How to start your own country 101

The national flag of the new Balkan sovereign state, Liberland.

Starting a country might sound like an impossible task, a task that usually involve seceding and a violent revolution. Actually, starting your own sovereign state might not be that difficult on paper. Y

You will need
1. Land unclaimed by another sovereign state.
If you declare your house or your property as an independent state, the country that is sitting on it       would probably ask it back, and if it get too complicated, it will usually be taken back with military     force and guess what? Running a country from a jail cell isn't easy.

2. Form a functioning government and enact basic laws
Parliamentary democracy, monarchy or totalitarian dictatorship? Having a FUNCTIONAL                 government would be good to start with. You and the founding fathers/mothers of a state would         start by forming some basic executive/legislative branches. A constitution is not needed but highly     recommended, so your state won't have a coup d'etat now and then. Flags, emblem and coat of             arms should also be designed. Establishing diplomatic ties is probably a must too, unless you want     to do a North Korea.

3. Having a permanent population
Getting people to live and work in your country on permanent basis, which mean you have to             create jobs and build an infrastructure for your people.


And with three not so easy steps, you have your own state/republic/kingdom.


Read more about the "Free Republic of Liberland" HERE!

The Big 3 With Most Bucks

By statistic, most billionaires in the world are.... rich... ridiculously rich. These three bad boys have more money than a lot of countries in the world, they have made their fortune through hard work and some luck. We are counting the top 3


Number 3

Warren Buffet (born 30 August 1930) hails from the United States and is currently regarded as the most successful investor and businessman in the 20th century. He has a network of multiple massive investing companies around the world, most notably the Berkshire Hathaway. In 2012, it was estimated that he holds a fortune of around $53 billion.

Even though he is insanely rich, he is known for his modest and moderate lifestyle. He is still living in the suburban house that he bought in 1957 for $31 500. He is also a member of the Gates Foundations, and is expected to donate around $43 billion.





Number 2

Carlos Slim Helu (born 28 January 1940) is a Mexican businessman that is currently controlling big portion of telephone companies such as Telmex. Through America Movil, he has built his telephone empire through big portions of Latin America. In 2011, his fortune was around $74 billion, compared to Gates $56 and Buffets $50.

He is currently fighting for the throne of the richest person in the world against the reigning Bill Gates.






Number 1

Bill Williams Gates (born 28 October 1955) is one of the main founders of the mega corporation Microsoft. If you are using anything that is related to computers, chances are you are making him richer and richer.

Gates started to program computers in 1968 when he was just 13 years old. In 1973 he started at Harvard University and got known with Paul Allen, that eventually became his partner when founding Microsoft. His fortune now is around $79 billion.

Even though he is the richest person on planet earth, he is also one of the most generous. He has helped African countries against diseases such as Malaria and with his wife, founded the Gates Foundation.





Images:
«Warren Buffett KU Visit» av Mark Hirschey - Work of Mark Hirschey. Lisensiert under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warren_Buffett_KU_Visit.jpg#/media/File:Warren_Buffett_KU_Visit.jpg
«Carlos Slim Helú» av José Cruz/ABr - Agência Brasil [1]. Lisensiert under CC BY 3.0 br via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carlos_Slim_Hel%C3%BA.jpg#/media/File:Carlos_Slim_Hel%C3%BA.jpg
«Bill Gates in WEF ,2007» av World Economic Forum - Copyright World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org), swiss-image.ch/Photo by Severin NowackiCropping of World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2007.. Lisensiert under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bill_Gates_in_WEF_,2007.jpg#/media/File:Bill_Gates_in_WEF_,2007.jpg

Chile's State of Emergency

(Twitter/@elrafaarenas) 

Twin blasts from the Calbuco volcano in southern Chile emitted this large cloud of volcanic ash that shot 12 km up into the sky. Eruption of this volcano is usually rare, its last eruption was more than 4 decades ago. The ashes has covered cities in dangerous volcanic ash, many houses are at risk of roof collapse due to the weight of the ashes. The ashes also went as far as the neighboring  Argentina. The eruption took officials by surprise, the President of the republic has now declared state of emergency.

