The Rising EPL

The English Premier League is the top division of football in England, it is quickly becoming a the global envy of sporting competitions In a few short decades, there has been a sea change in the English footballing scene, it has changed from the dangerous abode of raving hooligans to a multi-million dollar industry.

This is thanks to a systematic three-pronged approach – ending hooliganism, increasing income from their homeland, expanding to foreign shores – led by the Football Association. This has led to great success at home but most noticeable was the global appeal of the EPL, take for example Asia, an estimated 54% of Manchester United (an English football club) fans are based in Asia. This vast penetration in Asia has brought its own benefits to the clubs, sponsors are willing to pay a lot more to buy that prime location on each players’ chest, the benefits are reaped by the sponsors as well, they have instantly bought into a global advertising agenda.

The success of the EPL has brought many rich investors to invest in English clubs, in recent years many big name clubs in the EPL have undergone a change at the helm, with new owner bringing their deep pockets to the EPL. Many of these new owners come from America and have already tasted success at home with a local sporting club before they buy into the full blown experience of the EPL.

But there are problems with management to the fastest growing league, the revenue is not equally shared among clubs, the dividends seem to be shared based on a popularity ratio, with big clubs getting the bigger slice of the pie. There is also no wage-cap and thus players are commanding humongous paychecks, there is also an instability of finances when clubs are relegated from the top flight. There have been solutions suggested to alleviate the aforementioned problems, but seeing these solutions come in place will be years from now.

I believe that if other sporting leagues can learn from the success and the mistakes of the EPL, then there would be radical change in the world of sports, and it could be solution to some other problems that are troubling the world such as obesity.

What is the measure of success?

“What is the measure of success?” or more correctly phrased, “Can Success be quantified?” We have long regarded wealth as a good measure of success, but is it really relevant? There is much inefficiency in using wealth to measure progress, these flaws have been demonstrated with use of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to measure the development of a country, it has proven to be an unreliable system as there are far more factors at play.

One of the factors that led to the downfall of the GDP system was that many countries made increasing their GDP a main priority, GDP is derived quantity and when the countries overemphasised on increasing GDP it created all sorts of problems such as high inflation and unemployment and this was on top of them receiving false data on their success, this creates a vicious cycle where countries are continually spurred on to increase their GPD directly, which leads to greater inefficiency in the system.

Wealth should not be the only factor in determining progress; there are far greater benefits in documenting the intangible and “immeasurable” aspects of life, such as happiness and social well-being. As a result politicians have been arguing in Britain for greater emphasis on the development of general well-being (GWB), it is a means to recognize the social, cultural and moral aspect of civilized life.

I believe that should there be a measure of success of a country, it should be a combination of GDP as well as GWB. As such, governments would continue to strive to improve their economies but not at the cost the peoples social welfare. This would lead to universal prosperity and it will abolish the biased connotations faced by the current GDP system.

Virginia Tech Massacre

On 16th April 2007, the world recieved news of the massacre in Virginia Tech—the deadliest single-perpetrator mass shooting in US history. Seung-Hui Cho killed 33 people including himself. He had previously been involved in criminal activity, including allegations of stalking, referrals to counseling, and a 2005 declaration of mental illness by a Virginia special justice. This might be the key reason that caused the tragedy as reported in the media. However, the tragedy could has been averted had he not had weapons with him, which were the two guns he shot the students, professors and himself with.
Cho should have been prohibited from buying firearms after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in 2005 and he was sent for psychiatric treatment. However according to Virginia law allows for permanent residents like Cho to obtain firearms legally as long as he shows proof of residency irregardless of his mental condition. A gun in the hands of a distressed individual is a tragedy waiting to happen. Even though Virginia Tech has a blanket ban on possession or storage of firearms on campus, Cho managed to challenge this policy, Cho brought in the guns and did it without suspicion? The school's security enforcement comes into question, it was almost non-existent.
The root of the problem is the ease of accessibility of firearms in US, i feel that it should be re-examined as the massacre has shown us once again how common fatality can be caused by firearms in the US. I believe that changing of the firearms regulations in US can prevent such heartbreaking incidents in the future.

Is the use of torture ever justified in dealing with criminals and terrorists?

Ron Suskind implied in his article "The Unofficial Story of the Al-queda 14" that punishing and toturing the criminals of heinous crimes may bring a feeling of justice, it is still depriving the criminals of their human rights and its effect has many limitations.
I agree with Ron Suskind's view as i feel that toturing the criminals to gain access to the information they possess is against the idea of human rights. Even more so because its efficiency can be called into question.
The United States of America is responsible for most cases of criminal torture, this is contrary to the notion that it calls itself the best democratic country.Also criminal torture is ineffective because criminals under pressure tend to give false accounts and irrelevant information. An example is Abu Zubaydah. In order to stop the pain he felt during interrogations, he named names of possible suspects but they all led to dead ends.
There is another side of the issue. In the other article by former chairman of the now defunct National Crime Authority, Peter Faris, he argued that torture can be justified if the information extracted is for the "greater good of humanity".
He used an example in his article of a member of a militant Islamic group in Iraq being captured who refuses to shed light on their operations which could cause great harm to other people, torture can be applied to extract the information required to prevent or minimise any damage that could be inflicted.
I still feel that toture is unjustified, as it is ineffective. I feel that interrogators can use other methods to obtain their information, and i feel that torture should not be used in place of more effective methods.