Modern Democracy

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Just reading this and thinking of the possible fun...

But more seriously, maybe the idea of representational goverment is outdated...what if laws, policy's, budgets... could be proposed, debated, and ultimatly written by everyone and anyone? No need to vote for someone to represent your views in a parliment of 500 odd people, everyone gets their say, the loudest voice wins...

Team America: World Police

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Maybe they would do better to sort some of the problems back home...come on, killing your own citizens is abit extreme...

I like that firing squad is avalible to some lucky people...personaly id say hanging has got to be the best way...but i dont live in a country where that is an issue...

Some interesting facts...

• Since 1973, 124 prisoners have been released in the USA after evidence emerged of their innocence of the crimes for which they were sentenced to death. There were six such cases in 2004, two in 2005, one in 2006 and one so far in 2007. Some prisoners had come close to execution after spending many years under sentence of death. Recurring features in their cases include prosecutorial or police misconduct; the use of unreliable witness testimony, physical evidence, or confessions; and inadequate defence representation. Other US prisoners have gone to their deaths despite serious doubts over their guilt. The state of Florida has the highest number of exonerations: 22.
• In 2004, New York's highest court found the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional. By early 2007, this law had not been replaced.
• Around 3,350 prisoners were under sentence of death as of 1 January 2007.

Facts taken from AI

War Money

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just some interesting notes about how much money america spends on its "defense"/attaking of other countries...for this year $190 Billion...

i just want to compare this to some others things...

• england...$66 Billion
• as a percentage of total spent money...graph US, graph UK
• compared to GDP (the value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year) of countries...
  • Portugal - $192 Billion, so thats portugals total income, for the year, slightly more than US gov. spends on defense each year
  • Kiribati - $0.007 Billion - never heard of it ether, but the bottom most on the list...
  • more than the GDP of all but 3 african countries

what else could they do?

How a non-Neutral ISP could work

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just a note as to how big an issue this really could be...

Paralysed Gaza girl faces uncertain future

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Just reading this story...its really sad...and a reminder of the kinds of things that are happening to real people in this and other parts of the world everyday. I can imagine at the time this happenned, probably lots of news stories about the leader of the armed Islamic Jihad movement, who was killed outright, but nothing about the small girl, paralysed, most of her family killed...and all the other people who were killed, stop living, and are no more...their families, that now have to move on and live without that person. Parents who's children have been killed, children who's parents are killed...
we should remember these people more...when we talk about whether the war in Iraq was a good idea or not politically, remember what it has done to all the people living in Iraq...Pray for these people, they need our help, God's help.

Child star wins university place

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Yea, and unfortunatly its not me...but how crazy is this...9 year old kid goes to uni...for free an' all...surely not good for his real life..

but hey...something for the facebook readers...

The Black Button

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Can't remember if i already posted this, but its really good, so check it out if you havn't already seen it...

Also...MI7

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Yea, you have noticed mention of 3 projects in the last post...thats because just before we went to Siberia, we have MI7 in Cherkassy, "The Treasures of the Heart". This is the project that for the last 7/8 months I have been planning with a team of 4 others. And I can genuinely say it was a great project, about 150 young people from around the world came everyday for a week, ran around the city searching for treasure by day, and spending the evening's finding their spiritual treasure through some inspiring worship, the like of which has never been seen in Cherkassy before, and some great talks from Dave, not that we expect any less from him ;)
There were of course some difficultly, you don't forget you are in Ukraine trying to keep the project going smoothly, but clearly God prevailed, the project went on, and for the young people there were no noticeable problems, we hope. As a team we spent everyday running around after our people, helping them to solve clue's which had seemed so simple to us, and yet seem to lose completely all our beautiful, but not so clever Ukrainian kids...
On the final day all the teams where gathered on the beach to dig up the treasure that had been buried in late February, and exciting moment for all, especially the team the won!
A few days later our foreign teams left, going home for another year, always sad, but as more and more people keep coming back there are less tears, and more just bye, see you next time...

Hello!

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So I'm home...feeling i should write somethings, having been away for about 3 weeks...I've been to Siberia, to Irkutsk and some local villages...had an amazing time, maybe if you ask me I'll tell you all about it...
A team of 7 of us went, mostly Ukrainians, except me and Tim...the first week we were there we were running a 'camp' in a children's shelter, orphanage place. There we mostly had lots of fun, playing games, doing crafty things with the children. Ranging from about 5 to 16 it was quite a spread of different people and different needs. We talked each day about a different theme to everyone, but clearly there were different things to be done for 5 years boys and 16 year old girls. It was quite a tiering week, though really rewarding and I'm sure we made a difference, in many ways, to all the children in the shelter.
The second week we where on a real camp. Not far out of Irkutsk, but in a place with nothing, except the river and forest. We had about 25 young people in total, where cooking on a fire, staying in tents, a great way to spend time getting to know people. It turns out that only about 5/6 of the people there are non-Christians, so i think they were under quite a bit of pressure, but in a good way. Time was spent in 2 small groups, worship, various topics and talks, prayer, and just relaxing together. Everybody took there turn at getting up early and cooking, spend the day making the fire and always having tea ready...Other the course of the week much was said, and all the non-Christians said they were going to think more seriously about God, Jesus, go to church and although there was no direct calling for becoming Christians, they had defiantly been changed by the camp, it is now up to the local churches to follow that up...
We came back very tired, after 3 projects, time to get some rest, get over jet lag, having learned a lot about ourselves, how to be a leader in these types of projects, and with a new something of God.