Scary... (David Cortes Serey/AFP/Getty Images)

Tension and fear is high in towns surrounding Chile's Calbuco volcano, after the sleeping giant awoke this week, sending spectacular plumes of ash into the sky.

This week was the volcano's first eruption in 42 years. The blasts that began Wednesday, creating a remarkable scene of smoke plumes and ash shooting more than 6 miles into the sky. Calbuco had another spectacular outburst early Thursday with lightning crackling through a dark sky turned reddish orange by the explosion. More smoke was seen coming from the volcano Friday, and experts warn it could erupt again. -TWC
                                                                                                                                                   

In other news, our satellites continue monitoring the #ChileVolcanCalbuco eruption: http://t.co/cyGDZQB6fQ pic.twitter.com/NrsweuYAsR

— NASA (@NASA) 25. april 2015

Food, What we all like

The last post on this site was about a genocide and terrible atrocities that was/is committed by humans against humans.

For eyewash, I am giving you sweetness in this post. Instead of the traditional conflict ridden posts, this is about the unique culture that our civilization has. Everything from food and... food....
Some cultures are "underrated" and I will show you some culture and tradition that will probably make you hungry, read at your own risk.

Let us start, shall we?

This time, our country is Indonesia

Indonesia is an archipelago that consist of more than 15,000 island, although the majority of the population only reside in 4 biggest islands.


3 Short Facts
-The government is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic. Unlike Russia, Indonesia is just like the US with the president as head of state and head of government
-It recognizes 6 religions. Although Islam accounts for 80% of all Indonesians.
-There are over 300 native ethnic groups and over 743 regional dialectics.

The cuisine
Unlike Japanese and Chinese cuisine, Indonesian cuisine is not generally well known to the world. Some cuisines that Indonesian eat on daily basis. Indonesia is a country where a lot of rice is eaten, and guess what? Their cuisine is heavily based from rice and other homegrown foodstuffs.

"Nasi Goreng" literally fried rice, is an example of food from Indonesia. It can be served from simple roadside stall to 5 class restaurant. It is made by frying rice with some cooking oil and typically spiced with sweet soybean sauce, garlic and some chili and accompanied by other ingredients such as egg, shrimps, chicken and so on. You can put just about anything.

Where fried rice is originally from is actually disputed, but Indonesian eats it a lot at least...
Anything is technically a fried rice as long it has fried rice...

Rendang is a spicy meat dish which originated from the Minangkabau ethnic group of Indonesia, and is now commonly served across the country.One of the characteristic foods of Minangkabau culture, it is served at ceremonial occasions and to honour guests. Rendang usually consist of biff soaked with usually garlic, coconut milk, lemongrass and chili. After the contents are mixed, the meat is ready to be slow cooked for many many hours. It is usually cooked until the "soup" is gone and is leaving a dry meat left. If cooked properly, rendang is able to last as long as a month.



  

Genocides, does it ever end.

Why the Armenian genocide is so controversial and unclear, is because of how we define a genocide. Currently there are many scholars that define a genocide differently, but the fundamentals criteria are. 
1 Removing an ethnic group
2 Removing a religious group

And therefore, we can say that a genocide is denying a group rights to exist.

Here are some widely recognized definitions of a genocide, and yes the Armenian genocide fulfills it.

Genocide is a form of violent social conflict or war, between armed power organizations that aim to destroy civilian social groups and those groups and other actors who resist this destruction. Genocidal action is action in which armed power organizations treat civilian social groups as enemies and aim to destroy their real or putative social power, by means of killing, violence and coercion against individuals whom they regard as members of the groups.[31]            
                                                                                                                          -Martin Shaw

Article 6 of the Rome Statute provides that ‘genocide’ means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
                                                                  -Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Article 2 In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
                                                                                -UN General Assembly 260A (III) Article II

Make peace, not war

The Philosophy of Equality

Egalitarianism

With a trend towards a freer and a more liberated world, a world where people decide their own fate and write their own history, it is time to talk about the part where "is everyone really equal?". 

