Madeleine McCann's Parent Pay of Loan from Fund

A spokesman for Madeleine McCann's parents has said that the couple used money from the Madeleine fund to help pay the loan on there 450 000pound (6 000 000Kr) home(SvD, Dn.

This has caused some outrage in certain quarters (especially from people convinced the couple are guilty). You have to put it into the correct context though. Firstly, the terms of the fund allow it to be used to support the family financially, so what they have done is not dishonest. Secondly, the couple have not worked since Madeleine’s disappearance, so their income has become very much lower than before. It must surely be in the spirit of the fund that they should not be forced out of their homes because instead of going back to work, they are looking for their missing daughter.

The other thing is that as soon as they were made formal suspects, they stopped taking money from the fund for personal reasons, as they felt this would be inappropriate, and rightly so.

If the McCann's had been a couple of Blue Collar workers living in a small terrace house, nobody would have complained if they needed support to avoid being thrown out of their home, but instead they are a couple of well educated, highly paid professionals, and this does not sit well with some people.

Also the fact they live in an expensive house has not helped, but it is worth noting that the AVERAGE house price in the area where they live is 3.5MK. Before I moved to Sweden I lived near to Brighton where the average house price is over 6MKr!

Gerry McCann will now return to work part time as a consultant heart specialist.

This story is being used by some for more McCann bashing. One of the worst things about this case is how many people want them to be guilty for no other reason that it makes the story so much more juicer and exciting.

Changing Seasons - Not Good for Sleep

There is new report out saying how people are more affected by the change from summertime to wintertime than previously thought.

When I lived in England I was never that much affected by the clock change from summer to wintertime, but now I live so much more further north I really notice it. In the Summer I can't sleep because it is so light outside my body never gets the signals it needs to rest, but strangely I don't feel tired either.

In the winter I am tired all the time and even if I regularly go to bed at 21:30, it does not really help. As a naive Englishman I kind of assumed that Swedes had learnt to cope with the varying daylight hours or maybe even had developed genetic tolerance to it over all these centuries, but not so. I still meet loads of Swedes who become almost like zombies during the winter months.

Luckily we have coffee to help (or at least give a working placebo effect).

In the summer I am very much an evening person, but in the winter I am neither a morning nor evening person - I 'm at best lunchpigg!

The only good thing is that when my young kids wake up at 5:30, it is easier to persuade them to go back to sleep again when it is dark outside.

Pornographic Naked Jesus Statue ???

A group in Austria is protesting about a statue showing a naked figure of Jesus, which has stood for 20 years in a public place without anybody complaining before. Strangely the man (an 82 year old who should know better) is attacking the statue for being pornographic.

If this is pornographic, I wonder what kind of sheltered life this guy has had for the past 82 years....

The English Give a Bad Impression

It may be that people from other countries have a better view of the English before they meet them, but I have just come back from England and I had a great time. It was so nice to be around real English people again and to talk English to people who have it as a first language.

After seven years of living in Sweden it was a refreshing change to meet people who were that bit more open and chatty. Maybe this just reflects on the fact that I am more confident when meeting English speaking people. I miss having other English people around me, living in Sweden, and these trips back to Blighty really help. Not that I would necessarily move back there, its just that this is my cultural background and my roots.

Non-Religious Schools Good For Integration

Sweden is considered the best country in the EU when it comes to integrating foreigners, on paper at least.

As I wrote in an earlier blogg, the decision to limit religious teaching in school is a good move towards aiding integration as it stops isolated communities from setting up their own religious schools, where young immigrant children will be at risk of becoming even more culturally isolated.

"How can you integrate foreigners from other faiths if they are allowed to be taught in religious schools only surrounded by others of that faith learning that their religious teaching is right and others are wrong? Only by having multicultural schools, where faith is not an issue, can you forge integration. The first generations of immigrants are always the hardest to integrate and need the most help. By the second and third generation though they can't help but become more influenced by the larger society around them."

