More goodies from Google. Publicly available data from the World Bank's World Development Indicators. This time it is the population. The article that relates to GDP is on the Finance Blog.
Check the world population with data up to year 2009.
Here is the link to the graph of population of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and here is the link to the chart of population of all ex-Yugoslav republics.
Below is the link to the study of the United Nations on Drugs and Crime in relation to the Balkans region. Contrary to popular belief in the region, the study concludes that "the Balkan region is one of the safest in Europe" and that "the levels of crime against people and property are lower than elsewhere in Europe."
Major section titles illustrate that "the Balkans do not fit the profile of a high crime region". The important fact to understand is that "the Balkans do not have a conventional crime problem" but that the real problem is organized crime and corruption.
The stability of the region after the conflict in the 1990's is an important factor that causes the declining opportunities for organized crime.
The original study is here: http://www.unodc.org/documents/Balkan_study.pdf
I've just read some comments on Facebook regarding the torrent of information related to Osama Bin Laden. While I'm successfully staying out of the (mis-)information zone, one link was interesting. Alas, after watching The Obama Deception movie, I never really investigated further. Just posted a few links here on the blog in order to be able to find it later and that's it.
Now, in those comments, somebody posted a link to InfoWars, the site where I recognized the author of the above-mentioned movie. Reading the articles there is a useful brain- (and mind-) stretching exercise. At a time when it is old news that it is hard to trust anyone, but it is so blatantly obvious, it is hard to recommend any opinion. However, I would always support checking out different opinions and making your own mind. This is what we ordinarily do anyway, except that it is not always so obvious.
While I haven't read any of the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, I still believe that the published material is less interesting than imagination. But I also know that life writes stories that are way more interesting than fiction.
Actor Miki Manojlovic gave an interview to Sarajevo-x media portal in relation to the new performance "Europe Today", directed by Haris Pasovic. An interesting passage is below (try online translation but beware - my first try on Google Translate gave completely wrong message by ignoring the word "no" in a sentence :)
Šta nas može probuditi iz tog polusna?
Čovek mora da shvati da ne postoji taj bog, ta sila ili spoljni svet ili bilo šta iz spoljnog sveta što će promeniti bilo šta. Čovek je taj u kome je sve, pojedinac. Dok se on ne osvesti, dok nema želju da u svojoj sredini, svojoj zgradi, svojoj ulici, gradu, državi uradi nešto dobro i da to čini na način koji nije lopovski nego je iskren i pravi. To ne spada u red budalastog i naivnog ponašanja. Drugi bi rekli "vidi budale šta radi, daj da se nešto mazne". Takvih, kvalitetnih ljudi ima, ali ih treba biti puno više. Mislim da je to suština koju ja mogu da domašim.link to the interview
In fact, if you live north of the 42-degrees latitude, you will have a difficult time getting enough vitamin D from the sun from November through February.
One more source in my collection of conspiracy-theory organizations. There are videos with interesting titles on the site.
Srpska Analitika (http://www.srpskaanalitika.com/) is an internet magazine about topics such as globalization, new world order, and so on.
Videos here: http://vimeo.com/srpskaanalitika
An awesome news article is available here (http://www.srpskaanalitika.com/2011/04/02/dzulijan-asanz-balkan-da-se-spremi-za-%E2%80%9Earapski-scenario%E2%80%9C/) and talks about the "Arab Scenario" for the Balkans countries. Bosnia above all. Apparently from the WikiLeaks founder, fellow Australian, Julian Assange.
Funny search on Google taught me that there is a nice graphical timeline of the search results. Funnily enough, one search displayed results from 1870!
Looking into the text from 1870, I found it mentions Bosnia (although the original search had nothing to do with it in the first place) and, guess what, war horrors. I have no idea which wars are described in the text but it got me skimming through. Have a look at
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=TT18770425.2.28
Reading some parts really made me wonder whether the history continually repeats itself. The horrors of wars in 1870 are no different to horrors of war of 1993. Or any other year, for that matter.
Quite an educational piece. Found by pure accident.
This is one of those days... "Those"? Well, this is one of those days I wish to pack my suitcases and book a ticket to go home. Resign at work, close accounts, ship stuff and get excited about the time to see friends and family again, and do an awesome job I really like, spend weekends mountain biking and hiking, motorcycling to the seaside, or skiing in the mountains. Most of these things are nearly there. A few bits and pieces missing but coming into place. Or so I certainly hope. And I also hope it does not get too late before they materialize. But that's just experience teaching me not to be too optimistic.
Today is the day when I sent birthday greetings to a few friends. Got back in touch, see where they are, what they are doing. Some contacted me on their own after a while. One message is clear - not much is changing and it is not worth spending time waiting for something. Well, for some weird reason (call me lazy or indecisive), I'm still waiting for something that would be cool and different enough to be interesting and attractive. So, maybe I give it a couple more months and see if it materializes.
Another striking fact is that it seems that there is more software development work going on in Bosnia than in Australia. Comparing the size of population and the markets even more, the difference is significant. I guess the outsourcing has really taken off in Eastern Europe and the standard of living in Bosnia on one hand, and the standard of education on another, makes it an attractive destination for outsourcing software development. The required skills in the job advertisements are all the latest trends and technologies which is a stark contrast to Australia. Here it is mostly old-school project management, and not too many new technologies as there are lots of old systems around that require modifications and maintenance.
This is probably the most important aspect of "coming home" story. The job ads have been steady in Bosnia for a number of years now. They persisted through the largest economic crisis in the past 30 years. This should be a good sign for the future. A light in the distance. Not too far away, I guess...
Following through some texts about conspiracy theories (as fun as always), many extremely interesting facts and controversies emerge. While reason is of utmost importance when reading such materials, sometimes reason *is* the very thing that makes no sense.
The text on the New World Order pointed me to the book The Biggest Secret, which starts with a quote from Wilhelm Reich who died in American jail in 1957. This last bit, seemingly irrelevant, looked really interesting to me. This lead to reading about Wilhelm Reich on Wikipedia, uncovering a really interesting story about his life and research. Today his ideas seem quite ordinary but I am quite sure that in 30's, 40's, and later they were not very much so. Also, burning books by the FDA reminds me of some other cases in history when similar events occured, which does not paint a pretty picture of the FDA or any other federal agency, for that matter. Really interesting read.
"The New World Order, an Overview" is the text that summarizes the root-cause situation related to all modern-day conspiracy theories. Great read for anyone looking for the background information and pointers to further research.
