A police chaplain has blessed the building where Austrian officers will conduct risk assessments regarding the likelihood of a large-scale "terrorist" offensive at the Euro 2008 Finals.
Presumably, any religious "terrorist" worthy of the name will also be calling on divine help in the aid of their cause.
Private Prediction Markets (only available to industry insiders) suggest an approximate 5% probability that this showcase event will be disrupted by "terrorism".
Is this a buy or a sell option?
One needs to be hyperrealistic if one is not to be serially disappointed and abused.
Mogadishu-Stammheim: The media make themselves into the vehicle of the moral condemnation of terrorism and of the exploitation of fear for political ends, but simultaneously, in the most complete ambiguity, they propagate the brutal charm of the terrorist act, they are themselves terrorists, insofar as they themselves march to the tune of seduction.
Richard Keys is a media terrorist. Once we escaped from our Sky subscriptions, we were hoping that this illusory character would disappear in a puff of smoke. Not so.
You know what? Sky Television have only gone and teamed up with Al-Jazeera to bring every Euro 2008 match live to a global audience. Sky? Al-Jazeera? What's going on? Has Murdoch become a radical for positive change in the Third World? Will Fox TV be showing Al-Jazeera's brilliant "People And Power" or "Listening Post"?
Or is it a terrorist act by the world's foremost media terrorist?
We would guess the latter...
Switzerland appears less concerned about the potential impact of terrorism due to the blanket security that already exists to protect the private banks.
FIFA Headquarters, UEFA Headquarters and private banks...
Mmmmm...
Austrians are not only up in arms about the potential impact of religious extremists. After all, they have many such extremists of their own, although these right wing idealogues are from a rather more christian tradition which is okay, ta very much.
The Austrians are worried about etiquette!
Really.
"Dignity and restraint, even in the wake of a scintillating victory or a disastrous loss, are essential during Euro 2008" says Austria's etiquette guru Thomas Schaefer-Elmayer.
Are you ready for this? These are Herr Schaefer-Elmayer's points of etiquette:
* It is no longer necessary for men to wear a tie to the stadium - casual attire is enough. Arriving only in swimming trunks or bare-chested is not appropriate, even on hot days.
* On the underground, one should remain patient and fall in step with the crowd.
* Pushing and swearing will lead nowhere and only spoil the fun.
* It is not the done thing to introduce yourself in the stadium. But at first, one should address other adults formally.
* And if a fellow fan, overcome by joy, was to spill his favourite drink on you, he should be urged to be more careful but then keep your distance.
* In an emergency situation, a little lie can help, such as 'Please no, my back hurts'.
* If you wish to enlighten others about your customs and habits, do this constructively and with sensitivity, it should never be preachy or aggressive.
Or terroristic...
Terrorism is important. Terrorism is the excuse for World War IV. The Austrians should learn from the approach of the police in Manchester. When not running away from rampaging Glaswegian Cromwellians, these officers (motto: Fighting Crime, Protecting People - or is it the other way around?) are largely anonymous.
Recently, the Manchester office was being manned by a Greek colleague and, being a bit of an expert at pattern recognition at speed, he noticed that all crime in Manchester must occur on sunny afternoons in the summer, as these are the only times that the police helicopters or planes hover menacingly over the ghetto. Pleasure trips so that pigs might fly should not form a part of the Council Tax base.
Terroristic behaviour spreads to the capital markets and the football betting markets also. We have recently been approached by a leading investment bank regarding the private markets that exist in football. Termed either Crossing Networks or Dark Pools, these private markets allow very large trades to be made away from the established markets, hence concealing the traders identity and the price, which reduces the risk of the markets moving against the interests of the bettor as the markets react. Of course, eventually the markets do react as the liabilities slosh around the system but, if a leading English manager wishes to disguise his £5 million bet against his team, the Crossing Networks and Dark Pools work just fine. Some of the bigger betting organisations are setting up similar private markets for professionals and, particularly, insiders although one would not expect to see them publicising this fact!
And it is the terrorism of shareholder capitalism that, according to neo-con Robert Zoellick of the World Bank, will lead to 100 million people sliding below the poverty line due to the global Food Crisis. This will set the world back over a decade in its already incredibly limited attempts to address global poverty.
Currently, in Rome, there is a major UN Conference on the Food Crisis. As the west has created this Crisis through a mixture of sanctions, trade barriers, the Common Agricultural Policy, other protectionist measures and the focus on biofuels profits for the First World, one might think that the western media might focus on the Real issues underlying this Crisis. Not so. Both the BBC and Channel 4 News programmes focused only on the fact that Robert Mugabe was present at this Conference whereas Al-Jazeera focused on the Real issues affecting poverty.
North Korea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe - indeed they are failing economies but the misery of the masses is massively increased by the imposition of western sanctions and psychopathic economic policies.
The Poor are the pawns, as colliding systems battle over geopolitical territory while each demonstrating a complete lack of any democratic validity.
Ignore the Poor and lets focus on a Black hate figure instead. Media terrorism shrouding capitalistic terrorism.
Meanwhile, in Uganda, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working with Monsanto to persuade farmers to drop their reluctance to growing Genetically Modified Products to offset the ravages of the gathering famine.
Nice strategy this. Create a global food shortage via a kneejerk reaction to a self-created climate change, and then persuade the desperate to buy your dodgy products.
Or die...
Hence, the hunger merchants of the next millennium win both ways.
And things can only get worser. The allegedly illusory recession continues to bite.
* In May, US consumer confidence reached a 16 year low.
* In France, meanwhile, consumer sentiment fell to a 21 year nadir.
* House prices in Britain fell by 2.5% in May according to Nationwide.
* US house prices are falling even faster than during the 1929 Depression.
* Mr Bradford and Mr Bingley are in the process of going belly up.
Evidently, the transfer of power and influence from labour to capital over the last quarter of a century is the only factor that has sustained an abusive system well past its sell-by date. By a coordinated neo-con assault on union rights, other workers rights, the imposition of global wage slavery, the withdrawal of pensions provision etc etc, capitalism has bought itself some time. But nothing else.
The system was unsustainable in 1980 and it is even more so now.
The supporters of this autocratic and highly abusive system are beginning to feel the strain too. The Economist editorial line keeps allowing Reality to overlay their Illusion. I quote: "Money being such liquid, transient stuff, it is hardly surprising that financiers should be fugitives".
Or terrorists...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