Without doubt, liberalism has spread rapidly over the last 40 years, starting with a student revolution, now the same generation is in government power. They went from rebelling against their parent to controlling governments. Our parents have certainly done a good job with everything from black rights to the more sensitive "LGBT" rights. It is now our turn to forward the job. I hate to say this, but we have to let the previous generation retire then we can put our ideology in power. In short, the next generation is usually more open minded than the previous.

Photo: Alamy

In many developed nations, rights are based off the idea of modernism. Japan is no exception with this, they have almost lost their cultural identity due to their focus to work. Their population is at an all time low in 15 years, they have 2 people over 65 for every people they have under 14. This huge demographic shift is due to long life expectancy and low birthrate. The government of Japan has proposed multiple plans to at least maintain their population. One of them is letting immigrants inn, but Europe has something to say with that.

Countries in Europe are changing their demographic fast in the next 20-30 years due to immigrant having a higher birthrate than their natives counterparts. In Sweden, the natives have a birthrate of around 1.6, while the number for non natives might be as high as 2.5. 

The value of a human life

No parties in the world can answer this question without many debates. Some put value of a human life based on religion, other based their life on traditional values and honor. It is no doubt that while everyone agrees that every human is equal, the practice is different from the paper. A law is only a law if there are parties that enforces it.

In developed countries, they value their citizen more expensively than a developing countries. Wealthier countries usually spend money and power trying to get a citizen in distress to a safe(er) location. A country usually has to have strong political powers to do this.

In Southern Europe, the refugee crisis is getting bigger and is almost out of control. People fleeing from war zones are so desperate, they flee together in the thousands in a craft that is too small to carry them all. Some are not so lucky and drown, while other face deportation as not everyone gets their asylum.

They are so desperate for a better life on an another continent that they are willing to risk their life during the voyage.

Close to Palermo, Italy, it is feared that 700 have drowned after their boat sank a mere 80 km from Italy's territorial waters. 

This is one of the worst refugee crisis in our time. How the problem is to be solved, I do not know.

Problem such as this are usually political, many countries are not willing to take in refugees. If they take in refugee, they are encouraging people to take the dangerous voyage across the ocean. Europe have at least 99 problems and the refugee crisis is one of them.

The future of our food production

The future of our food production

With the world population nearing 9 billion in 2050, what is our option for food? By then we would have to at least increase our production by 60% if we do not want to deal with severe food shortages. This is not only a big technological step, but also a big step on how to preserving our forest and natural habitat for animals.

GMO... Is it THAT scary?

Corn

The main vegetables that we are currently producing to get food on our table is corn, wheat and rice. These 3 crops provide the world population for their bread, rice etc. Losing only one of them would prove devastating, so we either need to diversify or just keep them and hope that nothing bad happens in the near future.


Today crops such as corn, cotton and some wheat has been genetically modified to endure harsher conditions. Genetically modified organism is the same as changing some DNA to make the crop adapt to a harsher environment to endure whatever scientist/biologist demands it to do. Although it is still debatable whether this is safe or not, as some news outlet "cough cough fox news cough" has "reported" that this kind of food threatens our natural way of living and producing.

Wheat 

The next big problem with our current agriculture is that it consumes HUGE quantities of water, and as California is experiencing, fresh water is getting more and more sparse so we need more water efficient crop in the future. Just so you know it, 70% of the fresh water gathered is used for agricultural purposes, so it is quite a lot.

One of the research goal of this decade might be to modify a crop so that it can grow with saltwater. You see, water is not the problem but fresh water is. How to do this with crops that we use in everyday life is currently not known, but if we manage to grow wheat/corn/rice with saltwater then we have solved out need for food.

There are of course many ways to fix our food problem, and my two suggestions above are only two of a lot potential solution scientist have though of. One way to sustain the food production is... to maintain the population at 7 billion. Even with our current population, we are struggling to feed people where droughts are heavily affecting the area.



