Her final closing statement felt that she was singing for her church choir. She could remember the script word for word. It felt so fake.

The only thing that Palin did right, with Biden and Obama failing to do, was to look at the cameras while replying to the questions, instead of the person asking the question. I guess, Biden and Obama are more respectful and sincere, but this can cost them.

It is my personal opinion, that the doping Greek problem was and STILL is government-sponsored. In fact, Greeks come close to the inhumane doping policy that East Germany had. GDR was putting athlete’s health in danger to prove to the West that communism works. It was a political game. With Greece was also a political game, again to prove something: that Greeks are as good as the ancient Greeks and that the Olympics “belong” to them.

The story starts at the end of the 1980s. Before that, the Greek track and field was in the middle ages. The Greek records were not better than the youth world records, meaning that a good 16 year old American or Russian athlete could run rounds around a mature Greek track and field athlete of the time. But around 1988, the city for the 1996 Olympics was about to be decided. The Greeks wanted these “Golden” Olympics like crazy (100 years of Olympics). While Greece eventually was given the 2004 Olympics, the sour taste of Coca-Cola winning the bidding for Atlanta was never cleared off their mouths. One of the (good) points Atlanta made against the Athens bidding was pretty much this: “your sport performance sucks, Olympics in Athens would be a disaster if you don’t have good Greek athletes to get more spectators and interest”.

And so the Greek machine started working on it. Suddenly, Patoulidou won the 100m hurdles in Barcelona’s Olympics in 1992 –the first track and field gold after almost a century for Greece — an athlete who’s never ran nearly that fast before, not even after that win. Think of the not-so-good 12.96 and 12.88 performances set in the qualifying rounds that week were much better than her previous record in that sport. In essence, Patoulidou ran 1 whole second faster in the final than she ever ran before (that’s equivalent of her running about 7 meters ahead of her pre-Barcelona self). This is just hard to swallow. No one can get that much better in a month’s time. After Patoulidou, a whole new crop of athletes started appearing with world-winning performances. And not only on track and field, but also in weightlifting. Suddenly Greece was one of the big powers in weightlifting — out of nowhere. They all said that “Patoulidou was the example set and inspiration to get good performances”, but inspiration alone doesn’t make you faster.

The programme seemed to continue after Atlanta, and until Athens 2004. Fani Halkia wins the 400m hurdles, a hurdler who again, never ran nearly that fast, and neither did after that win (Update Aug 17th 2008: Today Halkia found doped with the exact same substance like everyone else in Greece: M3). When the Thanou and Kenteris case pretty much blew up the whole doping thing in Greece, the Greek sports took a back stage again. Except Deventzi in triple jump, there are no major Greek athletes today that can compete successfully in the international scene. There are a few who do some good times sometimes, good enough for world recognition, but who weirdly, perform very badly in international meetings. It almost doesn’t make sense. And I hate it when the Greek sportscasters talk about “lack of international experience” to cover the lack of pills and injections on these games — because of fear of getting caught.

And of course, in the beginning of this year, pretty much the whole weightlifting team was caught using a banned substance, and just yesterday, another athlete was caught too, using the exact same substance (this article was the reason I decided to write this blog post today). It is my opinion, that ALL the athletes who are part of the “pro” Greek team, are all doped. Consider this:

* GDR had something to prove, and so had Greece. Politics.
* Some athletes who won medals seemingly disappear afterward for one reason or another. This is not consistent with “big athlete” careers. It can happen once, or twice, but when it happens for 10-15 athletes something is smelly.
* Greece, like GDR did, trains their pro track & field athletes, together, in the same place, usually with government-sponsored coaches and programmes. Same goes for the Greek weightlifting. This is unheard of in other countries where an athlete has his/her own independent coach and usually trains in their hometown.

