pom-pom-pomgranade

Bombs ahoy

This morning I opened a Swedish newspaper for the first time in six months, and was greeted with this:
Earlier this year, Sweden sent 3.3 kilograms of plutonium to USA, confidentially of course.
The minister of foreign affairs claims that the US promised to not use the plutonium for military purposes, though there is nothing in the “contract” which says they have to keep their promise.
Sweden has no control over what happens to the plutonium, and probably will not even find out where it goes.

200 years of peace my arse.

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I moved to a new room today. The old one was on the “not sunny” side of the building, and therefore had mould in it, because lack of sun and lack of hours in a day means that things never get completely dry in there. The monsoon causes those sorts of problems all over India, so it wasn’t like my room was dirty or anything like that.It feels a bit awkward though, because this room wasn’t available from the beginning. The previous tenant was a Chinese tourist who basically got thrown out of this room and moved to the one which was previously mine.My landlord told me the situation as I was packing my stuff, and also told me not to say anything to the previous tenant about it. I’d rather not get on his bad side, because he’s in charge of my living situation, so I didn’t say anything.I still feel really bad though.You can be a decent person even if you’re born in a country ruled by a corrupt system. Actually most of the time, most people probably are, in their day to day lives. Furthermore you can’t choose which country to be born in, and it says close to nothing about your political point of view as that is something build up over time.The fact that my landlord didn’t register the Chinese tourists staying with him to the police, and is now trying to get rid of them to get legal tenants instead, is sort of his own mess to deal with.
(All Chinese citizens staying in McLeod Ganj, “Little Lhasa”, must be registered with the local law enforcement, due to previous attempts of assassination against H.H. Dalai Lama.)
Speaking of Tibetan-Chinese contrasts/issues, I found something rather ironic at the second hand store I volunteer at yesterday. It was a metal bracelet with the Sanskrit words ‘om mani padme hum’ inscribed on the front. There are tons of those sold all over town. Nothing special really. On side which would be worn against my arm though, was a smaller inscription written in Chinese. I can only guess that it meant ‘Made in China’. Google translate only got me so far.So: I now own the most ironic bracelets known to man (if there ever was one), my stuff isn’t moist any more, but my conscience is bothered, and I haven’t seen the man who’s affecting me with seriously bad judgement and girlish giggles since yesterday.I realize it’s sort of creepy, writing about another person on the internet like this. But I keep worrying that he’ll travel somewhere else tomorrow so that I’ll never see him again, ever.Sometimes, this planet is way too big for my liking.
Also, people here seem to have a totally backwards circadian rythm. They’re nightowls and morning people. I haven’t figured out how that works yet, much less how to pull it off myself … which leads to a very cranky Liv, feeling like an old lady, wanting so badly to knock on my neighbours door, and tell them to shut the fuck up.

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"RUSSIA: A BILL TO SILENCE MILLIONS"

Five days from now political leaders in St. Petersburg are voting on a law which will criminalise such acts as publishing an article, writing a book or speaking in public about being lesbian, gay or transgender.

There is still time to sign the petition to take a stance against these attempts to strip countless Russian people of their human rights.

Please, all you have to do is click.

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