Operation Misery: Month 13, Week 2, Day 4.

Obviously we are all expected to concentrate really closely on the super top-secret information that Britain's Rolls-Royce have provided to Malaysia and which Malaysia has then shared with the US for clues about this. For example yesterday (14/3/14) evening (UK time) it was announced that the lithium batteries on Malaysian airlines Boeing 777 flight MH370 could be a possible cause for its disappearance. The lithium-ion batteries on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner were of course used extensively to discuss why Chris Brown was not in prison - Cell 6 was specifically suggested.

However what we do know is that yesterday morning (local time) Chris Brown was thrown out of the rehab facility where he was staying for an, as yet, undisclosed infraction. As Brown's stay in this rehab facility is mandated as part of his probation the judge handling the case - Judge Gluber - issued a warrant for Brown's arrest. That warrant was executed at around 13:00 (local time)/21:00(GMT) and Brown is currently being held, in prison, on remand without bail. Experience suggests that over the course of the next working week Brown will be recalled to the Gluber's courtroom so this can all be swept under the carpet. In the meantime Brown is facing the violation of probation offence that carries a maximum 4 year prison sentence.

In terms of the wider context I have been thinking that something like this is likely for a while now. Basically when rumours about Rihanna and Drake dating began to emerge Chris Brown took the news very badly. Obviously this prompted his then girlfriend Kerruche Tran to dump because he was clearly still obsessed with his ex. Since then everybody has been having a good laugh at Rihanna and Drake's attempts to convince us that they're dating. That has obviously left Brown feeling more then a little bit foolish and its really only been a matter of time before he blew up again. In fact Brown is that prone to aggression and violence one wonders how many similar incidents the rehab facility have been forced to cover-up in the last couple of weeks.

As for Rihanna she has now left Drake's tour in Manchester, UK and returned to New York City, USA. As the charade with Drake has never been anything other then a death sentence for Rihanna this is clearly good news. However because she has involved herself in Drake's tour it will continue to damage Rihanna. For example there is going to be tension about whether Rihanna will continue to drop in an out of nations as Drake's tour continues. As such Rihanna really needs to make a strong statement making it clear that she is going to have nothing more to do with Drake and will instead be using the upcoming months to bring her career back from the dead. Obviously staying in the UK meet up with me would have done that.

The 2014 Winter Para-Olympics: Day 7(ish)

Yesterday the para-Olympics saw the semi-finals of the Ice Sledge Hockey and the dramatic final day of the preliminary round of the Wheelchair Curling. Tomorrow will see the hockey final between Russia and TeamUSA and the semi-finals and final of the curling. As a result today has been something of a flat day with everyone trying to recover from the drama of the previous day and prepare for the excitement of the next.

This actually worked out quite well because it allowed the Snowboard Cross to take centre-stage. This is of course the first time that any Snowboard event has been included in the Winter para-Olympics meaning that there was plenty to talk about. Having only been introduced into the Olympics at the the 1998 Nagano games in Japan  snowboarding is still a cause for tension between Olympic purists who see it as simply teenagers mucking and people who are wrong.

Also para-Olympic snowboarding does raise the issues of the limits of disability and the limits of disabled sport. That is because snowboarding is very dependent on balance and the competitor being able to react very quickly to subtle movements being sent up their legs from the snow via the board. Obviously people with prosthetic legs do not have sensation in those prosthetics meaning that they are not receiving the information from the snow. As a result you would think that snowboarding is a sport that is simply beyond people who do not have full feeling in their legs. Sadly today's competition did seem to support that theory with no competitor in either the men's or women's event managing to complete all three runs without crashing.

The other big event of the day has been various disciplines of the biathlon - the sport that combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting. Being the hosts the Russians have been keen to win all the medals at these games and have particularly excelled at the biathlon winning four of the six gold medals on offer today. However a universal effort was made to hand the other two gold medals to the Ukrainians. This was done in order to highlight the fact that the majority of the deaths at the hands of snipers in Independence Square during Ukraine's recent coup were the responsibility to the current Kiev government rather then the government of Vicktor Yanukoyvch. As such I strongly recommend that the current Kiev government withdraw their application to the International Criminal Court (ICC) because if the ICC is given the freedom to do its job any such investigation will reflect very badly on them.

