The Last Puff

The Last Puff, originally uploaded by Jani Helle.

This is the last puff of a cigarette at a bar in Finland for me... Sigh...



00.00.06 am, June 1st, 2007. Elmo Sports & Grill, Helsinki, Finland.



Things will truly be different now...

Global Warming Hits Finland

Global Warming Hits Finland, originally uploaded by janihelle.

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007, 4pm.

30.4 degrees Celcius in the shade.

Location: Espoo, Finland.



No, this is not a joke.

This is global warming.



It is NEVER this hot in May in Finland. And not just hot. It's really humid too. The weather forecast for this week is rain and thunder, between 12 and 23 degrees centigrade. Every day. Instead, I'm sweating like a pig on a large open flame.



We're used to two kinds of summer here in Finland: wet and cold, or hot and dry. Usually both during the same summer months.



This year, the summer started early. It feels like the hottest days of summer. In May. The only exception is the unforeseen humidity. The unbearable humidity. We're used to dry heat.



As for the rain and thunder, the forecast wasn't completely off the mark. True, on mention of the burning sun and sweltering heat, but there's pain almost every day. Yet, it's not the summer rain that we're used to. It's tropical.



Take the last few days for example. It has been unbearably humid since about Friday. Yet sunny and warm every day.



Truth be told, the weather has been quite peculiar for the last week or so.



Friday evening and night was really misty in Espoo.



Saturday it rained in the morning, while late evening brought with it a severe thunderstorm that cut power and TV transmissions around Finland. Initially, it was thunder without rain. Then came the rain, pouring down on us. Hard. During the day was sunny.



Sunday was hot, with a cool breeze at most times. The papers were predicting that the heat (helle in Finnish...) was coming soon. More rain.



Monday was another got day, hitting some 27ish degrees at best. The late afternoon brought a few surprises with it. A rolling clap thunder which lasted some 10 seconds. Then five minutes of silence from above. Then another rolling clap of thunder, accompanied with 5 minutes of rain. Naturally, we we're outside at Seurasaari at the time, looking for squirrels to feed. After the rain, the rest of the day was nice and sunny, slightly cloudy. Ok weather for sitting at a terrace drinking a beer.



Today, Tuesday has been tropical. The kind of weather when you'd rather sit inside at home or an air-conditioned bar than be outside, with the exception of being at the beach...



The summer has started with a bang, a flash of heat that doesn't seem to go away. And it's only the end of May. Warn your grandparents, it's going to be a hot summer. In the mean time, it's time to bring out the shorts and bikinis, and enjoy this unusual weather.



Don't forget the suntan lotion!



(My prediction for the summer, all over Europe: death from heat exhaustion. The summer of 2003 was hot, and thousands of old people perished, especially in France. No need to travel to the tropics, because the tropics are coming to us this summer. And America, prepare for Katrina The Sequel... This might really be the summer when everyone realizes that global warming is not a myth...)

Gucci Is So Last Year...

Noticed a funny bit of graffiti on a wall at the bus stop on Länsiväylä, near Westend... I really would've wanted to have seen what the person who wrote that graffiti looked like...

Note: At last check, the graffiti had been removed... Most tags are left as they are, but the funny ones are washed away. Or did Gucci complain?

Exempt From Military Service In Times Of Peace

Earlier today I was granted exemption from military service in times of peace due to health reasons, namely, my back is fucked up.

For background information, Finland has a conscription army, in which each able-bodied and able-minded man between the ages of 18 and 28 must serve for either 180, 270 or 362 days, as well as being an active member of the reserves until age 60. The service is voluntary for women.

I initially entered the service two years ago on January 10th 2005, serving for a total of 45 days until February 23rd, two days six of the oath and the completion of boot camp. I was discharged for two years due to the condition, and March 12th 2007 was set as a reevaluation day for me.

This morning at 9am I arrived at the Finnish Military Headquarters in Helsinki. To cut the story short. I waited, stood in line, showed my ID, got my service file, waited, spent a few minutes with the military doctor, spent a few minutes with a board of officers, waited, was escorted out of building, and went home. I came with a doctor's evaluation paper, marking me as unfit to serve in the military. I left with a piece of paper stating that I am unfit to serve. I also had received 7.20€ for bus money.

So, now with me never having to serve 6-12 months of my life in the military making as little as 3.60€ a day (15 cents an hour) in the first few months of service, I'm free to pursue my goals. University, here I come! (Guess I really should start studying...)

100 Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Year

Here's a link to an interesting list of 100 things we didn't know this time last year, from BBC.co.uk

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | 100 things we didn't know this time last year
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4566526.stm

New Theme To My Opera Blog

Initially, I planned for my Opera Community blog (http://my.opera.com/janihelle/blog) to be merely photos and links to interesting things. These things happen when you have 5 different blogs, covering 5 different themes. I have practically forgotten about all my other blogs, and focused on HellBroadCast (http://hellbroadcast.blogspot.com), covering news articles, politics, and human interest issues. With this in mind, I am transforming my Opera blog into a duplicate of HellBroadCast, posting all articles on both blogs, mainly to attain a larger reader base, having realized that the Opera Community is expanding daily. So stay posted, because I have a lot of material in the works...