Image credits
"Wheat close-up" by User:Bluemoose - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wheat_close-up.JPG#/media/File:Wheat_close-up.JPG
"Corntassel 7095" by Spedona - en:Image:Corntassel 7095.jpg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Corntassel_7095.jpg#/media/File:Corntassel_7095.jpg

The suppression of renewable energy

The oppression of renewable energy

With billions of dollars to spare, what is the oil company hiding? There is one infamous conspiracy theory about that may drive the entire petroleum energy business bankrupt. Does oil and gas companies really suppress? 

Here are some renewable energy options that I will be talking about.

Solar PV array 

We all know that there is no free lunch, green energy infrastructures are expensive, but is it worth it in the long run? Once you place a solar array on your roof, it will probably cost you a few thousand to start with, but after it you are generating power for free from the sun. A few thousand is a lot of money to start with, but after years of selling electricity back to the grid, it will pay itself.

The problem is that solar arrays usually are not as effective as people want it to be. Most commercial solar panels usually converts 15% of the energy it captures into electricity, some suggest that this could be doubled within 10 years. You also have to remember that the suns energy gets absorbed because of the earth atmosphere, that is why PV arrays thrive so good in satellites is because they get huge amount of power because there is no atmosphere to the photons.

Wind turbine
If you love scenery, You will absolutely hate wind turbines. They are huge, tall and is reported to kill birds. The problem is they rely too much on the wind being strong, and strong wind is also what people do not like. Unstable power output combined with destroying the scenery is not a very good thing when proposing to the public.








Fission reactor
The fear mongering with nuclear reactor is real. In the past 50 or so years, we've humans have had two class 7 nuclear accidents. The problem with such nuclear accident is that the fuel remains radioactive for a very long time and containment zone becomes a hassle to deal with.

Thorium has also been proposed and tested by researcher as a revolutionary new fuel for nuclear reactors. It is noted that Thorium is greener because a Thorium meltdown is not likely to cause major hassle such as Plutonium and Uranium based nuclear reactors. The best with Thorium is that it cannot be weaponized, and thus helping bringing peace.

Fusion reactor
This kind of energy has not yet been developed completely or tested on industrial scale. The US based company, Lockheed Martin suggest that they are able to produce one in some decades.

The problem is fusion reactor, is that the design has to endure temperatures of the surface of the sun for generating energy. If a breakthrough is found, then we might live in a post oil world where energy is not only cheap, but green and abundant. The fuel used in fusion reactors is hydrogen, one of the most abundant materials in the universe.

The sun is in fact one huge fusion reactor, it fuses hydrogen to helium and so on. We may find out answers from the nature itself.

???Fuel???
Dark matter? Plank energy? Anti-matter? Future technology in 500 years might be impressive to us as how technology now impresses the medieval civilization. This is only applies as long we have not killed our self with wars and petty politics. 

While the option for alternative energy is plentiful, not very many of them can compete with the oil market. The oil would have to be expensive and hard to extract before a significant progress in green energy is made.



Credits for pictures
"Westmill Solar 2" by MrRenewablesWestmill Solar Co-operativeNeil Maw - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Westmill_Solar_2.jpg#/media/File:Westmill_Solar_2.jpg


"Lamma wind turbine" by Patrickmak - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lamma_wind_turbine.jpg#/media/File:Lamma_wind_turbine.jpg

"Sun in X-Ray" by NASA Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheres - NASA Goddard Laboratory for Atmosphereshttp://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/images/yohkoh.htmlhttp://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/images/yohkoh_l.gif. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sun_in_X-Ray.png#/media/File:Sun_in_X-Ray.png

Political position explained to dummies

So we know that there are two different wings when it comes to politics, but what are those? You see being far on either wings is not good. So let me just explain in this short post. This is a broad generalization of parties, but this is better than not knowing anything at all, and yes, I am a left winger, deal with it.


The Extreme Far Left
At this point, having a government like this would confiscate private holdings and spread he wealth equally, hence the name "communism". There are different types of communism though, anarchy communism is a system without a government of a ruling body and relies that people want to share their goodies with other equally, but forget it, this will never happen because of human natural greed. Extreme far left are not only communist, but also a totalitarian government.

The Far Left
Far left parties and government usually allows some private holdings but taxes heavily on the rich. The have strict regulation and nationalizes everything they can from defense companies, milk companies and whatever is left so that the national government has full control over almost everything.

