It hailed today. The winter is here.

Today I moved the lawn for the last time this year. There was frost in the grass and lots of fallen leaves. In the end of July I began my vacation by purchasing a pair of jogging shoes. I was going to take care of my body I vouched. I did actually. I'm taking walks. I got an iPod which made walking more fun. I realized I had listened too little to music lately. An other health issue, in my humble opinion. The iPod, by the way, is a true symbol of technological advancement. Designed in California.

As the rain now pours down my windows and darkness is falling, I ponder the change the subscription of some high standard papers have made. After analyzing what world view I got with freely available information I now settled for only procuring data on papers I subscribe to. There is much less on Iran, Afghanistan, and the Middle East and more on the economical conflicts globally and in Europe. The result is that I only spend half the time searching for data which frees up time for contemporary political philosophy. I follow the debate concerning the new battle between democratic capitalism and state capitalism. It is quite philosophical as well. My selection of papers seems to work because it gathers at least 90% of previous data in a more elaborate shape.

The unfortunate casualty of a Swedish soldier and the wounding of two additional ones caused quite a fuzz in Sweden. The opposition stirred and poked in a doubtful manner in order to argue their pre-election line on the future Swedish intention in Afghanistan. They want to bring home the troops earlier than the government. One of the two main dailies Dagens Nyheter joined the opposition yesterday. The death of a soldier should not change much and the large review by the US military of the situation in December is not here yet. The problem is that the center-right government does not have a majority of the seats in parliament and need to strike a deal with the opposition about Afghanistan. Sweden has a tradition of broad parliamentary solutions to foreign adventures. It looks good right now for the prospect of a deal.

However, I don't like when Sten Tolgfors, the minster of defence, says that Sweden is not at war in Afghanistan because it would mean that Swedes do something else there under the command of US leaders. I think I understand why though. The mission becomes an easier sell in Sweden when yo say the you fight for peace meaning that you are not at war.

People are apparently worried over the leap of fate that the British governing coalition launched just recently. Someone said the economics is an art, not a science, and that not much could be said about the success of the squeeze of Britain. I wish them good luck. Its a great country.

I have to chose whether to embrace the art economy or history for the future work I'm trying to do understanding international politics. It seems like it is easier for me to understand the writers in the Financial Times that are grounded in history, rather than economy. This is a good clue I gather. History is closer to psychology than economy in my opinion which might be the reason for this.

Angela Merkel made a stir recently when she recognized the problem of multiculturalism by saying that it had failed in Germany. Afghanistan is also global multiculturalism. Rosengård in Malmö is multiculturalism. Making states like Iran fit in is multiculturalism. Preventing them from becoming failed nations--failed multiculturalism. Will Kymlicka, a political philosopher specializing on multiculturalism, says that multiculturalism is the most active research field in political philosophy right now.

Why do we humans turn against foreigners? Even the Bible says we should be friendly with them. It might be more of a question for psychology than philosophy. James Watson, interviewed on BigThink.com says the 21st century is when psychology is becoming a science due to the sequencing of genomes for relationships between behavior and genetics to surface. He also says political correctness is holding the research back. Hopefully this will ease up because multiculturalism is a large problem both in Europe and the US and is linked to the problem West have with Islam. This is why the Afghanistan mission is so important. Some kind of deal has to be made there so that the global tensions between the West and Islam are eased so that a "Clash of Civilizations" can be avoided to escalate.