Is any of this proof? No, it’s not. But it is my personal opinion and analysis, and I am entitled to one: The government itself, or a branch of the government, sponsored doping so they can prove that Greeks still “got it”, and to prepare for the Athens’ Olympics. While some athletes still use banned substances, the programme is not as rigid and fool-proof as it had to be in the past. I believe that 1992-2004 was the “golden age” of track & field and weightlifting for Greece.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that all these other athletes out there, from US or China, are clean. I don’t believe that any pro sports are clean. Heck, possibly not even chess is. Wherever money is involved, there’s one more reason to beat your opponent by any means necessary.

I also would like to say that I am not against doping per se. I am just against drugs that actually do harm. If someone was to create a drug that makes you “better in any way” without any side-effects whatsoever, I would get some myself.

Update: And a funny note for Greeks who are good in history. View the Florence Griffith-Joyner video here at around 3:40 mark. Her voice is exactly the same as Sakorafa’s (a Greek athlete who broke the world record in javelin in 1982 and who also disappeared after that performance). Their voices are exactly the same, they both have this metallic male voice. Listening to Flo-Jo was like listening to Sakorafa. Makes you wonder what both they were on.

It’s funny, I had a discussion about flags with JBQ last week. JBQ says that flags are symbols and need to be respected. I find flags (any flag, including my own) to be pieces of cloth. I don’t know, I don’t really believe in “symbols”, especially ethnicitistic symbols. But then again, I am for complete globalization, so flags and countries get in my way.

UPDATE: This sucks. I wanted to make a $25 donation today but the terms and conditions say that I have to be “a United States citizen or a lawfully-admitted permanent resident”. Unfortunately, I am only a lawfully-admitted non-immigrant resident, and not a permanent resident or citizen, so there goes the donation.

Yesterday, a French court has fined former film star Brigitte Bardot 15,000 euros for inciting racial hatred. She said she was “tired of being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts“, referring to a mass sheep slaughter/eating tradition by Muslims (similar to the one us Greeks have for our Easter too).

Personally, I disagree with her that people should not eat lamb and that this is a tradition that can ‘destroy’ France. However, I also disagree with the court’s decision to deem that opinion as “hate speech”. I agree that “defamation” should be something that should exist on a law system, but not “hate speech”. I don’t think that “hate speech” even exists in the vast majority of the cases that do get prosecuted. According to Wikipedia, “hate speech is a term for speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people”.

Honestly, I don’t think that Bardot’s reasoning was to intimidate or incite violence against the Muslims of France. Instead, she simply loves animals, and she has the opinion that allowing people from other cultures to enter France changes the French way of life in a way that she doesn’t wanna let go. It’s an opinion. She is a French citizen, she grew in the traditional French culture, and she doesn’t like to see things incompatible to her culture taking place in her own country. You agree with it or not, it’s just her opinion. In fact, in EVERY country there are countless people who feel similarly (e.g. Americans about the Mexicans, Greeks about the Albanians, Germans about the Turks etc), and when people feel something like this, they should speak out EVEN if they are wrong about it. If they can’t take it out of their chests, it’s ALSO wrong you see. If you don’t agree with these views, simply IGNORE them.

France has hate speech laws that restrict the open expression of anti-Semitism, and ethnic bias in public, according to Wikipedia. If that’s true, then France has no free speech in my opinion. USA is the only major country to not have regulation for hate speech, but only for defamation or intention to riot. I have to hand it to the Americans here, that’s the way to go, and I kneel before its forefathers. It’s very sad to see all these EU countries on the Wikipedia article not guaranteeing free speech.

You see, when I listen to Pat Condell’s videos, taking apart the whole Muslim culture, 10 times more vigorously than Bardot, I just feel bad for her for living in a country that doesn’t guarantee free speech. Condell was once accused of hate speech last year, but he doesn’t seem to take shit about it. The thing with Condell is that he is able to articulate the opinions of countless people that simply don’t have the strength to say it for themselves because of fear of lawsuits. When I watch Condell’s videos, I don’t just see someone who rips apart religions and cultures, but I see true free speech. I see someone who is not afraid to speak his mind. And same goes for all those religious activists who reply to his videos either with comments or with video responses disagreeing with him! That’s how our civilization and culture can grow, free speech is essential.

