Sepp Blatter finally resigns, a few days too late!

Let me start by saying this.  I’m glad that Sepp Blatter finally found it within himself to do the honourable thing and step down as FIFA President.  But he should have done it Thursday, to save FIFA the embarrassment and humiliation of re-electing him to the top job there, only to then face another election process in quick succession.

But the whole debacle over the arrests and how FIFA responded to them, showed up the organisation as completely corrupt, and thinking themselves untouchable.  It showed up an organisation that had no transparency and no accountability to the people that ultimately pay their wages, the fans around the world who watch football, and play the FIFA branded video games.

In the aftermath of the arrests, the election should have been postponed, or at least Sepp Blatter should have announced that he was not going to stand for re-election.  He might have had a vision for Football, or Soccer as it’s known in some countries, but he had no vision when it came to the optics of the situation both he and FIFA were facing.

The optics were only made worse by Vladimir Putin offering his support to Blatter.  That should be a warning sign in itself.  If Putin offers you his support, turn it down.  It makes you look a hell of a lot worse.

Now he has stepped down and an emergency congress will elect a replacement, maybe we will actually start to see the change that is necessary in FIFA to bring it into the 21st century.  Maybe we’ll even see them take the decision to move the 2018 and 2022 World Cup venues due to the corruption allegations.  But progress in these sorts of matters is always slow, and I won’t hold my breath waiting for them.

The Oil Price, Russia and OPEC.

(Transcript from The Viewpoint Podcast)

The price of oil has made a major shift downward in recent weeks, falling to around $60 a barrel for North Sea Brent Crude, and below $60 for West Texas Intermediate. For most of us, it will mean that it will cost us less to fill up our cars, and prices for the goods on our shelves should start falling because transportation will start costing less as well.

But there's much more to it than that, especially for Russia. Oil revenues are a big part of their government's income, and the drop from over $120 a barrel to around $60, means that Russia's budget, which was calculated at a higher price, will not be able to spend as much money as they previously thought. The drop in the Oil price even sent the Russian Rouble shooting up against the dollar, to almost 80 roubles to the dollar, before settling OPEC even decided not to cut production to force prices higher, and whilst most saw that as a shot across the bows of US shale oil producers, Russia's aggression against Ukraine may have also played a part as neither the US nor Russia are part of the international cartel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held his usual end of year press conference this week, and like previous Soviet Premiers and dictators worldwide, blamed the West for what is happening with his economy. And whilst it's true that the West's economic sanctions have hurt Russia to some degree, OPEC's refusal to cut production of oil in order to raise the price on international commodities markets will do far more to damage the Russian economy than the west's sanctions.

And who are these OPEC members who will hurt Russia's economy so badly? Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Not a single western country in the cartel, not even the UK. Maybe Putin should get some of his Russia Today buddies to start going after Iran's Press TV.

The Idiot Brigade Awards: Monday 8th September 2014

Okay, time to give out the most coveted prizes in blogging world (not), today’s medals in the Idiot Brigade Awards.

The Bronze medal goes to Conservative MP John Redwood, for suggesting that the Scots should be banned from voting in the 2015 General Election if they vote for Independence.  John, you do realise that such an idea is pretty guaranteed to make the Scots vote for Independence, just to spite you?

The Silver medal goes to Patriarch Filaret, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin as being possessed by Satan.  You know, this is not going to help de-escalate the tensions between Russia and Ukraine, but worse than that, you actually compared him to the wrong person.  If anything, Vladimir Putin is looking more and more like George W Bush did during his second term, where all he had was his own certainty, his own beliefs, his own omniscience, and little to no connection with the real world at all. That is about all Putin has left at the moment, is his own certainty, his own omniscience, his own superiority complex, if you will.

But the Fools Gold Award winners today, are Ray Rice, The Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League, The National Football League themselves and the Commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell.  You may recall that Ray Rice was suspended by the NFL Commissioner for two games, after TMZ released a surveillance video tape showing Ray Race dragging his then fiancé Janay Palmer out of an elevator.  Since then, Roger Goodell and the NFL have taken a public relations pummelling over the lenient punishment.  That led to a change in policy, that was not backdated, that all domestic violence offenders would be suspended for 6 games on a first offence, and banned indefinitely on a second offence.