Finally we got to see the completion of the Super-Combined skiing that was delayed from Tuesday (11/3/14) due to the fog. Fortunately the weather has been co-operating with fresh snow falls on both Wednesday (12/3/14) and Thursday (13/3/14) meaning that the event was able to go ahead with none of the safety concerns of Monday (10/3/14). In the visually impaired event there was success for TeamGB with Jade Etherington and guide Caroline Powell taking the silver. Etherington adds this to the two silver and one bronze medals she has already won at these games making her Britain's most successful Winter para-Olympian ever. 

I'm sure though that this accomplishment will pale into insignificance when Jade Etherington realises she has most certainly been my weird crush of the games.


20:35 on 14/3/14 (UK date).

The 2014 Winter Para-Olympics: Day 6(ish)

Today's big story has been the final day of the preliminary round of the wheelchair Curling. This saw TeamGB first take on TeamUSA and then China in an effort to reach the knock-out stage. TeamGB, TeamUSA and likely the International Para-Olympic Committee (IPC) conspired to make it look as if there was some urgent discussion going on between the UK and the US before dumping that discussion in China's lap to see how they would cope. As things stand in UNFCCC negotiations the US and China represent the two main opposing camps and as usual the UK is trying to carve out a role for itself as an intermediary.

The largest part of this supposed discussion between the US and the UK has been the search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 which has been missing since the start of the para-Olympics. Obviously the Malaysians - acting at least partly on the UK's behalf - are trying to make this situation as complicated as possible. For example the search for the two Iranian passengers who were travelling on stolen passports was a reference to a reasonably well supported theory that the 1988 bombing of Pan-Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, UK was not the work of the Libyans but actually the work of the Iranians and Syrians in retaliation for the shooting down by the US of an Iranian passenger jet earlier in the year. With the Lockerbie bombing being used as an unofficial justification for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) backed attack on Libya in 2011 suggesting that Muammar Qaddafi was not responsible for the bombing is hugely inflammatory - not least because Syria is already under attack and Saudi Arabia has most certainly got Iran in it's sights.

At its core though the MH370 story has 153 Chinese civilians missing, presumed dead and the Malaysians are refusing to tell China what has happened to it's citizens. Nations have gone to war over less. By refusing to tell China what has happened the Malaysians are hoping that the pressure from the relatives of the missing passengers will force the Chinese to deploy its latest military technology in the search. Primarily this forces China to expose its capabilities but the Malaysians - and by extension the UK - were hoping to use this exposure of Chinese technology would make it look like they were explaining to the US that the Rihanna operation failed because South-East Asian nations were perfectly capable of tracking Rihanna's plane as she made her way around the South China Sea including the unscheduled detours to Thailand. For example the Malaysians have recently requested help in the search from the US - the US obviously being the only people on earth capable of interpreting radar data(!)

To confuse the situation further the UK today released the findings of the inquest into the 2009 crash of a Bond Helicopters SuperPuma in off the coast of Scotland. Obviously people in espionage circles were expected to know about this announcement in advance. That helicopter crash occurred during the emergency G20 Summit that was held in London to formulate a response to the 2008 financial crisis so could be a reference to any number of things. Also (incorrect) comparisons have been drawn between the 2009 crash and the recent crash of a police helicopter - also operated by Bond - in Glasgow, Scotland adding an extra level of confusion to the situation.

