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::: posted by Alf at 7:18:13 PM Syria is likely to have some american military presence in the future, cause f Hez Bollah and guys like this(spelling?). But I doubt there will be a full scale invasion. I wouldn't comptly rule it out though.... ::: posted by Alf at 12:01:25 AM Thursday, March 27, 2003 ::: This though thas been bouncing around my mind and tonight was just an exemplery ecample of it so why not share it with you: Chinese people are incredible nice, but they are not thoughtful. Tonight I tought an english clas and afterwords I went and had some beers with one of the students. Some dude in his thirties. He was very nice. He wanted to be my friend very much. He paid for everything, and was constantly asking if I was ok. The problem was he was incredably fucking annoying. When he first sw me I was talking to some other friends and he came up and tried to pull me away, I'm talkin gto my friends don't interuppt me and don't fucking touch me! All throughout the night he kept trying to force beers and food on me. To him, "help yourself" means "you must eat and drink until you puke." I tried to give signs that he was pissing me off, for example, when he shoved some chopsticks in my face and told me to "eat, eat" and wouldn't take them away after I ignored them. I grabbed them quickly and slammed them down angrily on the table. But he just luahged when he did this. In fact he was always staring at me with this stupid grin on his facce. It's the same stupid grin onthe faces of all the dumbass's who say "Halooo" to me every day. I hate that grin. I don't want to sound bitter, and it the above statements don't apply to all chinese people, but the people who it does apply to can ruin your whole night. This guy's wife is very nice. I wouldn't mind talking to her for a bit, but it is impossible when the fucker is always shoving his beer in my face saying "cheers, cheers." One of my german friends was there and he was being even more annoyed, he said he wouldn't come back to the bar we were at if this guy was there too. This is what I mean when I say Chinese people aren't thoughtful (yes I know what a gross generalization that is). A;; this guy wanted to do was to make some foreign friends and have us feel happy in his country, but by his actions he accomplished the opposite. I would be intersted to know if chinese people felt this annoyed with certain american customs. Cause if they are I am going to try my best to educate americans to stop being annoying. I'm not really sure what I can help the Chinese. ::: posted by Alf at 11:58:36 PM Wednesday, March 26, 2003 ::: This is intersting, I guess China dosn't want peopel to know about the crazy asian flew going around. Last i heard it is a rabid version of the common cold. It's kind of strange that normal chinese people know nothing about it and that you never see anything on the news about it. Ahhh the joys of communism. ::: posted by Alf at 1:08:11 PM I'm addicted to this site I had a littel talk with my class abou the war today, I said that I didn't like Saddam or Bush. They were shocked, they wanted to know why I didn't like Saddam. The Chinese people scare the shit out of me sometimes. As for the war, I have no idea what's going on. I can't peice the news reports together as easily as I could yesterday. As I see it our heavy division is waitng it out to fight in Karbala, and maybe the 101st will go around to the west to attack baghdad. I don't understand what is taking so lon gin Basra? I bet that most of the division there is moving north while a they left a small contigent there to keep the Iraqi contenders in Check. Rumsfield (and Cheney even more) are sneaky bastards and I suspect they are spreading a lot of disinformation right now. While that's all utter ninsense. ::: posted by Alf at 12:49:32 AM Tuesday, March 25, 2003 ::: Goddamit, I'm addicted to this damn war. ::: posted by Alf at 12:34:23 PM "MORE than 15,000 Indonesians have signed up to travel to Iraq and fight the US, the militant Islam Defenders� Front claimed yesterday" What are these guys gonna do after the war? ::: posted by Alf at 12:34:07 PM Monday, March 24, 2003 ::: Something's going down in the west of Iraq postwar Iraq is gonna be FUN! ::: posted by Alf at 10:02:05 PM I've basically spent all today checking up on the war news and nursing my black eye (from a "bike accident"... yeah, my story), so I've got some thoughts about the war. First of all militarily the US is winning. Things aren't going perfectly and it would be a lot better if we could have had another heavy division come down from turkey instead of sitting in the meditarianian right now. But the real fight won't happen until we get to Baghdad. Still militarily we will probagly win pretty easily. Yet I'm not optimistic for two reasons. First, we are not winning the political battles. Find any newspaper site anywhere in the world outside of the US and it is likely to protray the US as not doing that well, and is likely to emphasize civilian casualties and refugees. Even the US media sources are spinning a pessimistic view after the minor casualties we suffered today. There where about 30-100 