The Left Wing
This is where normal everyday politics comes in. Left wing parties usually focuses on worker right, regulation and minimal privatization of healthcare and education. Most European countries are on the left wing due to free healthcare and heavily subsidized education. They are also usually pro immigration and most likely to be pro globalization.

Centrism/Big Tent
This is kind of tricky to explain, because centrist parties just take what they feel like from both wings.

The Right Wing
This is where most conservative parties stay, their ideologies are usually liberalism in the market, conservative liberalism and there is one thing right winger love more than anything, and that is tax break. They claim that a small government is useful for both business and individual. Right winger usually support stricter immigration law to protect the current workforce.

The Far Right
Parties that are far right are usually classified as "racist" because of their nature to preserve the "old" traditions of a country. They are usually hostile to new culture and adaptations. Some might argue that far right parties are rising in Europe because the native population felt threatened by immigrants.

ISIS, religious or a political organization?

As you should already know, the Syrian civil war created ISIS that then spilled over to neighboring Iraq. They claim to be the rightly guided caliphate with pure sharia law, but then there is some questions to this entire "ISIS" legitimacy. First legitimacy is that a fully guided caliphate is to be agreed by ALL Muslims and not just a few.

Ataturk
Founder of todays Turkey

The last caliphate, the Ottoman caliphate/sultanate/empire was abolished in 1928 after multiple power struggles inside the empire, one of the most known "rebel" commander against the empire was the first Turkish president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, where he led a rebellion and formed the modern day secular Turkey.

Did you know that homosexuality was legalized in 1858 inside the Ottoman empire? Today inside a muslim government, being open to homosexuality is almost a guaranteed deathbed. Even though the Ottoman empire is considered a legitimate caliphate by the majority of muslims, it has one of the most secularized laws by the 18 centuries.




Back to today, while some imams certainly supports ISIS the majority of muslims I know in real life is heavily against it, they claim that the caliphate is not legalized because of their brutality. Is this really the case? Some Gulf Nations actually has similar punishment as ISIS and nobody dears to speak against it. Raif Bandawi spoke against the "Sharia" government and supported secularism, now he is jailed for a long time, sentenced to 1000 lashes and fined one million Saudi Rial. His wife has defected to Canada along with their children.

It has also been reported that many of senior and important ISIS figures are from the former more secular Baath party of Iraq. A top general under Saddam Hussein's Iraq has been reportedly killed after a clash in Fallujah.

Start Of Another Yemeni Civil War

Bombs, bombs go away, come again when I have fled.

As the Yemeni goverments fall to Houthis "rebels", Saudi Arabia has led a coalition airstrike to neutralize the Houthis. The Saudis has also formed a coalition of many other gulf nations, Oman is the only one to have declared neutrality in this conflict.

The neutrality
One of the reason that Oman is neutral is because they are neither Shia or Sunni muslims, they are Ibadi muslims, and having a country that borders conflict ridden Yemen and Iran is not a good idea if Oman wants to continue with their neutrality. Just think of this, Oman is the Swiss of the middle east, you barely hear them when your read the news. Despite this, Oman maintains good diplomatic relations between the west, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The airstrike
When the Yemeni government in Sanaa falls to the Houthis, this sparked a reaction from Saudi Arabia where they are a Sunni majority (Houthis are Shia). They then began to the strike Houthis stronghold, but according to a report by The Guardians, the airstrike has also had its toll on civilian.

There has also been multiple speculations that the Houthis are backed by Iran, a country where Shia muslim is the majority. Despite having diplomatic relations to Saudi Arabia, their relations are not so good and Irans relations with the United States has been bitter since the 1979 revolution

The start of a bitter civil war
As the national government of Yemen loses hold of its territory and the expansions of AQAP, Houthis and potentially ISIS allies, the future of the country is at stake. There has also been a movement to seperate South Yemen against the rest of Yemen. During the cold war, Yemen was a divided state much like Germany.

The situation is so bad, that the Chinese has evacuated their and foreign citizens from Yemen to Djibuti with their naval ships.