So if Condell can (thank God) speak his mind and not get punished by anything and anyone, why Bardot can’t? Is the blame on a restrictive French law, or he is simply luckier that his videos are hosted in USA, or is it the fact that he masquerades his opinions with stand-up comedy helps his cause? Whatever the answer is, people should not be fined for their opinions.

And btw, I love lamb. My mom told me on the phone the other day that when we finally go back to Greece she will slaughter a lamb for us and roast it. Yummy.

You see, there is no major transition without violence. And as Kaku says, it’s very possible that we won’t make it, because a lot of people will oppose the changes it brings. Harnessing huge powers requires more security measures, more “globalization” of thought and culture. This is not about just a few cultures not wanting anything to do with it, but even modern people who live in US or EU would protest. Such a transition would put a stress test on the limits of your own open mind.

You see, it might be essential to a Type I civilization, to take decisions that today are thought to be immoral: genetic experiments, termination of infants that are not healthy, pre-determined choice of profession, behavior and thought control. In other words, think of “1984″, times 10. With great power, comes great responsibility, and to ensure order, such measures might be unavoidable. This kind of future frightens all of us, not just “the anti-new world order” individuals. However, think that we already live in such an environment it’s just that the governments of the world don’t have enough technology yet to make our lives even more restrictive: all our communications are recorded, we are watched by hidden cameras on the streets, while the TV is doing its best to shape our opinions.

Even myself, who I try to have an open mind regarding most things (including ugly genetic experiments), I have opposed additional security measures and RFID on humans. So if I can barely take it, how is the average Joe Christian is going to? This is where Kaku rings the bell and says that it’s a very dangerous transition exactly because whatever freedoms you are taking for granted today won’t necessarily be present in such a Type I civilization. And removal of basic freedoms, or loss of culture with one sweep, always breeds guerrilla fighters.

I know that many will say that “humans are meant to be free, people won’t take it and will revolt“, but that’s hogwash. Humans are resilient and know how to intelligently change their lifestyle in order to fit in any ‘New World Order’. No matter how dictatorial such a future might sound to us right now. Once upon a time people would take a dump in a main street and no one would care, today it’s common sense not to do that, but for them, our society would already seem too restrictive. Study sociology on many cultures, including dictatorships, and look how people were living their lives just fine. Besides, thought and behavior control is going to be big business for governments in the future so “terrorism” can be eliminated this way.

So what are we to do? Embrace this frightening change that’s so incompatible with our ideas of how life should be, or fight it? Speaking as a human living in 2008, I’d say “fight it”, meaning only “delay it”. However, if I was to be somehow transported to the year 2108, I would accept that civilization’s traits: I would voluntarily get an RFID and a thought control chip, and whatever else they do for fun in that time. In other words, unless things are really-really shitty and your family starves because of that new economo-political system, don’t bother fighting the status quo. If you have food in your table, it obviously works. But what about freedom, you ask?

In the popular mythology of our time, the Greys don’t have independent thought, not because they were originally incapable of having one, but because their socio-political system have removed all their independence from them through genetic or artificial means (think of them as a kinder, gentler Borg). This way there are no “terrorists” among them thinking that “ooh, Jeez, we should stop doing anal probes to humans, it’s not ethical“. Instead, they all do what their collective thinks it’s the right thing to do for their species: “we should do anal probes to humans so we collect that bacteria that live in their gut that make these great face lotions“. And that’s that.

We have to look at the problem from a 1 billion feet high, in other words, we must get the big picture and ask ourselves: what’s more important in the long run: our personal freedom, or the survival of the species? If we don’t make the transition to Type I, WE DIE as a species. There’s no way around this, it’s just how it is. And when I say “we die”, I mean in the long run. Simply starting a nuclear war and killing off a few billion people in order to make humans go back to a prehistorically simpler way of life doesn’t solve the long run survival problem as the sun is bound to eat up Earth eventually.