casualties today, and there are probably gonna be about the same amountr tommorow and more when we get to Baghdad. What is the Media and the people gonna do when the numbers go up? Second is how the Iraqi's are resisting. I'm begining to think that Saddam may be dead or wounded. But that makes the resitance more scary because it means that these people are resisting without orders from above and that even if we capture Baghdad the rest of the country might be a lot harder to pacify than the army has calculated. Get your war news here Other shit going on in the world 1. Kashmir 2. Nigeria 3. San Fransico Unrelated but here is a Great article about philosophy of Alqueda ::: posted by Alf at 9:25:31 PM Here's the best map I have found of Iraq Been watching a bit of the chinese news coverage of Iraq and I'd say that Iraq is definitly winning the propagansa war here. The skirmishes that we've been seeing today are described as a major setback and all the questions the reporters ask the "experts" that visit are ridicoulosly slanted, like these "Why havn't the americans been able to make singnificant advances into Baghdad yet?" "The chinese media has been focusing on the redugee situation, why dosn't the american media tell the people about that?" I fucking hate the chinese media. ::: posted by Alf at 6:22:30 PM stupid war, I really should be working now... Oh yeah I never told y'all about my weekend. I will give it to you in keywords, and then in order to practice your english you can reconstruct the night Travel to ZhengZhou western food Meet a french guy Drink beers 10 year old alcoholic begger girl 10:00 empty bar 11:30 full bar Disco Annoying chinese guy Practice chinese (me: Ni qing women? annoying chinese guy: ke yi!) Free Beer! Shitty Music Slutty chinese girl who likes me Ganbei! Vomit Slutty chinese girl who dosn't like me her boyfriend his foot drunken train ride home ::: posted by Alf at 5:29:15 PM Watch pakistan this too ::: posted by Alf at 2:46:34 PM Now you too can watch Al jezeera just need to brush up on my Arabic ::: posted by Alf at 2:36:05 PM Fan asked what for arguments against the war in Iraq, so I told him this This is the best anti war screed that I have come across. It's pretty emotional, but it is from a guy who is living in Bghdad, so it is hard to argue with. "[RANT] No one inside Iraq is for war (note I said war not a change of regime), no human being in his right mind will ask you to give him the beating of his life, unless you are a member of fight club that is, and if you do hear Iraqi (in Iraq, not expat) saying �come on bomb us� it is the exasperation and 10 years of sanctions and hardship talking. There is no person inside Iraq (and this is a bold, blinking and underlined inside) who will be jumping up and down asking for the bombs to drop. We are not suicidal you know, not all of us in any case. I think that the coming war is not justified (and it is very near now, we hear the war drums loud and clear if you don�t then take those earplugs off!). The excuses for it have been stretched to their limits they will almost snap. A decision has been made sometime ago that �regime change� in Baghdad is needed and excuses for the forceful change have to be made. I do think war could have been avoided, not by running back and forth the last two months, that�s silly. But the whole issue of Iraq should have been dealt with differently since the first day after GW I. The entities that call themselves �the international community� should have assumed their responsibilities a long time ago, should have thought about what the sanctions they have imposed really meant, should have looked at reports about weapons and human rights abuses a long time before having them thrown in their faces as excuses for war five minutes before midnight. What is bringing on this rant is the question that has been bugging for days now: how could �support democracy in Iraq� become to mean �bomb the hell out of Iraq�? why did it end up that democracy won�t happen unless we go thru war? Nobody minded an un-democratic Iraq for a very long time, now people have decided to bomb us to democracy? Well, thank you! how thoughtful. The situation in Iraq could have been solved in other ways than what the world will be going thru the next couple of weeks. It can�t have been that impossible. Look at the northern parts of Iraq, that is a model that has worked quite well, why wasn�t anybody interested in doing that in the south. Just like the US/UK UN created a protected area there why couldn�t the model be tried in the south. It would have cut off the regimes arms and legs. And once the people see what they have been deprived off they will not be willing to go back, just ask any Iraqi from the Kurdish areas. Instead the world watched while after the war the Shias were crushed by Saddam�s army in a manner that really didn�t happen before the Gulf War. Does anyone else see the words (Iran/not in the US interest) floating or is it me hallucinating? And there is the matter of Sanctions. Now that Iraq has been thru a decade of these sanctions I can only hope that their effects are clear enough for them not to be tried upon another nation. Sanctions which