Today, TMZ released the ‘other video’ that the police had had all along, which showed what happened inside the elevator.  I’m not going to link to it directly, or embed it on the page, as I consider it too graphic and too violent.  But suffice to say, his actions in that elevator made the two game suspension look far worse than farcical.  It made it look utterly shameful and a complete disgrace.

Almost instantly, the Baltimore Ravens released Ray Rice, followed in equally quick succession by the Commissioner, Roger Goodell, announcing that Ray Rice was being suspended from the NFL indefinitely, and all based upon this release of the ‘new’ video, a video that both the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens deny having previously seen, but knowing how the NFL has a great working relationship with the Police, I find that whole scenario incredibly unlikely.

I have little doubt in my own mind, that they were just trying to ride it out, wait until the heat died down, and then everything would be a-ok, and they could quietly bury it.  Today, those thoughts were blown out of the water, and the speed of both organisations reactions unfortunately give away exactly what they knew.  They had to have seen the video, knew what it contained, and yet still, they tried to diminish it, by only suspending Ray Rice for 2 games.  Today’s video demonstrated that you cared as much about domestic violence, as much as you had previously cared about concussions, prior to last year’s settlement, which was not a lot.

Baltimore Ravens, if you had taken some responsibility in the first place and suspended Rice before the NFL had taken its original decision, the one that now looks incredibly ridiculous, you would have looked strong, and in command, instead of looking weak, feeble and out of touch, as you do now.

Roger Goodell, you surely don’t expect me to believe that you hadn’t seen the second videotape until now.  I find that very hard to believe.  Again, rather like the Baltimore Ravens themselves, you look weak, feeble, indecisive and out of touch with the people who matter most to you and your organisation, your fans, especially the large contingent of female fans that the NFL attracts. 

Ray Rice, the Baltimore Ravens, the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell.  Not only our Fools Gold Award winner today, but unequivocally, today’s Worst Persons In The World.

Russia goes backwards on LGBT

Russia Today are reporting that the the lower house of the Russian Parliament, The Duma, has voted for a ban on promoting non-traditional sexual relations to minors.  Now whilst this might sound sensible, it is one of those ideas that in practice causes a lot more problems than it solves.

The situation in Russia regarding LGBT relations has been pretty stable since 2003.  The age of consent is 16, for both heterosexual and LGBT relationships, homosexual sex is legal, as is the right to change your gender, but there is still a long way to go. 

There are no anti-discrimination laws in place for the Russian LGBT community, and this new law seeks to take the issue further back into the dark ages.  People start to express their sexuality as early as their early teens, and they will want to find out information.  Blocking access to that information will not promote heterosexuality, but will make LGBT relationships, and other non-traditional sexual relations more interesting.  It's classic reverse psychology, tell somebody they can't do something and they want to do it all the more.

Some ideas sound eminently sensible.  However, most of those ideas end up causing more problems, especially when those measures are directly against a person's sexuality, and also, trying to place societal controls on something that Mother Nature decides.  It comes across as being a fool's errand to try and place societal controls, such as laws, on things that are not decided by societies, but by nature.

What's worse is that the public backs this ban.  88% back it, and 42% think homosexuality should be made a criminal offence.  This is a backward step for Russia, and it will come back and bite them, when they least expect it.

Skyscrapers does not equal prosperity?

You'd think that a skyscraper being constructed means that economic prospects are looking good. But that might not be the case.

The Guardian, The Independent, and a number of other websites around the world, are all reporting the findings of a study by Barclays Capital.

According to that study, there is a link between the building of the world's tallest skyscrapers and the crashes in the stock and property that followed them.

This is not the first time I have heard of this phenomenon.

In an audio presentation that I have come across from 2003, Dr John Demartini mentions exactly the same idea.

And with China and India, two of the "BRIC" nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China), both building a lot of skyscrapers, this seems to indicate that we in the so called "developed world" have not much more than a couple of years to turn our recessions around and start growing again, before India and China go into recession. Best case scenario; we have 5 years before this happens. Worst case scenario; 2 years.

Santa over Moscow

Santa, or as he is also known worldwide, Saint Nicholas, is currently flying over Russia. These pictures have just been picked up by the NORAD SantaCams stationed in Moscow.



As we get more pictures in, we'll bring them to you.