It appears Europe has launched a Galileo satellite yesterday, completing another milestone in the Galileo project. As you may know, Galileo is going to be Europe’s own version of the American GPS system, and from what I’ve read will be much more powerful and have many really cool features. Europe had decided a while back that they needed their own GPS-like system, because they were essentially afraid the USA might block access to the GPS system in critical situations. In a war for example, you do not want to rely on GPS navigation, knowing that the US government has the power to deny you access to the system. And the US government do not try to hide that fact, or their intentions to do so either. In fact, they have blocked access in certain regions of the world many times already during conflicts. It’s even said that they are willing to go so far as to shoot down the Galileo satellites if they think they have to do it. Isn’t that lovely?

You may also remember the issues recently regarding the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which is based in the USA. Basically Europe, and probably other countries as well, are proposing to have part of the UN (United Nations) take over the role of the ICANN, so that Internet governance can be international, and they then may be able to have more influence over it. Many also do not like the fact that the US government through ICANN has all the power over the Internet addressing system right now. It’s basically a similar issue as with the GPS system. I won’t be surprised at all when Europe decides to build their own Internet addressing system in the future. Such a system could be made compatible with the current system for example and would give them some level of control over the Internet. I don’t think that’s impossible.

And as I was saying before, blogs are giving the US government a lot of problems these days. It’s one thing to be able to control the media in the USA, or (try to) bomb other media who publish real stories, but you can’t have any form of control right now over bloggers. And any attempt to try and conceal reality, in for example Iraq, won’t work as long as you have bloggers. It doesn’t matter anymore if the mainstream media want to actually do their work or not, it appears people on the Internet will rise and do it for them from now on. Properly.

Hopefully this will also show people inside the USA what is really happening. If you look at Fox or CNN, you can’t really say that it gives you a real idea of the situation and the facts. There’s a reason why Michael Moore says “On March 19, 2003, George W. Bush and the United States Military invaded Iraq” in Fahrenheit 9/11. Take note of the fact that he did not say that the USA invaded Iraq. And he’s right.