allegedly should have kept a potentially dangerous situation in Iraq in check brought a whole nation to its knees instead. And who ultimately benefited from the sanctions? Neither the international community nor the Iraqi people, he who was in power and control still is. These sanctions made the Iraqi people hostages in the hands of this regime, tightened an already tight noose around our necks. A whole nation, a proud and learned nation, was devastated not by the war but by sanctions. Our brightest and most creative minds fled the country not because of oppression alone but because no one inside Iraq could make a living, survive. And can anyone tell me what the sanctions really did about weapons? Get real, there are always willing nations who will help, there are always organizations which will find his money sweet. Oil-for-Food? Smart Sanctions? Get a clue. Who do you think is getting all those contracts to supply the people with �food�? who do you think is heaping money in bank accounts abroad? It is his people, his family and the people who play his game. Abroad and in Iraq, Iraqis and non-Iraqis. What I mean to say is that things could have been different; I can�t help look at the Northern parts of Iraq with envy and wonder why. Do support democracy in Iraq. But don�t equate it with war. What will happen is something that could/should have been avoided. Don�t expect me to wear a [I heart bush] t-shirt. Support democracy in Iraq not by bombing us to hell and then trying to build it up again (well that is going to happen any way) not by sending human shields (let�s be real the war is going to happen and Saddam will use you as hostages), but by keeping an eye on what will happen after the war. To end this rant, a word about Islamic fundis/wahabisim/qaeda and all that. Do you know when the sight of women veiled from top to bottom became common in cities in Iraq? Do you know when the question of segregation between boys and girls became red hot? When tribal law replaced THE LAW? When Wahabi became part of our vocabulary? It only happened after the Gulf War. I think it was Cheney or Albright who said they will bomb Iraq back to the stone age, well you did. Iraqis have never accepted religious extremism in their lives. They still don�t. Wahabis in their short dishdasha are still looked upon as sheep who have strayed from the herd. But they are spreading. The combination of poverty/no work/low self esteem and the bitterness of seeing people who rose to riches and power without any real merit but having the right family name or connection shook the whole social fabric. Situations which would have been unacceptable in the past are being tolerated today. They call it �al hamla al imania � the religious campaign� of course it was supported by the government, pumping them with words like �poor in this life, rich in heaven� kept the people quiet. Or the other side of the coin is getting paid by Wahabi organizations. Come pray and get paid, no joke, dead serious. If the government can�t give you a job run to the nearest mosque and they will pay and support you. This never happened before, it is outrageous. But what are people supposed to do? thir government is denied funds to pay proper wages and what they get is funneled into their pockets. So please stop telling me about the fundis, never knew what they are never would have seen them in my streets. [/RANT] As for facts and figures, there aren't really any that are solid. From the first gulf war you have at the top of the estimate 100,000 Iraqi soldiers and 10,000 Iraqi civilians, but the real figures are probably about half that. Since this is a premptive war, I think that hte disticintion between civilian casualities shouldn't be there. Every person(except Saddam) we kill in Iraq is a Back eye against the U.S. and people should know that. It's not fucking cool when we kill a bunker of IRaqi grunts, with our high tech toys. Then there are hitler youth rallies like this one in Minneapolis http://www.startribune.com/stories/1762/3775195.html "The only speaker who received a hostile reception was N. Ruby Zigrino, a Muslim from Minneapolis. She was initially cheered when she said she supports "ousting a tyrant regime." But she then read passages from the Qur'an, suggested that a new Marshall Plan will be needed in Iraq, and said administration officials should study foreign-policy failures to avoid repeating them. Her listeners responded with boos and shouts of "Screw Muslims!" "Screw the Qur'an!" and "Go home!"" Go look through my blog I link to a bunch of good articles. Basically what it comes donw to me is that a war on Iraq is unneccassary becaseu Saddam is clearly deterable, It is likely to increase the terrorist threat, it has already screwed over our dimplomatic postion and it will probably take decades to fix all the problems it's gonna cause. If someone brings up some humanitarian bullshit argument, ask them why they are such a pussy bleeding heart liberal and if They are willing to see the US military og into Burma, The Congo, Zimbabwe, Cote-D'ivoire, Tibet, Nepal, Iran, North Korea, Chechnya and all the other countless hell holes of the world. Because the same humanitarian arguments