The Place That Affected Me The Most (MARXIM)

The place that affected me the most? There are so many places, so many cities, and so many countries that have affected me over the years as I met people here and there, learnt things new and reacquainted myself with what I already knew, wherever I would happen to be living at any given time. Nevertheless, there is one place on which the spotlight shines the brightest. There is one particular bar in Budapest, Hungary with a communist feel to it. Situated on a side street where many don’t wonder into without knowing what’s there, in an area that gives you the feeling that you just traveled back almost 2 decades to Communist Hungary. All the buildings look the same, the several factories in view seemingly abandoned years earlier, the buildings deteriorating from a long life of joy and suffering. The left side of the road is populated by several rundown factories that on first glance seem as if they’d crumble from touch like a house of cards. The numerous windows that mark all walls of the factories are like the teeth of a jagged-toothed creature that just crawled out of the desert. On the right side of the road are blocks of concrete said to house human beings. Out of the wall of one of these concrete slabs sticks out a lighted red star half the size of a human being. The same building has its bottom floor painted with what possibly might have a very dazzling shade of red a decade or so ago, the paint in many places long gone, having crumbled to fine dust, an end that may one day face the rest of the building and all his ill-fated neighbors. This urban wasteland has only one bright spot of color in the form of a park only recently erected in an attempt to revive the area sick with bleakness.

The bright five-armed star that overlooks the once-red floor of the building gives off a somewhat eerie glow, yet still brilliantly lighting up the area at night, calling to it those who see it, like a mosquito lamp calls its prey. Upon close inspection, you may not wish to enter through the doorway under the star and step down those few stairs to enter through another door. Yet, there is something about the place that calls your name, that draws your attention, inviting you inwards. Behind this second door lies a crowd of people, bunched up like animals on a farm. Once you step through this door, the heat fabricated by those already inside slaps you in the face with enough force to drive the feeble-minded retracing their steps back out the door. The ceiling is curtained by a thick fog of cigarette smoke, temporarily brushed to one side every time the door opens or when the air conditioning is up and running. Your ears are blasted with the cacophony created by the mixture of people laughing, crying and talking loudly and drunkenly, the television shouting out whatever sports event happens to be on, and the music singing its way through the room to run into your eardrums. The luscious aroma of pizza with all its add-ons crawls up your nose and down to your stomach to tickle your hunger in order to wake him up, just so you can devour one of the gastronomically orgasmic pizzas this place is famous for. Every wall is tattooed with communist slogans and paintings, with red being the predominant color to dress the establishment. The animals on this farm are shacked up into booths like cages, separated by chicken wire, on top of which lies a coiled up snake of barbed wire. Chickens and roosters are drinking their water in one booth, while cows and bulls drink their choice of beverages in another. To finish the job, a burlesque portrait of V.I. Lenin, here known as W.C. Lenin, kindly directs those who temporarily inhabit the watering hole to a place where they may relieve themselves.


This is the place that affected me the most. No other place I’ve been to has ever granted me with such an atmosphere of excitement, joy, drunkenness, and laughter, just to name a small portion of all the feelings and emotions that I experienced within those four walls. The look of the place, the attitude of the people there, the feeling of belonging, all reasons why I spent every possible moment of my free time there with my best friends. It is what became to known as home, for that was where we were all the time, up to and beyond a point where we could be found there every weekend. The place that affected me the most, this small, obscure bar in a desolate neighborhood is called Marxim’s.

[Written 17.09.2002]

Poem: First Degree Burns

First Degree Burns

Why are we here? I don’t want to be here. Are we mere puppets?
Why are the corpses of soldiers we knew now riddled by a thousand bullets?
The fingers of death rip through the flesh of a young soldier.
His black blood rains on me. I can taste it in my mouth.
He embraces the elephant graveyard. He won’t get up. He’s gone.
The corpse lies by my side, exhibiting the shredded machinery of the dead man.
I think to myself, was he ready? Was this his moment of truth? Was he afraid?
I grit my teeth and look away as another receives his ticket on the black train.
Death lurks behind every tree. He has his hands full tonight. Why can’t you just disappear?

Asking the questions doesn’t help our souls now, surrounded by the constant colours crimson.
I hold my rifle closer to my chest and shut my eyes, my life on ransom.
I sink in the quagmire, trying not to listen to the shrills of dying souls.
Yesterday we were happy, laughing, joking. Not dying. There are no jokes today.
The powers that be ordered us into the killing fields of blood and mud.
Today they laugh and drink their coffee as we drink our blood.
Here we are, no escape. Take cover from death’s head, lurking in the treetops.
Death’s bell is ringing for us now, loud like angry mobs.
We fall as Dies Irae sounds. How much more can we endure?

A jet roars above and drops its deadly payload of hell over us.
The evening erupts in the brightest darkness. Why are they burning their own?
A hundred yells fill the woods and turn into the last moans of agony.
The flame sweeps past me. The soldier by me isn’t as lucky.
Paralysed with terror, I watch the flame engulf him and devour his clothes.
His eyes roll as his face shrivels, his flesh melting in the heat of the fiery killer.
Motionless I lay, watching a scream erupt from his scorched lips as he stands up for the last time.
His charred corpse twitches and falls limp on me. The stench overwhelms my senses.
Ardent men fall like corn under the sickle. Is it just me amidst the scorched carnage?
It’s too much. I can’t stand it. Waterfalls begin to flow as I stand up and face the gates.