For their part the US already had in play the investigation into the large building fire in San Francisco, California and the investigation/rising death toll from the building collapse in New York City both of which occurred yesterday (11/3/14). Added to that overnight a car crashed into a crowd of concert goers outside a venue of the South by Southwest (SXSW) music/film/technology festival in Texas. Obviously through the concert/tour theme the US was trying to make it look like a inquest into what went wrong with the Rihanna operation. The fact the incident is being blamed on a drunk driver is supposed to indicate that the US are still blaming me entirely for the failure of the Rihanna operation and that they think I must have been drunk/under the influence of some narcotic not to let them carry out their plan. Continuing the dangerous driving/narcotic theme there was also a lengthy car chase through the streets of Denver, Colorado that saw the suspect steal several vehicles before being caught. Again this could mean pretty much anything. In an effort to make it look like there was a conversation going on the UK piped up with a pedestrian who was killed in a collision with a police car which was chasing a suspect vehicle.

My favourite section of the back and forth between the US and the UK though began with a US story about two teenage girls in Maryland, Virginia who bullied a 16 year old autistic boy into performing sex acts and to doing dangerous stunts like throwing himself in to a frozen pond. Obviously the theme of exploiting someone with autism could be interpreted as a reference to the various ways my high-functioning autistic father has been exploited particularly over the criminal mis-treatment of my grandmother. The UK then moved the conversation on with an announcement that various charities are calling on the police to do more about so-called 'Mate-Crime.' Borrowing from the term "Hate-Crime" this describes a practise in which people pretend to become friends (mates in slang) with people with learning difficulties in order to steal from them, physically assault them, sexually abuse them and generally humiliate them. As this story was routed through the BBC's pop-music radio station "Radio 1" this was clearly intended to be a reference to Rihanna's faux relationship with Drake. After all with Rihanna's world already having shrunk dramatically since 2012 it is hard to see her coming back from this rather begging the question; "Just how stupid is she?!"

Although I doubt it was at the front of anyone's minds the issue of learning difficulties/mental retardation is quite an interesting one to bring up during the para-Olympics. That is because the para-Olympics are often mistaken for the Special Olympics. The para-Olympics are simply for athletes with some form of physical disability. The Special Olympics on the other hand are for people who are so stupid they fit into the medical definition of "retarded." That is to say they - for a variety of reasons - are so stupid that they are incapable of understanding things like the fact that you need to eat food in order to avoid starving to death or that sticking your fingers into an electrical socket is generally a bad idea.

While I can't immediately think of any examples at the Sochi games this misconception that people with a physical disability are also mentally retarded is a big issue within disability rights. The classic example being Cerebral Palsy which can make sufferers look physically quite odd and give them great problems with things like speech that can make them appear stupid. However this is simply caused by a problem with the way the brain communicates with the rest of the body and people with Cerebral Palsy are no more or less likely to be mentally retarded then anyone else. In fact the TeamGB equestrian para-Olympian Sophie Christiansen who has Cerebral Palsy is not only of average intelligence but is actually so clever that she's gone beyond the level of genius into the category known as "frighteningly intelligent."

With such a complex set-up the TeamGB v TeamUSA Curling match couldn't be anything less then dramatic and both teams played their part. In the early part of the game it was all TeamUSA before TeamGB put on one of the most dramatic comebacks in Olympic Curling history to win 8-7 in effectively extra-time. Sadly TeamGB then went on to play China who wiped the floor with them 6-3. With Russia losing to Slovakia at the same time this meant that TeamGB would be forced into a play-off tomorrow (14/3/14) where they would most likely face China all over again. Fortunately though Russia defeated Slovakia ending a possibility of a re-match between TeamGB and China which certainly gives TeamUSA and TeamGB plenty to think about in terms of the current relationship between China and Russia.

Away from the Curling arena today also saw the first big drugs scandal of the para-Olympics. Italian Ice Sledge Hockey player Igor Stella was banned for 18 months and fined USD1,570 after testing positive for a banned steroid three days before the start of the games. A steroid is obviously a hormone that forms part of the endocrine system which is crucial to the physiological basis for homosexuality. 