apply there just as well as they do in Iraq. I find the attached get your war on to be particularly apt. How are people taking the war in the US? I think we are gonna see some real casualties, espiecially since it dosn't seem like Saddam is going to step down. I'm scared about waht's gonna happen when we get to Baghdad. Alf I'm also pissed off about Bush now saying "The president repeated warnings he began making earlier in the week that the war could be more difficult than expected. "A campaign on harsh terrain in a vast country could be longer and more difficult than some have predicted," he said" What the fuck, he's been selling the american public on how eay this war is gonna be and now he tells us it's gonna be difficult. ::: posted by Alf at 2:30:18 PM Friday, March 21, 2003 ::: My friend who teaches at a highschool here just called me and told me that he has a 10 pm curfew because of the war. His school said that it was on orders of the police for all foriegners living in the province. Has anybody else heard anything like this? Surprisingly my school hasn't said anything yet, but probably will soon, I guess it's time to pay off the gatekeeper... Someone did a search that ended up at my sight for "alf in Baghdad". Wonder what that was about? ::: posted by Alf at 9:41:34 PM Here are my uneducated musing about the war... The war news has been mostly good, as to be expected, but it could be better. The Iraqi's are fighting back, we have our first combat casualty, I would have liked to see defections and mass surrendering right from the outset. The shit's not gonna go down till we get to Baghdad, everythin gelse is just a preview, unless there is a coup. As for Saddam's fate, I think he is probably alive. If only because it would be to the US's advantage to spread rumors of his death. I am completly ok with tis type of deception. Any thing that will make the war end quickly with fewer casualties is good. Lies for this purpose are good, lies to manioulate the american public are another story. I think that any protests that disrupt the war are totally uncalle for. It is in everyones, (exept for saddam's) best interst to get this war over soon. Protests that screw normal peoples lives are just stupid and make the anti-war movement look stupid. What the protesters should be doing now is making sure tat americans understand the true cost of the war, becuase to many americans think that this is just a video game war. Lots of people are going to die and it isn't talked about enough. ::: posted by Alf at 9:26:13 PM Hot Damn! wisconsin milwuakee is tied with NotreDame 57-57 yeah panthers! update: UWM pulls ahead 69-68, with two left to go... fuck! notre dame pulls it out 70-69 ::: posted by Alf at 12:39:46 PM Wednesday, March 19, 2003 ::: god damn it blogger publish! ::: posted by Alf at 11:40:44 PM Damn this shit is fucked up. I remeber the start of the first gulf war. I was about 11 and my dad let me stay up late to watch CNN. I tthought it was pretty cool. The pictures of the Bahgdad sky lit up with tracer fire and the reporter talking about seeing what he thought were stealth fighters drop the first bombs. This time I just have a sick feeling. I don't feel patriotic, proud or defiant. I just feel sick with the thought that the war will go poorly. Maybe I can have a war lesson tommorow? This is the best Blog for keeping updated on the war, Where is Raed?. It's based in Bahgdad and is damn complelling. ::: posted by Alf at 11:14:03 PM "Woooood driiiiiiiiies out!" Billy Mays via Prince roy ::: posted by Alf at 5:50:16 PM i see there is a picture of my new haircut. What can you say when you pay 35 cents? ::: posted by Alf at 10:22:11 AM Lies, more lies and damned lies It's not that I'm sure the administration is lying it's just that I have no reason to trust what they are saying as being true at all. From the Gulf of Tonkin to the babies being thrown out of incubators in Gulf war I, out goverment has lied about the the reasons we are going to war. These statements are probably made for domestic consumption. I don't even think that the Bushies think these statements will be taken seriously by other goverments. These are for the large portion of people in america who think Saddam was responsible for the Sept. 11 attack. ::: posted by Alf at 10:21:12 AM Tuesday, March 18, 2003 ::: Why aren't my posts showing up? Can other people read the new ones? ::: posted by Alf at 12:47:18 PM Monday, March 17, 2003 ::: Damn blogger almost lost my post again Well it looks like the war's about to start. The strangest thing about that article is that Cheney claims that the Iraqis are close to building a nuke. Where the hell did he get that information? And why didn't he share it with the inspectors? With all the lies that that the administration has already spun it's hard to believe. I still feel shocked at the audacity of the claim. When the war starts I expect it to go pretty well at first. Militarily the Iraqis shouldn't be too tough. Saddam has never shown himslef ot be a great military leader. However he has shown himslef to be a brilliant political manipulator. Look at how he played the UN against the US to get the best (for him) possible