JANI HELLE
April 1st 2001

Dolphin-Safe Naval Base

The US Navy is considering the deployment of extra troops to a military installation in Washington state. The troops in question? Dozens of trained dolphins and sea lions.

Apparently, the US Navy feels it needs to tighten security at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, located on the Puget Sound close to Seattle. The reason for this? The base is good to submarines, ships and laboratories and is potentially vulnerable to attack by terrorist swimmers and scuba divers.

Dolphins? Sea lions? Terrorist scuba divers? This is starting to sound like a bad, low-budget action flick, sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security. And just what classifies a certain location "potentially vulnerable" to terrorist attacks? Thus far its been mass transportation (London, Madrid), symbols of capitalism (The Twin Towers) and western democracy (notably American symbols and buildings, such as embassies, the Pentagon, etc.), crowded areas (markets in Iraq, night clubs in Bali, hotels in Egypt and Syria), and American soldiers (Middle East). The difference between terrorists targeting 'soft' targets, such as civilian buildings and civilians in general is to incite fear into people, whereas terrorists attack American soldiers and their bases abroad to undermine America's presence and influence in the region. I do not see a terrorist attack on an American military installation very plausible within the United States, mainly due to their sheer size, and the fact that such an attack would involve planning on a scale never seen before. Sure, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, but has anyone heard of Al-Qaeda possessing a fleet of aircraft carriers, destroyers and bombers? It's really just doesn't seem like it world happen, especially as you consider that most terrorist attacks have been committed by only a few people at a time.

And now Americans and the whole western world with them is supposed to be on the lookout for terrorist scuba divers? I wouldn't be surprised if next you hear that DHS is going to start complying a list of all licenced scuba divers in the States, whilst the Transport Security Agency (TSA) adds "Have you ever swam with a bomb with intent to blow something up, or have you ever been trained as a suicide swimmer by a terrorist organization" to their list of 'Tick Yes or No to the following questions (ticking a single yes will result in many many questions, while Bubba stripsearches you)' form which every visitor must fill out upon entry to the USA.

Then again, keep in mind that the use of sea mammals by the US Military is not a new scheme. The US Navy actually has a program called the Marine Mammal Program that's been training California sea lions and Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins since the 1960's and has a small army of them numbering some 100. The "troops" have seen action as recently as 2003, when they were deployed to the Iraqi harbor of Umm Qasr to detect underwater mines.

Naturally, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has expressed their concerns with the use of there sea mammals by the US Navy for such tasks...

Now that I think about it, this whole use of dolphins and sea lions by the Navy kinda sounds like a crazy Cold War-era defence scheme, one from the more bizarre extreme. Come to think of it, the program is a relic of the Cold War. No wonder it sounds so loony...

Source:
Dolphins may protect the nation, one fin at a time - CNN.com [ http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/12/dolphins.sealions.ap/index.html ]

Let's File It Under "Oops"; FBI Misplaces Laptops

Several days ago it was reported that the FBI had lost 160 laptops in the last four years, some 51 of them containing sensitive information. Before that, the FBI had misplaced over 300 laptops in a space of just over a few years. Every newspaper article in print and online that I've come across this story in (and that's not too many), not a single one mentions any kind of punishments for those responsible for the losses or thefts. Better yet, the situations where the agents have lost these laptops as well as weapons are in a few cases ridiculous; unlocked cars, leaving them behind at restaurants, grocery stores, restrooms, etc... With reports of identity thefts in the news frequently due to mishandling of laptops, data, or just plain human stupidity, I haven't heard of any punishments for those responsible. It's always either an announcement of the fact that they've been lost, with little or no information or apology, or in some cases just a simple "oops, we were stupid. Sorry, we'll try not to do it again" statement. To get an idea of the amount of identity thefts going around,
In England, on the other hand, The Nationwide Building Society was fined £980,000 (~€1.5m / ~$2m) for the theft of ONE laptop from an employee's house, a laptop which contained banking information from some 11 million of the corporation's clients. Now how many people have the FBI and other institutions, universities and corporations compromised due to their "mishaps"? The BBC article mentions that it is not known whether Nationwide fined, fired or disciplined the employee in question or not, but one would think the company might wanna do that, considering the cost of the ordeal to the company, in terms of money and image. Guess the FBI didn't feel the need to, seeing as people's view of the bureau is already tarnished, and it's just another instance of a big OOPS!

[Note: The BBC website has some pretty good information to turn to in case of Identity Theft. CNN, not so much...]

Sources:
FBI loses laptops with classified information - CNN.com ( http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/12/fbi.laptops/index.html )
FBI still losing laptops, weapons - Homeland Stupidity ( http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2007/02/13/fbi-still-losing-laptops-weapons/ )
BBC NEWS | Business | Nationwide fined for stolen laptop ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6360715.stm )