Filed under: Privacy, Sweden | Tags: Försvarets Radio Anstalt, FRA, Paranoid, Privacy, Swedish Government, Terrorism
For my loyal readers that are not from Sweden, FRA is the government agency that will do the eavesdropping.
As most of you, swedes at least, know it will soon be legal for the government to look at everything that is sent by wire and that is crossing the national border. Everything! The once so free state of Sweden has gone all out Gestapo on us. well maybe that’s a little bit dramatic, but it’s a step in that direction.
Even if this would to keep us safe from all possible threats against us I don’t think the slaughter of the personal integrity would justify it. But if that was the case I could by the argument, but as every one who has thought about this for more than 5 minutes realise that everyone who wants to stay “beneath the radar” will do so with out any problems. The “only” trafic that FRA will be able to see will be the traffic generated from average Joes, that don’t have the knowledge or the will to make sure that no third-party looks at what they’re writing. Luckily one of Sweden’s biggest newspapers posted a list of how to cipher your traffic so that every should know how to do it by now.
The worst part of this mess is that the ones who voted for this law should know that it will be useless against terrorism and everything that they say that they are trying to stop, or they are utterly incompetent. So either the people in charge are will use this law for something else than what they say it’s for or Sweden is run by nimvits. In either case it’s a disaster waiting to happen.
If they really wanted to keep us safe from terrorism and other threats to the nation here are a few tips on what they should do:
1. Start reading all the snailmail, I mean it’s actually possible to send a bomb this way.
2. Cut all connections to the world around us, if we can’t communicate we can’t get the idea to build a bomb, right?
3. Control and censur all media channels, same reason as number 2.
4. Start patrolling the borders, maybe some sneaky terrorist decides to walk across from Norway, Finland or take the boat to our //irony ahead// great country, //end of irony// and we can’t let that happen can we?
5. Ban everything that is explosive and all sharp objects, bye bye soap and fishing hooks.
So now we should be safe, right?
On a last remark I saw this interview with one of the party leaders this morning, and she kept repeating that not everyone in the world is nice and want Sweden well, and that is a good insight. But I can’t understand how she failed to recognize that not all government employees are good and won’t look into things they aren’t supposed to look into. The ultimate irony of all this would be if FRA were infiltrated by a terrorist and they used this system to keep track of the Swedish government.
Filed under: Sports, Sweden | Tags: Hockey, HV71, Linköpings HC, Off-season, Swedish Championship
(Yeah I stole the idea from Peter Kings MMQB, if you don’t know what that is I didn’t steal anything =P)
1. Patrik Zackrisson will be a big star in Elitserien, I just hope he stays there.
2. Calle Gunnarsson played the hockey of his life in the final-series, if he keeps that up he to will be a big star here in Sweden.
3. The referees were bad, really bad. But they are NOT the reason to LHC’s loss. HV were better, it’s just as simple as that. LHC had so many power-play opportunities yesterday, and in previous games too. But they only had +1 in powerplay in the entire final, that is really under the ice. Liv routed Stana in the goalie match. Johan Davidsson showed the way in HV, Tony Mårtensson was just a pale shadow in LHC.
4. The game last night, was by far the best game this season, it had everything.
5. Me, my clothes and my gear smells of champange. I think HV emptied like 20 bottles of it in thier locker room after the game.
6. It’s so funny how they try to organize the events after someone becomes champion, when everybody knows and it always end in total chaos. Yesterday was more chaotic than it usually is though, they didn’t even get them to accept their gold medals in an organized way.
7. It will be interesting to see how LHC handles this off season. Tim Eriksson and Patric Blomdahl are already gone, I guess Ville Vahalathi, Jonas Junland, Tony Mårtensson and Mattias Weinhandl will all leave cause of various reasons. That will leave some room for major investments, unfortunately I’m not sure if they’ll be able to find players of Mårtensson’s and Weinhandl’s qualities (Mårtensson was league MVP and scored most points and Weinhandl scored most goals). My bet is that’ll go with swedes maybe someone from Finland, they’ve tried with people from across the pond and from the continent, but their, LHCs, scouting is just not good enough to pick up the golden nuggets from those markets. On the defensive side, as I said Jonas is probably leaving for St. Louis organization, and Melichar’s and Majesky’s in the ‘Club’ is uncertain. And Magnus Johansson is probably staying in gods waiting room (Florida). I think it would be good for them to try as hard as possible to resign the chechs and replace Junland with a right shooting point-man for powerplays with a good vision (like everyone else). EDIT Totally forgot about Pekka Saravo who is coming in for this season, he is a good allrounder and can easily replace any back in the league.