Although details are still thin on the ground at the moment due to the shortness of the ban I suspect that Stella had tested positive for a cortical steroid that he could have accidentally ingested as part of a cold and flu treatment similar to the treatment I was using for my recent cocaine related sinus infection. Although this type of steroid is unlikely to have improved Stella's athletic performance on testing they can mimic other steroids that do so are banned. This sort of accidental steroid use was behind many of the bans that were handed out in the final week of the Olympics. Beyond that "Stella Artois" is a brand of beer that is famous for sometimes sending people - myself included - a bit loopy so the Italians could be attempting to promote discussion about that. Also during Paris Fashion Week I mentioned that Rihanna's decision to attend the Stella McCartney fashion show would be used by the UK to drive Rihanna onto the para-Olympic agenda by claiming they had some special insight into her life. As such the Stella case could also be the Italians attempting to promote discussion about that plan which has grown to include Rihanna joining Drake in the UK in an effort to sell the idea that they are mating/dating.

Then of course there was the small matter of a hockey semi-final between defending para-Olympic champions Canada and TeamUSA. Due to Channel 4's refusal to broadcast this and my refusal to watch livestreams I still I haven't seen this match although I hope to watch it tomorrow.  I gather though that the Canadians more or less failed to turn up handing TeamUSA a 3-0 win. With Russia defeating Norway 4-0 earlier in the day this means we will finally get the gold medal match between Russia and the USA that we were cruelly denied at the Olympics due to the American backed coup in Ukraine.

I though prefer to think of this result as a tacit agreement between the USA and Canada that Drake will immediately return to his native Toronto where he will be free to to develop his career in the fast food industry. As I'm sure Drake's learning though if you want to sell out stadiums you've got to hype things up a bit.

20:20 on 13/3/14 (UK date).

I Know, Annoying.

Due to the para-Olympics and, well, me being a slow reader its looks like I won't be able to fully contribute to the UNFCCC meeting in Bonn, Germany until it is all over and everyone has gone home. So hopefully you'll excuse me while I randomly throw this out for discussion.

As always one of the main sticking points is whether the new agreement will be legally binding or not. Obviously I don't think we can do this on an honour system alone. However a legally binding agreement will reduce the level of ambition of the agreement. Also - as happened with Kyoto - a legally binding agreement discourages governments from thinking about the problem holistically with them instead becoming entirely focused on hitting their targets.

That said it looks like any new agreement is going to be based on a more joined up approach to climate change with mitigation efforts, adaptation efforts and finance being more closely interlinked. As a result it might be possible to formulate a hybrid agreement that imposes penalties for nations that do not meet their commitments but stops short of them being taken to Court over missed targets.

For example if - say - a European nation is providing a loan guarantee for a Chinese company to provide solar panels to an African nations through the Green Climate Fund (GCF) it should be possible to include clauses whereby a failure by the European nation to fulfil its commitments triggers part of that loan guarantee meaning that the European nation is forced to pay directly for the solar panels. Similarly if a nation is struggling to meet its commitments it could effectively buy carbon credits to offset its emissions by making a financial contribution to something like the GCF or the REDD+ fund. After all the forests protected by the increased spending should be able to absorb the extra emissions.


11:30 on 13/3/15 (UK date).

The 2014 Winter Para-Olympics: Day 5(ish).

Today I have mainly been concentrating on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting being held in Bonn, Germany. As a result I can talk to you at great length about Singapore's efforts to reduce carbon emissions through green urban development. Unfortunately though this means that I am a little bit more hazy when it comes to the sport.

However if I was to choose one story of the day to talk about it would be TeamUSA's Tatyana McFadden's silver medal in the 1km cross-country sprint. McFadden is an interesting personality at these games because prior to today she already held 10 para-Olympic medals. They though were all awarded in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Summer games for wheelchair racing. Having added silver today McFadden now enters a very exclusive club of para-Olympians who have won medals at both the Summer and Winter games. Apart from being quite an achievement this also promotes discussion about the relative competitiveness of the para-Olympics and the limits of disabled sport. After all the fact that McFadden only began training for the Winter games less then a year ago suggests to me that maybe wheelchair racing and cross-country sit-skiing aren't technically that different.