Students to be Protected From Religious Teaching in Schools

I was very happy to read in both SvD and Dn that the Swedish government is to tighten the rules for teaching religious ideas in schools so that it will no longer be allowed to teach Creationalism as an alternative to the scientific theory of evolution.

I have written at length on the subject in an earlier blogg and I am very satisfied with this new ruling. I would like to see all religious teaching banned from schools. Schools are places where young people get some of their most important views on the world and if this is tainted by religious dogma then they can end up carrying this through their entire lives. Religion only pretends to teach tolerance and understanding and in reality teaches that one idea is superior to another on a moral and spiritual level and so people not sharing this view are therefore morally or spiritually inferior by definition.

How can you integrate foreigners from other faiths if they are allowed to be taught in religious schools only surrounded by others of that faith learning that their religious teaching is right and others are wrong? Only by having multicultural schools, where faith is not an issue, can you forge integration. The first generations of immigrants are always the hardest to integrate and need the most help. By the second and third generation though they can't help but become more influenced by the larger society around them. This is what happened with Muslims, Sikhs etc.. in Britain and I hope it will be true in Sweden too. Young British Muslims still go to the mosques but also wear the modern British clothes, listen to British music and talk about popular culture and British TV.

Amsterdam's Magic Mushrooms Losing Their Magic

It appears that Amsterdam's repution for the being the vice capital of Europe is under threat again. This time its a ban on the sale of hallucinogenic 'magic mushrooms', which until now have been freely available from certain shops in the Dutch capital.

Maybe this is just the state ruining peoples fun again. Amsterdam is the only place the non-Dutch Europeans can go to try these things out and not feel like criminals. Sure people have had bad reactions and done some stupid things whilst tripping, but I'm sure the number of people hurting themsleves or others through alchahol is much much higher.

I find it a bit of a contradiction that in Sweden people think that if so much a smoke a spliff you become an out of control drug addict but at the same time it's ok for them to let their 15 year old kids get pissed out their heads at weekend parties on moonshine.

Seams a bit odd doesn't it?

The Real Inconvienient Truth

Al Gore and the UN's IPCC have jointly been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for spreading the word about man made climate change and what steps need to be taken to counter it.

The thing is though that however well meaning they are they are not in a position to implement these changes and cannot halt climate change themselves. A really brave man would be a world leader who took up the casuse and actually implemented these recommendations.

Lets wait until the G8 agree to implement the steps needed to tackle climate changes and then give them the Noble Prize.

For me the real 'Inconvieniant Truth' is not that man made climate change is happening, it's that there is still no real political will to do anything about it.

50 Years Since Sellafield's Nuclear Accident

Now that Sweden is sending its nuclear waste for reprocessing at the Sellafield plant in England it is worth noting that almost 50years ago today, this site was the scene for the worlds first nuclear accident, an event which could have been equivalent to Chernobyl.

On October 10th. 1957 a fire broke out in one of the Windscale reactor cores which led to dangerous radioactive material being released into the atmosphere. Luckily the engineers were able to put the fire out using water before things got as far as they did in the Chernobyl disaster.

One reason for the fire was that reactor was being pushed too hard since the politicians were desperate for it to produce enough plutonium to build a British Nuclear Bomb (a point worth remembering when Iran talks about peaceful nuclear power).

After the accident the name was changed from Windscale to Sellafield (Which was a good PR decision).

Now every time it gets a big shipment of waste for reprocessing there is an outcry. It was the same a few years back when the Japanese were sending waste there. I wonder what the Brits are getting paid for being Europe's nuclear dustbin?

Football Gets Its Own 'God Squad'

The Vatican is has bought majority share in Italian football club Ancona which they want to turn into a 'moral' club, free from racism, hooliganism, swearing drugs drinking etc.. They will have a code of conduct for players and fans to follow.

So will we see some amendments to the 'Ten Commandments' revised for football?