More iPhone/general us mobile companys

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dev to all you americans, glad i dont live in a country like this...just hope mine dont end up like this...england is coming to close, ukraine mostly isnt...i cant imagine having to pay for some of these things, to recieve calls and sms's, and such limits on unlimited plans...i dont have a contact, dont pay for any calls within my network, and every $5 i spend i get 50 free sms's...now thats a good deal...

For all you web designers

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cannot explain to you how true this is....

iPhone sucks...

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Funny Pics

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For the more geeky, but dead cool...;)

California inspires US revolt on climate

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The best thing to come out of America for along time...(except all my wonderful american friends who know i love them, and its nothing personal, but there country is just abit...)

Some great things here, final admitting that global warming happens, now that its burnt down half the state...

I like this guy "I cycle, but mainly because of the war - I'm opposed to the war, to going in and killing people to take oil. I have a Mercedes, but I'm not going to drive it till this war's over."
Another, about the excessive heat - "My food used to spoil, the fridges used to shut down, all my cookies melted and it was unbelievable - I'll never forget it."

genius...

It seems that alot of the new laws focus alot on industry which is good, one thing which might be interesting to see is with the use of cars, from what ive gathered public transport pretty much doesnt exist in most of america, so getting people to change from their SUV's is going to be hard word. Its weird when i compare to Ukraine, where very few people have cars, and everyone use's public transport to get everywhere, right from the city's to the villages (although public transport there is borrowing the neighbors donkey ;)

We'll see...maybe things will get better.

PhoneyBible

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A new, improved, much better quality release of PhoneyBible has been compleated. Check out the site www.phoneybible.org for your trail version now!
This new version has been much improved, an all new look, a new search feature, and online customisation.
As readers of my blog, i would like to offer you the use of a discount, making PhoneyBible $5 cheaper...enter 'PH_Blog_Readers_Discount' into the code box on the buy now page

And now some of our oldest specimins...

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check out number 11...

"Christine Mellor was at the Yorkshire Air Museum", northern people seem to come up with the best money making ideas...

looks like ive been missing out on alot of fun in england...the street looked abit like #18 for about 30 mins here...but it was so hot it dryed out...

"..robbing US recording companies of sales"

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-Stick 'em up!
-Yeah - git your hands in the air!
-We heard you got some "sales"
-No funny business - hand em over - slowly!
-That's right - nice and slow, and no-one will get hurt...

US man loses $54m trousers claim

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Been reading about alot of crap rececently

• US man loses $54m trousers claim
• google may close gmail germany over privacy concerns google
  - Note crap about the german law more than google...
• http://xkcd.com/ - Its just not funny, it should be, maybe someone could explain it to me and it might be
• FBI to restrict student freedoms
• Mac Rumors - Just generaly a crap website full of crap about nothing
• Plastic bag revolt spreads across Britain - Just not news, everyone knows its a problem, no one gonna do anything about it anyway, simple, do what they do here, charge 50p a bag at the super market ;), still wouldnt solve the problem
• 'Has the vice president gone too far?' - Stupid question
• Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
  - Id have thought this was obvious

Basicaly the lack of anything interesting to read, that i havnt won a game of settlers for about a month, and a few other things, im pretty miserable, on the other had i have nearly finished a new phoneybible, and im hoping to become rich, though in my current crap mood i dont expect anything

Pics from Birthday Party

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Lots of photo's from my party...

С День Розденя Меня!

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So its been my birthday...been kinda fun...thanks to everyone who said hi, gave presents, all very much apreciated...i had a fairly regular day...though Sanik's suprise party was of course very cool...great to see all my friends...shame none of by british friends made it, lazy people ;) so im 19 now...kinda strange...but not really...nothing feels radicaly different, yet...its funny to think about how things have changed since my last birthday...i was just finishing college, doing exams...and now im in Ukraine, reading my cards in russian, just got back from Moscow, and really not to keen on the idea of going to england after the summer...defenitly not liking the idea of studying either...kinda scared that i cant remember anything, nor will be able to study, having spent a year partying, with a little work etc...
but hey...see you around people...споконий ночь!