Tatyana McFadden's story is also particularly relevant to the Sochi games because although she competes for the USA Tatyana was actually born in the Leningrad, Russia just before the fall of the Soviet Union. Born with Spina Bifida her birth mother put Tatyana in an orphanage because she was unable to cope. As was common for Soviet-era orphanages this one was not equipped to deal with people with disabilities so Tatyana first learnt to walk on her hands. In 1995 Tatyana was spotted by Deborah McFadden - a visiting commissioner for disabilities for the US Department of Health - who adopted Tatyana as a single parent. Obviously with fears about Russia's falling population being a driving force behind the anti-gay propaganda laws that have been dominant at the Sochi games the plight of Russia's orphans has been central to that debate. After all if Russians are genuinely worried about the falling population they should perhaps concentrate on making sure that Russian orphans are not whisked away by foreigners rather then stopping gay people from living openly.

The problem is that the issue of foreign adoption has long been a source of tension between the USA and Russia - often being used as a metaphor for other issues. For example in 2012 the US passed what is known as the "Magnitsky Act" in order to punish Russia for its support for Syria. Russia then responded by passing legislation banning US citizens from adopting Russian orphans. This law is commonly known as the "Dima Yakovlev Law" after a Russian orphan who baked to death after his American adoptive parents left him locked in a car. Sadly Tatyana McFadden and her mother - still a US federal government employee - campaigned aggressively against the Dima Yakovlev law.

The McFadden's have continued this aggressive attitude throughout their trip to Sochi. For example whenever they've been telling their story rather then highlighting the plight of Russia's orphans and its impact on the gay-rights debate they have instead focused on telling the world a - less then true - story about how wonderfully the US treats Russian orphans and how terrible Russia is being by denying other orphans the opportunity to move to the USA.

To make matters worse the McFadden's have been inviting Tatyana's birth mother - whose name no-one seems to bother note - to all her races. Rather then using this as an opportunity to promote co-operation between the USA and Russia the McFadden's have been keen to use the fact that Tatyana has two mothers to boast about how much more gay friendly the US is. Also they've been attempting to protest the Russian law against gay foreigners and single parents from countries were gay marriage is legal adopting Russia orphans that was passed during the Olympics. That of course shows that they - along with TeamUSA - either completely mis-understand the politics of gay-rights in Russia or  have absolutely no interest in improving the situation.

It almost goes without saying then that in her first race - 12km cross-country - on Sunday (9/3/14) Tatyana finished a lowly fifth. Today - in her strongest event - Tatyana was pipped to gold by Norway's Mariann Marthinsen by a margin of just 0.1 seconds. With time moving a different rates for different competitors I can't help but feel that on this occasion the difference between gold and silver has been good manners.

As for the Bonn meeting I obviously have a growing list of things that in would like to say in more detail then I can manage tonight. However this meeting does strike me as a great networking opportunity for any developing nations who may be having problems drawing up their Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA). After all it seems that these are going to be key in drawing up a text that will also include Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Commitments (NAMC) from developed nations.

This problem of course wouldn't have arisen if all nations had to submit the same type of action plan. As such I hope China isn't planning on being too inflexible in pursuing the dual annex approach of the Kyoto Protocol that of course failed. In fact I may be tempted to say that Malaysia's naked aggression in the crashing of MH370 was intended to provoke China into retaliating by further entrenching this position.

20:45 on 12/3/14 (UK date).

The 2014 Winter Para-Olympics: Day 4(ish)

As I mentioned yesterday while the UK's Channel 4 (C4) are broadcasting around six hours of live para-Olympic coverage a day those six hours are between 06:00 and 12:00. Personally I'm not really awake and in the mood to watch sport until around 11:00. Plus C4's 30 minute (17 minutes + adverts) evening review show is just useless. C4 are webcasting a lot of the other events on their website but having seen the chaos I can cause watching livestreams of UNFCCC meetings I prefer not to use that service. As a result I'm only really getting glimpses of what is going on rather then the full story.