• Thy shalt not foul thine opposition.
• Thy shalt not chant 'Who's the Wanker in the Black' when addressing the referee.
• Thy shalt not fall for the offside trap.
• Thy shalt not take a dive in the penalty box.
• Thy shalt not argue with the refs decisions.
• Thy shalt not pretend like nothing has happened when thy foul another player behind the refs back.
• Thy shalt do penance Opus Dei style if thy receive the red card.
• Thy shalt not roll over in fake agony if another player just brushes past thou when thoust have the ball.
• Thy shalt not marry a spice girl.
• Thy shalt not play like pussies after going one nill up straight after kick-off thinking you can defend the lead for 90 minutes.

(Actually the last one applies only to the English football team.)

I wonder if Maradonna's 'Hand Of God' will be used by the new team? - That would be a bit unfair.

If the Church is worried about declining moral standards why don't they do something about the totally immoral practice of preaching against birth control and abortion in third world countries racked with diseases such as AIDS, where millions of women die each year.

Ryanair: Passengers Win but the Planet Looses

Ryanair are now paying passengers to fly on its planes. They are offering the seats for free and then THEY pay the taxes and other charges. So long as you take only hand luggage and check in on-line Ryanair pay the rest!!

Where's the catch? Well you have to fly at off peak times but still this is ridiculously cheap.

The reason is actually because the number of air passengers is dropping and Ryanair is seeing planes which have too many empty seats. They still have to fly the plane so if they offer the seats for free they reason that they can at least recoup some of their costs be selling on-board snacks, travel insurance, hotel reservations etc...

However environmentalist groups have been very critical with Friends of the Earth saying,

"Passengers may be getting a free ride, but the planet certainly isn't. It is unbelievable that Ryanair is resorting to such tactics."

Ryanair has been expanding rapidly and investing heavily in new planes so that last thing they need is to fly planes with empty seats.

Intelligent Design: Stop These Religous Fanatics

After all the discussion around Islamic fundamentalism it is a sobering reminder to see that the Christian extremists are not for behind, and already active in Europe.

SvD reports today on the 'Intelligent Design' and Creationist movements who have been trying so hard to get a foothold in America schools and are now at work in Europe too.

The premise is this: Since the Bible says that God created the Earth and explicitly created man and everything in the Bible is true, so you can't ignore it, it follows that Darwin’s view of gradual evolution and the Origin of species must be wrong.

Young Earth Creationists have looked at some time markers in the Bible to show the Earth was created around 6000 years ago. They have to explain away things like Dinosaurs and the Carbon Dating to make this stick of course. Dinosaurs lived alongside people and were gave birth to all the Dragon and Monster Myths. You don't see them today because they never made it onto Noah's Ark (of course!). Carbon dating is simply rubbished as being based on inaccurate assumptions, making its results worthless.

Intelligent Design (ID) proponents say that since life was designed by an intelligent agent (God), then signs of this will be visible in the biology of living organisms. They rubbish Darwin by saying his theory has too many holes in it to be trusted (whereas just throwing up your arms and saying, God did it is much more plausible).

These people are dangerous and are trying to take us back to the Middle Ages when scientists were heretics and the Biblical dogma was all that mattered. Don't forget they once believed the world was the centre of the Universe and the sun revolved around it.

ID not science. It makes no testable theories or predictions and exists only to prop up the belief that the Biblical work must be the absolute truth and so by default, everything else is wrong. Is this what we want to teach our children? That religious dogma should be blindly accepted instead or looking for truths through the rigours of logic and scientific method.

Darwin's theories have made many predictions and have been seen to be at work countless times, even changing species on time scales we can observe. Saying it is wrong because it cannot answer everything is just plain stupid, as all theories take time to develop and expand and we build up our understanding of the world in small incremental steps.

One argument against Darwinism is that there is no explanation as to how life spontaneously began and evolved from the most simple amino acid building blocks. But just wait a minute, Nature has had millions of years to evolve these mechanisms and modern Biochemistry is only about 50 years old. The human genome was mapped less than a decade ago. Who knows what our knowledge will be in 50 more years time.

