are just these two options: Putin, or the Communists. Irina Khakamada is a rival candidate to Putin that I had never heard about before today... And I consider myself Slightly well-informed about what is going on in this world. Just proves again how little I truly know ;)

What is the state of democracy in Russia? In a country which has for years been at war with its Chechen separatists, and where the unemployment rate in several regions is staggeringly high?

What is the state of a democracy where the voters are being offered compensation for the work of voting?

"Russian voters had been offered incentives to cast their ballots, from vouchers for free haircuts for pensioners to cinema tickets for young people, Reuters news agency reported."

BBC reports that Al-Qaeda has claimed responsability for the Madrid train bombings.

You can read the transcript on the above link, but there is a sentence which I found strange:

"You love life and we love death, which gives an example of what the Prophet Muhammad said."

What on earth is that?
I don't get it. What twisted view on Islam does this Al-Qaeda spokesman have? Is the video tape for real?

Now that the genie is out of the bottle and the population suspects that it really was Al-Qaeda behind this monstrous attack, what will happen? How will they react in the election which now is undertaken?

"Opinion polls before the attacks suggested that the ruling Popular Party would win most votes but might not win a majority.

But the outcome is now impossible to predict, as the increasing indications that Islamic militants might be to blame for Thursday's attacks could cost the government votes. " [source]