That said the big story of the day at the alpine venue has once again been the weather. After the heat of the past couple of days today we got fog. That is of course what happens when warm, moist air meets cold ground. So although it is really considered assumed knowledge I'm sure delegates at the UNFCCC meeting in Bonn could have found something to inspire a discussion about the differences between surface temperature and air temperature at various levels of cloud cover. That should help put people who ranted and raved about the surface temperature anomaly in the UNFCCC's last big report in their place.

While they probably weren't too bothered about what caused the fog competitors had no choice other then to be concerned about the fog because it caused multiple delays and the eventual postponement of the Super-Combined event. I actually found this quite interesting because while there are three disciplines of skiing at the games (Sitting, individual, visually impaired) it is the visually impaired event that has received the most attention in the UK at least. The reason why we refer to "visually impaired" rather then "Blind" is because there are actually three levels of visual impairment. There are "B1's" who are near enough totally blind. Then there are "B2's" who have a less then 5* field of vision and can only recognise a moving object at less then 1 metre. Finally there are "B3's" who have between 5* and 30* field of vision and can recognise a moving object at over 1 metre. Visibility at the alpine venue today has be hovering between B2 and B3 rather highlighting just how impressive visually impaired skiing actually is.

Rather proving my point about the para-Olympics requiring a delicate touch TeamGB seems to have spent today trying to work out how they managed to win their first ever gold medal in the visually impaired Super-G event yesterday. Firstly their medal winner Kelly Gallagher and her guide Charlotte Evans crashed out in the Super-Combined. Then TeamGB's wheelchair Curling team - the other big prospect - recorded a shock defeat against Finland before recovering to defeat Norway. In both incidents the question seemed to be; "Are you letting us win?"

The big event of the day though was Russia versus TeamUSA in the Ice Sledge Hockey which is essentially just Ice Hockey for proper psychopaths. Astonishingly C4 were not planning on even providing a webcast of this game. Fortunately though the fog and the cancellation of the Super-Combined left them with a gap in their schedule allowing them to show it. With the men's Ice Hockey at the Olympics turning out to be something of a damp squib there was a lot of speculation how TeamUSA would conduct themselves in this match up. Things started well with the US offering up some trash talk overnight.Essentially this involved an incident at the US National Hockey League (NHL) match between the Dallas Stars and the Columbus Blue Jackets in which the Star's Rich Peverley collapsed with heart trouble causing the match to be abandoned.

This was a reference to the death in the UK of Secretary General of the Rail, Maritime and Transport workers (RMT) Union Bob Crow due to a suspected heart attack at just 52. Representing workers on the London Underground Crow is known to members of the Olympic family due to his threats to shut down London Underground during the 2012 Summer Olympics which would have had a crippling effect on the games. Possibly as punishment for that London's Mayor Boris Johnson is planning to close all Underground ticket offices making many RMT members redundant. As part of a dispute that has seen the RMT take strike action newspapers and radio stations loyal to Johnson have been mounting almost daily personal attacks on Crow. Along with the fact the Labour Party has just broken off its historical ties with the trade union movement and the Sochi games highlighting the fact that Crow's brand of militant socialism is a thing of the past it is fair to say that Crow has been under a lot of stress recently. Somehow I doubt he enjoyed his recent 'holiday' to Brazil.

The Peverley incident was supposed to put pressure on Russia ahead of hockey by making clear that the US already knew about Crow's death whether the Russian's did or not. Also while I don't think there is anything suspicious about Crow's death it is not unheard of for trade union leaders who cause governments trouble to be assassinated with the US and the UK tending to prefer the more discreet hands-off approach that was seen in the death of Dr David Kelly.

As for the hockey game itself it struck me a quite a genuine sporting contest although I hesitate to use the word "clean." There was a penalty call against TeamUSA's Schaus in the second period that I still need explaining and although Russia's first goal came during a rarely seen double power play in the first period on that occasion Schaus knew exactly what he'd done. Russia's second was actually an own goal but that struck me as a ricochet that the TeamUSA's Roybal knew very little about and the judges agreed awarding the goal to Shikhov. Things got exciting at the start of the third period - just as I was making by usual Tuesday trip to the supermarket - when TeamUSA got a goal back. TeamUSA then had an equaliser disallowed for highly questionable reasons. This seemed direct payback for the goal Russia had inexplicably disallowed against TeamUSA during the men's hockey preliminary match at the Olympics.