8. HV has it a lot better when it comes to the silly season, they are loosing/cutting some players that didn’t make quite the buzz they were hoping for. They have a pretty good chance of resigning their big-time players whose contract is running out after this season, as Mikko Louma, Stefan Liv etc. And they’re stacked on young talent as Mattias Tedenby and Nichlas Torp to fill the holes. Further more they’ve already singed some players that got some potential to develop into bigger stars when they’re on a winning team, as HV most certainly will be next year. Their only big loss will be Johan Åkerman, it’ll be a huge loss, cause their is no player in Sweden today with his qualities.
9. My pictures from last night (they’re at http://www.rifotech.se/) turned out pretty good
10. Lastly I’d like to say that, if Jönköping wasn’t called Swedens Jerusalem and christianity only believes in one god, Johan Davidsson should/would have been declared god there today!
Filed under: Sports, Sweden | Tags: Brynäs IF, Hockey, HV71, Linköping HC, Swedish Championship
Sorry for the wrong headline on the previous entry, it should have been the fifth final…
Anyway, do you remember, one year ago, minus some days, LHC had the sixth game in the final at home, they had to win otherwise the gold would end up in Ö-vik. They started the game really good, and after one period they were leading with one goal. But then it happened, MODO just started to play, or LHC stopped playing, either way you like it, and after the second period MODO had the lead. LHC was to tired, to beat up, they didn’t even put up a good fight in the last period, they knew as well as everybody in the stands that it was over. After all for a club that only had played like 7 seasons in the top division a second place was damn good.
Tomorrow it’s the sixth game, and the preconditions are the same, except that it’s HV that’s on the other side. And I looking back to the last three games, LHC doesn’t have the shadow of a chance. But that might there only chance, but I don’t think that HV will fall into that trap. So for the second year, they championship will be won in the “Chocolate box”, and for the second year LHC will be bystanders, and see another team celebrate in their own home.
Sad but true.
This isn’t the end of LHC though, they have the best management in the entire league in my opinion, and they will win, I’m sure they will.
On another note, their have been alot of fuzz about Nicolas Angells salary of 340 000 sek/month for the six month he played. I couldn’t care less really, if you got the money pay them, otherwise they’ll play in Russia, AHL or some other place where we wont get to see them. But after this season I can understand if Brynäs supporters are mad, cause Angell was not even close to be worth that kind of money.
Filed under: Sports, Sweden | Tags: Hockey, HV71, Linköping HC, Play-off, Swedish Championship
I haven’t had time to really think this through but this is the feeling I’ve got from the game.
Tony Mårtensson = Peyton Manning ?
They have both been the (one of the) best offensive weapons in their respective leagues, not just for one year but for some years, both had sky high exceptions on them before every season, and they most often did perform really well during the regular season. But before Peytons win last year, they both failed to lead their team to victory and perform when the spotlight was on them. Sure both could blame the defense for not holding up, but in some way they had to set the tone and they failed with that in my mind. But Peyton exercised his “big game daemons” by beating the subpar Bears. Unfortunately, HV71 isn’t subpar, they are better than LHC in almost every part of the game.
They, LHC, kinda reminds me of the of that version of the Bears, they had a good season but, when it was all on the line their offence couldn’t move the ball and their defence wasn’t as good as advertised, the only good part of their game was the special teams, but you won’t become a champion with just that. In LHC the offence is as ineffective as ever, their defence is mostly a big hole. The only guys that are good play in the forth line, kinda like the special teams in football.
Enough with the comparisons and over to the thoughts, you can actually make a pretty good case that it’s the referees fault that LHC is loosing (you would be wrong, but still make a good case). Off-course I’m thinking about the stick in game number three and the goals that was deemed no good in the sixth game. The stick thing was obvious a mistake buy the referee, and I sincerely belief that if the game had been in Linköping Niklas Persson would have scored 3 – 0. And this is a real problem for the league, but the solution is simple and effective, two referees per game and have some not from the hometown checking the goal videos.
