All Hail Scotland, Mario Kart Champion of the World

Blue flag, Blue sky, not a blue shell in sight

*Disclaimer: In order to fully appreciate this post you will need a basic understanding of international politics and Mario Kart*

Politics and power often go hand in hand. Those who have it love it. But they’re always sitting slightly uncomfortably, looking nervously over their shoulder in case some punk thinks they’re hard enough to pull the rug from under their plush little toes and deny them of it.

This may even happen in your humble home environment. For example, you may have a father who thinks they’re a dead cert Mario Kart champion, only for your 5-year-old little brother to overtake him in the dying seconds of the final lap, instantly denying him of a glorious victory. The look on his face will say it all. The bitter taste of defeat delivered by a mere kindergarten impossible to stomach.

Perhaps a similar, emotionally fraught situation to this will play out on the global stage in 2050. The majority of international political pundits (if such a thing exists) are predicting that around that year, China will surpass the USA in both economic and military terms, snatching the crown of top global superpower from the clingy clutches of the former ‘leader of the free world’.

However, pundits may yet get it wrong. The US may have their sights set on the wrong rival. To continue the Mario Kart metaphor, China look like the biggest threat in second place, with their trio of red shells primed to launch on our front runner at any moment. But in actual fact, it’s the kid-brother in 8th place with the blue shell that you’ve got to worry about. Properly timed, this destructive power can take out all the leaders in the blink of an eye, leaving a clear path for our plucky underdog to sail home to victory.

Who on earth could this plucky underdog be then, you might ask? Iran perhaps? A nation tinkering with radioactive materials, a “blue shell” in the making? Or maybe something completely left field, like, I don’t know, The North Pole? Perhaps every other continent will blow themselves to pieces in an incredible apocalypse, leaving Fred the resourceful Eskimo and his family the only survivors.

The answer lies somewhere between the hard power of Iran and the snowy soft power of Eskimo Fred. If you haven’t guessed already from the enormously obvious title of this post, without a shadow of a doubt Scotland has the most potential of overtaking international friends and foes to steal the global hegemony crown from China and America’s backyard while nobody’s looking.

And here’s how.

First, Scotland, or Baby Mario we’ll call them, has to snatch 7th place from their UK oppressors (Princess Peach). This opportunity is there for the taking. In 2014 there will be a Scottish Independence Referendum and while it seems farcical now, by the time every Scot has read this post (which they will have found either from a Facebook share or through frantically googling ‘Alex Salmond’s haggis recipe’) a majority vote for Independence is inevitable.

Scotland, despite all its bravery and guts, has a tendency for modesty, to downplay its strengths and accept its lot in life. What Baby Mario hasn’t yet realised is that upon leaving Princess Peach for dust, the route to MarioKart champion of the world or, to put it another way, ‘global superpower’ will be almost effortless.

Three steps to be precise.

1. There’s oil in them waters – which everybody knows and is sick of hearing about, but frankly downplay. Off the shore of Aberdeen is enough oil reserves to last another 30 years if it continues to be traded. With Independence, Scotland will have full ownership of this oil. The first step, is to be canny about the use of this oil. Wait until world oil reserves are low and the prices are ludicrously high and then sell it all in one go. Every single last drop for trillions of pounds, or by then, Scottish dollars. Scots being tight bastards will know the right time to sell and they’ll drive the toughest bargain of anyone to ensure they receive triple the resource’s actual worth.

2. Tred softly – With a big fat ginormous roll of cash in the bank, it would be tempting for any Nation to build up military and defence. Don’t make this mistake – you will be instantly crushed, like others who have tried and failed. Think of Fred the resourceful Eskimo. Soft power is key. With all the oil in the world near depleted, Scotland has one sweltering, again often downplayed, advantage. Wind. That’s right, plough the trillions of dollars into flatulence. Scots will have enough money to build wind power turbines the size of Egyptian pyramids. Once this is done, then comes the ingenious part.

3. Make everyone your slave – All Nations will need resources to fuel their military tanks, air jets and missiles. With all oil depleted, they’ll have to look elsewhere. Only Scotland will have the level of resources required for a decent sized military operation. While it would be natural for Scots to think the best option is to make a mint out of this situation, don’t. Start fuelling other Nation’s militaries and you’ll be invaded and crushed before you can say ‘neeps and tatties’. Build up a military and start conquering everywhere else. start with the UK, they won’t have an army to stand on. Then Scots will be able to conquer the world and get the empire they always secretly wanted. and it will be better and infinitely more successful than the British Empire ever was.

So there, you have it. Scotland. MarioKart Champions of the World!

By Matt Wheavil

Proposed US Legislation to Ban US Companies from Selling Surveillance Tech to “Repressive Regimes”

Last December, the Global Online Freedom Act of 2011 (GOFA) was introduced to the House of Representatives. This bill would prohibit the sale of surveillance hardware and software from U.S.-based companies to “repressive regimes” and would require a license if the buyer was any government.

The measure itself appears to lie in stark contrast to the growing assortment of proposed legislation the world over geared towards censoring, blocking, and tracking digital information on the grounds of cybersecurity and copyright. In the light of many uprisings and dissenters in the Middle East and China whose digital component are tightly monitored­—and in some cases blacked out completely—the sponsor of the bill, Scott Brown (R) argues that since a lot of the technology used to squelch uprising and free speech was sold by American companies, this risks American businesses losing the confidence of “Internet users in the United States and in foreign countries.”