What if, the only reason why every species is pre-encoded with a survival instinct, is not just to survive here and now, but to survive the species for the eons to come? What if, when the universe goes bust, from all the billions and trillions of intelligent civilizations in the universe, only a handful of them “make it” to another, warmer universe and continue to live on? Kinda like the millions of sperm shot from a male, but only one makes it and continues to be living in a female’s egg. Wouldn’t that be a noble reason to advance ourselves? Wouldn’t ultimate survival be the reason to lay off personal freedoms in order to preserve life itself, and the history of a whole universe that was?

If you want to see what’s wrong with many Greek people today, you simply have to look at one person, who happens to be a good representative of the bunch: Mikis Theodorakis. He is an internationally known composer, and a politician. Even if you might never heard his name, you probably have heard his music somewhere.

And you don’t have to know him to judge him. You just need to read his — pretty objectively written — Wikipedia page (towards the bottom).

Let me vomit now.

There is no doubt in my mind that NSA/CIA/FBI already have “super” credentials (supplied by Microsoft) that can login to any Windows machine in the world. While this might sound like a conspiracy theory to you, it sounds like normal business to me. If I was working for them, that’s the first thing I would push towards. Apple is as vulnerable as Microsoft in my opinion.

Regarding Linux, they can always offer “patches” or whole frameworks that look strong at first sight (e.g. SELinux), even uploaded by a Joe Hacker, only that the guy might be working for them instead. Look at the recent Debian blunder. For many years now, no one knew that the SSH keys were weak. I don’t give enough credit to the OSS community to fix bugs or even ruthlessly test random patches that make it in. It’s so easy to slip in rootkits on OSS that’s not even funny.

And besides, there is always the chicken and the egg problem. Instead of trying to put rootkits on pieces of software, you do it once, in the compiler. Good luck trying to keep clean the compiler itself, because you always need a compiler to compile your compiler (and very old compilers don’t have all the features you need to compile a newer compiler).

In other words, these agencies use computers to do their job, the same way some do to hack them. So if you ever see a global rootkit unveiled, don’t get surprised. I expect nothing less from them. I would do the same thing if I was in their position.

Post 9/11, there is no such thing as “privacy”. Forget it. Or fight for it.

Someone could argue that the war is so far away that the average American who has no children serving, doesn’t “feel” that his/her country is in the midst of a war. However, even if the “we are at war feeling” is not that strong, it’s possibly stronger than a ghost or paranormal TV series. I mean, come on. What’s more likely to happen? Hear that someone saw a ghost, or that someone you know just flew over to Iraq or Afghanistan to serve? In US, it’s the latter.

So why are there no TV series about the US military in times of war? An action/drama TV series that could depict, for a change, a bunch of females, following their story from training all the way to ground zero in Iraq and Afghanistan. Real stuff, not made up little incoherent stories as in CBS’ “The Unit” action/drama.

Money ain’t the problem to recreate such an environment. Fear could be though. Are studios afraid how controversial matters are going to be taken wrongly by some people (e.g. the rape of a woman during service, or the over-zealotry of both sides)? If that’s so, it’s stupid to halt such a production for that reason, because the more controversy there is, the more advertising comes for free.

The conspiracy theorist in me could go as far as saying that the US military itself would not like such a TV series (or even extensive war coverage by the media) and so the studios keep mum (even the legendary “M*A*S*H” TV series aired years after the Korean war was over).

Personally, if I was a TV exec, that’s the kind of TV series I would pitch to the networks right now. And if the networks don’t like it because they are chickens, there is always cable TV, where the rules are much more relaxed. I strongly believe that the clever thing to do right now in terms of TV business is to have the guts to create a controversial war action/drama around females.

It’s gonna get you hated by some weirdos around USA’s bible belt, but also is gonna get you rich. It has nothing to do with “exploitation of the war and our children who serve there” (so spare me the preaching). It has to do with business, and art. Art, and topics of interest in general, should never be halted because some people “might feel hurt”. Get over it people! It’s interesting, it’s current, it’s art, and that should be enough to be a done deal.

Update: Mike emailed me about the “Over there” war drama that lasted 13 episodes in 2005 in the cable FX channel. Apparently, it never picked up an audience, but reading about the plot, this is not the kind of drama I envisioned. This had a too traditional format.