With things finishing 2-1 to Russia they topped the group and will now go on to play Norway in the semi-final. Finishing second TeamUSA will now go on to play Canada. That match has got me really torn because while every neutral wants to see TeamUSA and Russia meet up again in the gold medal match I feel I'm under an obligation to root for Canada.

Although it's not strictly speaking related to the para-Olympics in the interests of keeping things tidy I should point out that Rihanna is currently in the UK with Drake and the pair are likely to remain there until at least the end of the month. Last night (10/3/14) the pair attended a nightclub in London where Rihanna was photographed wearing an interesting necklace. This Chanel A/W 2014 orginal involved an industrial sized chain and an over-sized padlock. I like to think that Rihanna chose to wear this in protest against her current set of circumstances. The chain around the neck would be an obvious reference to slavery whilst the over-sized padlock would represent the dead-weight or "mill-stone" around Rihanna's neck that this faux relationship with Drake is proving to be. Sadly though though experience tells me that it was far more likely that Rihanna was simply aggressively showing off the gift that Chanel had given her without recognising the significance of said gift.

Finally - on the subject of locks - I'm sure we can all look for great significance in and possible links to quantum field theory in the fact that the lock on my main door broke on Sunday (9/3/14) night really tipping me over the edge. Alternatively we can just accept that it was only installed on Thursday (6/3/14) and failed after fewer then twenty uses. It has now gone back to the manufacturer and the old lock has been re-installed.


20:15 on 11/3/14 (UK date).

The 2014 Winter Para-Olympics: Day 3

I think it is fair to say that generally the Winter Olympics are smaller then the Summer Olympics and at both the para-Olympics are smaller still. Also the para-Olympics tend to be used to discuss a smaller number of some of the political issues that were raised during the Olympics in a lot more detail. A lot of those more detailed discussions require a lighter touch then I can provide here. As a result I may not be giving daily updates on events. Also while the UK Channel 4 is broadcasting a lot - by para-Olympic standards - of coverage it seems scheduled around my sleep pattern making it difficult for me to watch.

That said the big story from the games today has once again been the weather. Basically today in Sochi the temperature has been around 20*C. That means that it has been slightly warmer then it was in the UK over the weekend where we were celebrating by sunbathing and having barbeque's. This warm weather has caused a lot of problems at the alpine venues where it is leading to soft, slushy snow. This type of snow creates more friction making it more difficult to ski on raising the risk of crashes and there have certainly been a lot of crashes. Therefore on the opening day of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Bonn, Germany the intention seems to be to promote discussion about the dangers created by warming weather.

However through recent events in Ukraine, Rihanna's continuing death march across western Europe and the associated search for Malaysian airlines flight MH370 it is quite clear that the US has no intention of discussing climate change at either the Sochi games or the UNFCCC meeting. As a result there has been a lot of effort - including the opaque timing system which sees time move at different speeds for different athletes - to push Team USA athletes into gold medal positions in order to sarcastically make them the centre of attention during the climate change day of events. Team USA got wise to this and started fighting back with many of their competitors either getting themselves disqualified by skiing outside of the course or simply crashing.

The two biggest of these crashes involved Alana Nichols in the women's sit-ski Super G and Stephani Victor also in the women's sit-ski both of whom were air-lifted to hospital. However rather then being strictly medically necessary this seems like an attempt to create drama so Team USA could later put out a statement that Nichols and Victor both were "conscious and responsive" - the sub-text being that the US is conscious of the threat of climate change and responsive to efforts to tackle it. As always though I suspect that people will notice the US' actions rather then their words.