However, it is important to note that this bill pointedly excludes Western countries in its definition of repressive regimes. It does not prohibit the sale of such technology to the United States’ own government, nor of the governments those not deemed “repressive,” even though members of those government continue to attempt to push through aforementioned bills, like SOPA, ACTA, and more recently CISPA. While this bill, at first look, seems to be a step in the right direction, it also displays how misunderstood information technology is at a governmental level, and how blind legislators are to their own misuse of cybersecurity technology.

Read more about this bill at BusinessWeek and RT.com. Also, check out this report on Global Voices for a roundup of the status of information freedom worldwide.

Lady Parts

Perhaps it’s a failing on my part, but I really cannot wrap my brain around why contraception is, again, a controversy in the US. It’s seems so outdated and redonkulously old-fashioned. Like, it should be, we all gasp in horrified amusement at how illogical it was that someone besides the lady and maybe her partner had any say in anything that happens between them in the biblical sense. I mean, gahd, women have been not wanting to get pregnant since pregnancy has existed! There are loads of old (and largely ineffective—such as aspirin between the knees, even though Rush Limbaugh says he’ll foot the bill for la femmes for the women of Georgetown ) methods that women have been trying: herbs, rituals, etc. Personally, I can’t even really understand how people can be so ardently anti-abortion and anti-contraception as well, because if women had reliable contraception, the demand for abortion would decrease because the need, real or perceived, would also decrease. Kristof and so and so note their amazing book, Half the Sky, that it would benefit so much of the world, not just the often cloistered and self-congratulatory US of A, but entire peoples in less developed regions of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East if contraception was made more readily available.

Many are trying to paint the legislation that would require employers to provide health insurance that includes contraception as one against liberty and freedom of religion. Which I can understand… sorta, except that it totally isn’t. I recognize that some churches might be against such a requirement. But the proposed legislation wouldn’t require churches to provide it for their church “staff”, who in theory already have chosen the way of Cathol, or whomever, have made a personal decision to not utilize it. It does, however, require affiliated organization, such as charities and hospitals to. But shouldn’t adherence to a faith be a personal decision, regardless of employer? The bill doesn’t require women to take the offered birth control; that would be a limitation of freedom. However, if they were really worried about freedom, they’d more worried about personal freedom than business or institutional. I can assure you that right now, the driving force behind the decaying of the freedoms I hold dear is not the government, though they are the happy and willing executioner. It’s businesses: Churches, the MPAA, the RIAA, Facebook, every job that requires a drug test or a credit check… that’s the evil face a freedom-gobbler, not providing the means necessary for American women to  decide for themselves whether or not they want to become pregnant—or leaving that up to some supposedly well-intentioned, self-appointed daddy-like institution. Indeed, I would say that this bill—as so few have done lately—has advanced freedom because it allows for (hopefully informed) choices for people to make.

Another example of the above is the pharmacies refuses to sell emergency birth control to their patrons. There was a liberty-trumping uproar when people pointedly questioned the legality of the pharmacists refusal, citing freedom and etc. for business, and religion, but, the place is a fraking pharmacy. A pharmacy! One commenter stated that s/he didn’t care if individuals within that pharmacy’s community had to drive 100 miles to get to the next one (even if they didn’t have access to transportation) the pharmacist had the right to not sell things he found morally objectionable. This would be all well and could if it wasn’t a pharmacy, whose not even legal-, but civilly responsible for doling out the medication that people need as per their doctor and selves. If a pharmacist has such moral objections to providing medication, then they probably should have become a banker or something. It isn’t their place to become the town’s conscience. That’s just silly! I have many moral objections to psych meds, in that I think they are over prescribed and taken, but I would never disallow someone who is in charge of themselves from taking something they deem necessary. That’s between them and their doctor… but primarily with them.

Of course, there is the supposed moral ground about baby murder. Every sperm is sacred, or something. I am depressingly not surprised at the misinformation out there. One person commented to me that the emergency contraception “kills BABIES” (not the case) and another said that s/he saw no reason for it. Meaning there is no reason for emergency contraception. My god. What about rape? Or maybe s/he would be right if regular contraception was more universally accessible. Or maybe, s/he should get out of the fantasy-land where consenting partners only have sex to make babies and address the reality of things: mistakes happen. And sometimes their semi-planned mistakes, and calling women sluts, and whores, like Rush Limbaugh did, in an effort to invalidate their contribution to society is, obviously infuriating, but also mind-bogglingly stupid. Women can’t have sex by themselves—or at least not the kind that leads to pregnancy. Are we seriously harkening back to the days when women are blamed  and men off scot-free, all the while being the only deciding voices? While simultaneously, as a culture, mocking the similar justifications for forced hijabs, abayas, and women not allowed in public spaces in other countries? Disgusting.

The last portion of the anti-contraception talk is the money. They don’t want to pay for contraception because, what is it? Why? Because it’s not something they agree with? Oh a get it, kinda like that one war. And that other one. And the one before that… Oh, and that indefinite detention center that’s still open. And all the other things that tax dollars go to that I don’t agree with—hell, even corn subsides!

Begrudgingly, I recognize the “well, ‘Other Side’ does the same” things doesn’t really qualify as a complete argument. However, the topic is one that is so obvious to me that I have a hard time putting what I want to say into words, so I’ll just over simplify and say: contraception costs a lot less than diapers.