In Copenhagen today: World Series of Cliff Diving;

in Eton (round the corner from where I live): Rowing World Cup;

back home in Madrid: 181 people arrested for fraud against the social security system (estimated sum of  6,5 million Euro).

*sigh*

Look at it another way and at least some progress is being made back home, whereas; in the UK bankers are still rewarded for ongoing and persistent incompetence and there are honestly no benefits left that might tempt any however lowly scum to try and defraud the system.

Of course, some might say I ought to be careful of what I type given my parents of are disparate nationalities; I grew up abroad and live in an entirely different country altogether.  IE: I am a suspect half-breed with connections in a variety of countries and left leaning political alliances.  No longer can anyone indicate this sort of a statement is paranoid if PRISM has been (statistically deduced) recording or scanning one of every four internet statements I’ve made over the last two decades. 

Yes, that’s right.   TWO DECADES of internet as I was one of the privileged UofI students who began using it in 1990 (albeit only to exchange emails and chat with my Russian friend living in Japan…  Think perhaps my communications have ALWAYS been monitored just for that??  Could be)  That would explain why whenever I travel border security get messages indicating they need to check all my details with a fine comb and search me thourougly.

Hurrah for Snowden avoiding capture and getting to Ecuador.  Hurrah for Ecuador protecting him and his ilk -> here’s hoping they are not held continuously in confinement in an Embassy much longer.  And Hurrah for Bradley Manning.  While he may not be freed frrom the oppressive manipulative state that holds him he will surely not be forgotten for doing what he knew was right to expose vile and inhumane acts and methods.

Would there were more stong individuals in the right places to defend the value of dignity and freedom.  We should all be able to guiltlessly enjoy something so gratuitously fluffily superfluous as a cliff diving competition in a country with no natural cliffs from which to dive. 

Unfortunately; a lot of us cannot so long as we keep turning on the news to see how our countrymen do everything possible to harm the common good and slowly drag the world back to feudalism via sustained contraction of social services and buying power in rich countries, that necessarily means poverty and conflict in poorer ones.