It has since emerged that both Nichols and Victor have sustained concussion and facial injures. As a result I don't think it will be long before one or both post Twitter/Instagram photographs showing their injuries. These will look remarkably similar to the pictures of Rihanna's badly bruised and swollen face that were released following her assault at the hands of Chris Brown. We are of course all supposed to believe that the US is forcing Rihanna into a relationship with Drake in an effort to contain the threat posed to her by Chris Brown. The US is obviously hoping we'll overlook the facts that Chris Brown should be in prison at the moment let alone under a restraining order and that Rihanna's career is pretty much ending with every passing second.

Amid the carnage at the alpine centre Team GB managed to win its first ever Winter para-Olympic gold medal through Kelly Gallagher and her guide Charlotte Evans in the visually impaired women's Super-G. Team GB's Jade Etherington and guide Caroline Powell also took bronze in the same event. As with women's skeleton bobsleigh and curling at the Olympics visually impaired women's skiing and again curling are the events that TeamGB have been targeting in Sochi and Jade Etherington in particular being the darling of the British team. Therefore these medals primarily represent the skill and effort of the people who won them along with the resources that have been made available to them. However with Rihanna and Drake in London it is quite clear that the UK is desperate to be the centre of attention during the UNFCCC meeting and everybody seemed happy to oblige.

Also the reason why Kelly Gallagher is visually impaired is because she suffers from Albinism which is one of the more interesting impairments on display. Although the most common type of Albinism (Oculocutaneous) is caused by a faulty gene meaning that essentially the body cannot produce melanin which provides the pigment to skin and hair. However there are rarer forms where there is no genetic fault meaning that melanin is produced but due to failures in chemical transmitters within the body the cells simply refuse to accept that melanin. As such Albinism encompasses the issues involved in the physiological basis for homosexuality in a way that other impairments simply don't.

Furthermore people can react quite powerfully towards Albinos. For example in certain parts of Africa (eg Tanzania and Burundi) where extremely white skin is very rare it is believed that Albinos possess magical powers and they're often killed so their body parts can be used to make potions. Also there is a mistaken belief that sex with an Albino women can cure HIV/AIDS leading to a lot of rapes and HIV infection. As a result discussions about Albinos also bring in the issue of attitudes towards disability and HIV/AIDS and rape/general violence against women.

As for that UNFCCC conference I should point out that it is the first of several such meetings intended to lay the ground work for the big COP20/CMP10 Summit at the end of the year. As such while it is something I will have to try and follow in great detail it is unlikely that I will have much to say. That's because there isn't actually a tangible objective of this meeting although there is a great potential for time wasting, obstructiveness and downright disruption. Although I'm not sure if it was intentional the timing of the UNFCCC meeting and the para-Olympics coinciding does pose a valid question about the political future of the Olympic movement. That's because although obscure hints and signals can clearly be displayed at the para-Olympics if you really want to know what is going on at the UNFCCC meeting you can simply watch the live webcast and download the relevant documents.

Although it is off topic while I'm here I should clear up something I mentioned on Twitter earlier. For the past couple of days there has been a stand-off between the Libyan government and a Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) ship that is loading up on oil being illegally sold by rebels in the west (Zintan area) of the country. Today the US State Department drew further attention to the situation by issuing a statement. Although Libya's quite reasonable threat to sink the ship which has invaded their territorial waters is new the illegal sale of oil by rebel groups is not. In fact this practise started during the war and has continued every since destabilising the country by both stealing revenues from the government and making the rebels stronger and better armed. From the start I've been saying that turning Libya into a failed state with local warlords selling the nations oil at knock-down prices was the entire point of the western military intervention. Obviously significant parts of the international community are disgusted by the intervention in Libya and very angry at nations such as the US.

I suppose that in a way the Libya situation does have some relevance to the UNFCCC meeting because unless we switch to renewable energy sources there are going to be more wars like the one in Libya as the world powers battle over the remaining reserves of non-renewables such as oil. However the State Department's comments strike me as an extremely convoluted and inflammatory way of making this simple point.

20:30 on 10/3/14 (UK date).