Keep Science with the Scientists and keep this kind of mindless, thoughtless faith in religious dogma out of the schools so we can bring up generations of kids who will have enquiring minds ready to search out the real truths behind our origins and not just robots to faith.

Amen.

Madeleine McCann: Now the Blame Game Starts

So now after five months and no leads the blame game has started over why the Portuguese police have not found out what happened to Madeleine McCann. Having failed to find any evidence to charge the parents and no other credible leads the case has well and truly stalled.

So to deflect critisism, the Portuguese Police chief in charge of the investigation, Goncalo Amaral, is blaiming the British Police for being led around and fooled by the McCanns. This has led to his bosses firing him from the criminal investigation branch.

Hopefully his replacement will take a fresh look at the evidence and maybe find some new leads which have been missed before. Right now it looks like the trail is cold and we will never learn the truth.

The latest theory is that she was snatched by a an angy employee of the hotel. Although this lead came about after it was sent to Prince Charles's Website, which seams like a very strange place to inform the Police of infomation and does start the, 'Another Loony Lead' alarm bells ringing

Solar Power: Not Quite Ready to Replace Nuclear!

I'm looking to buy a house just now and since many older houses have direct electrical heating I am very interested in alternative energy, solar power being one of them.

However, when you read the article in SvD today, you get the impression that solar power can solve the worlds energy problems and help replace all those nuclear reactor and coal plants. I'm just not convinced of this. Sure there is a collosal amount of solar energy waiting to be tapped into, but you have to collect it first. Solar cells are not that efficient, giving them quite a low power to weight ratio compared to nuclear and fossil fuels. This means you need a lot of surface area to collect useful amounts of energy. I haven't calculated how much you need to replace a nuclear reactor, but I bet its pretty huge.

It's the same thing with running cars with solar power, you have a limited space on the roof of the car (assuming you don't have a roofbox!) and that just can't generate enough power to run the engine, even in a hybrid. The best solar powered cars are totally engineered to to be as lightweight and efficient as possible, but none of them would make practical veichles. So you end up back to a combustion engine of some sort. Solar powered cars tend to get tested in places like Australia where you have lots of sun anyway. It's not exactly like that in Sweden is it?

Maybe if all the houses had solar cells then the collection area would mount up to someting big enough to close down some conventional reactors, but then you run into the other (rather obvious) problem of what to do at night. Nobody has found a way to store large amounts of electricity, so you will always need back up capacity at night.

This was a good article in that it will raise awareness and hopefully bring in investors, which will drive prices down and spark innovations, but like so many articles on alternative energy sourses it is high on possibilities but low on practicalities. If solar power is going to make a big impact though the efficiency of the cells will need to be increased, whilst the manufacturing costs will need to come down.

I'd love to see more solar power (or indeed any alternative power sourse) and I am quite concerned that we might be being tricked into thinking that biofuel will solve more probelms than it causes, but I'd also like to see more realistic predicitons and suggestions on how to implement and use these emerging technologies, as I'm getting a bit sick of the hype.

Nun Fighting - How funny is that

How do three nuns who have all taken a vow of silence get into such a bad situation that they end up fighting?

This has happened in Italy where three nuns are all that is left in a small convent near Bari. Two of the nuns became so fed up with the bad habits (no pun intended) of the third, they ganged up on her scratching her face

Maybe one of them snores too loud, or eats in a very nessy way, I mean if they never say anything what on Earth did she do to piss the others off so much....?

I wonder if as the first two nuns were attacking the third they were also passing her notes saying things like 'Take that bitch!', whilst she was frantically scribbling down notes saying, 'I'll fucking get you for that'

I guess this is what happens when you get a small group of people in a confined environment for a long period of time with no chance to leave. NASA would do well to take note when planning future missions to Mars.

Mohammed Al Fayed Just Can't Let Go

Mohammed Al Fayed has been shouting his conspiracy theory to all who would listen to him since Diana and Dodi were killed. He is just a doting father unable to come to terms with the death of his son and looking instead to rationalise it as being the work of agents of the British Crown.

The idea that Prince Phillip ordered a plot by the British Secret Service to kill Diana so that she and Dodi would not marry is quite an accusation. However, you have to consider that if this is the case they picked a very strange assassination method. I mean they needed to get Diana and Dodi in the same car. Drug the driver so he would drive in an erratic and dangerous way, arrange for them to be followed by the papparazzi and then just at the right moment, engineer the car to crash out of control. There must be so many ways this plan could have gone wrong, when a simple bullet or bomb would have done the job much more efficiently.

Al-Fayed was repeatedly refused British citizenship before Diana and Dodi even met, so he has always believed the establishment was out to get him. This is just a bitter mans attempt to make sence of his loss and grief.

Burma: Soon to be forgotten?

The UN special envoy to Burma has finnaly left Burma after meeting the military leadership, the opposition leaders and Aung San Suu Kyi. In fact he has met pretty much everyone....except the monks. I haven't seen any reports of him meeting with representatives of the monks themselves to give them support or to learn how they are being treated by the regime in the wake of the protests. After all, these were the men who literally put there lives on the line to make their voices heard.

Now we hear that up to 4000 monks have been imprisoned by the Junta, it is clear that the Junta has won again, as it did in 1990. The bottom line is that peaceful protest by monks alone was never going to topple the Burmese regime. The world has not brought sufficient pressure to bare on them, particularly the Chinese who have the most influence.

The remaining monks will be too afraid to gather in large numbers and I fear that soon the world will forget about the events of the past few weeks and move on.

Y0u can't fight an army with words and voices, as the monks are now learning. Having been put down twice it is hard to see them rallying a third time, so for Burmese at least the future looks bleak.

Biological Hazzards

When I dropped my son of at dagis this morning I was greeted by two big signs on the door, one saying that stomach flu had been reported and another saying that chicken pox had also been reported.

I couldn't help thinking of the foot and mouth outbreak in Britain. Only they were still letting kids go to dagis anyway. My wife and I have both had chicken pox, so I guess the sooner my son gets it over with the better, but stomach flu is a terrible thing to have. Not for him of course, he's just two and a half and barely notices he's ill, but for us, the parents.

When you have a kid with stomach flu you know that everytime you clean up a pool of projectile vomit or change a particulary messy nappy you are playing russian roulette with your internal digestive system. I've had it twice now and whenever my kids get sick I want to jump into a bio hazzard suit.

Maybe stomach flu should be treated just like foot and mouth and the dagis should be quarantined and nobody allowed to go within 3km of it. ........Well, ok maybe burning all the kids on big bonfire would be going too far.... but at least it would contain things....

I live in dread of the stomach flu season and all the colds I catch from my kids. It makes the winter months really tough. If its a bad year I barely have time to get healthy before spring and the hayfever season starts.

I hope that by the time they grow out of this I will have an immune system so tough and battle hardened it will be like a detatchment of marines and this will get me through the later years of life.

Until then I'll carry on trying to drop my kid off each morning without breathing the air, talking to anyone or touching anything.......

No More Sacrifices at Schulman's Alter

So Sweden's premiere shock-jock Alex Schulman is closing down his blog (SvD, DN). It was very interesting to read his reasons for this, namely, that the blogg had taken on a life of its own and was no longer showing a side of Alex Schulman that he was comfortable with.

His blogg was a bit like a modern day collosseum, with a bloodthirsty audience always screaming for the next celebrity to be sacrificed in the arena of popular entertainment. And Schulman has always been all too happy to provide this...until now.

If he realy feels that things went too far then I actually think it's a brave thing to stand up and say this and shows the man may actually have some integrity after all.

Of course it could be a smoke screen and the real reason he is quitting now is because if he pisses off many more people he'll never work again in the business.