enviroment for war. Now what he needs to do is set up political unrest in Neiboring countries to disrut the US's bases for the war. The first thing to do that would be to try to aggrivate Isreal. He has known ties to suicide bombers, I would expect to see an increase in problems in the paliestinen terrortories once the war starts. What else he'll do I'm not sure. I just think that we have to fear his political moves more than his military ones. ::: posted by Alf at 11:07:37 PM Fuck, it's St. Patties day and I didn't realose until a few minutes ago. Hmm I guess it's too late to go out now since I got class at 8 tommorow, but I'll have a beer by myself just to commemorate the occaison. I saw a fight today, so I that qualifies as some St. Paddy style excitment. But it was a chinese fight, so it was reall strange. I didn't actually see anybody start swinging but peope were yelling and being held back. In CHina it's pretty funny cuase when there is a fight everybody stops what they are doing and goes to watch. This fight was in the new department store (which is very much like a slightly smaller version of wallmart, excpet that everything there is more expensive than the mom and pop places, very strange), any way it was in the department store and they have these securty guards who have these fancy military style uniforms, epulets and ribbons, the whole get up. But the gurads were just kinda weakly telling this dude he needed to leave the store. they kept pushing him down one aisle, only to have him barge back down another one to go bitvh about whatever he was bitching about. It must have taken 20 minutes to get him out of the store which was annoying because whereever he went a big ass group of chinese would follow him and it always seemed like they went to the places with the food I needed. In america when you get kicked out of someplace, it is usually pretty swift and severe. Thats not the case in China, I wonder if it was cuase this guy had special connections or something? When I was in the dance club last weekend a similar thing happened, there was a commotion and it took about 20 minutes to get the guy out. I definitly think that guy was a big deal, becuaese when he left it seemed like half the club went with him, mostly slutty girls and shifty looking men. Probably a gangster now that I think about it, cool. ::: posted by Alf at 10:59:17 PM A lost post, recovered for your enjoymeny Man Chinese people need to learn how to mosh. What's the point of having a club wih a bouncy floor if your not goona fly around banging into people? You can tell someone has no idea about the habits of 22 year old american males when the first time they ask if you want to do something is 8:00 am saturday and then ask you later if you think it will be too late to go home at 7:00 pm. Some quick links for y'all This game is dope I like it cause it really illustrates my stance on philosophy of computer games. This stance is that the most important part of a game is "gameplay" and that contary to what I've read some annoying ass literary crit types write, narrative is only secondary to computer games. Now "gameplay" is a little hard to define but it comes down to if a game is fun or not. This game is very simple, (hell I could program it, it just increase left right +1 every time and increase up or down x squared when peopel press the botton), but the game is very fun. It dosn;t matter what the narrative is, what matters is that the game is intuitive to learn and can produce emotionaly exciting moments. Its fucking cool when you manage to squeze the worm through a small crack. Alright, enough erdy ranting. on to Iraq "I think we're going to be obliged to fight a regional war, whether we want to or not," The scary thing is this article is written by a person who is in favor of the war and thinks a large scale regional conflict in the middle east would be a good thing. The Arrogant Empire A god overview of how and why the Bush admnistration is fucking up the world. ::: posted by Alf at 10:44:24 PM Friday, March 14, 2003 ::: I know most online quizzes are bullshit, but this one is seriously broken. Edit: Image removed due to obscene content Republican - You believe that the free market will take care of most things, but that the government should be there with moderate taxation to provide for national defense and enforcing morality. Your historical role model is Ronald Reagan. Which political sterotype are you? brought to you by Quizilla ::: posted by Alf at 6:54:22 PM Yeah baby, Communism! Check out the pics on the bottom of the page on Zboy There are of some student rally that seems to be about Lei Feng , a hero to every chinese boy and girl, whose main accomplishment was getting killed by a truck. ::: posted by Alf at 6:48:13 PM Damn blogspot lost my drunken post last night, IU thought it was really good at the time, it had germans and existential crisis and ended with a Confucious quote. Sorry but I don't feel up to reproducing it now. I really don't like te chinese policy of splitting classes into ones where all the good students are and one with all the bad students. Sure, it might help the good students but I think the bad students are hurt more. Today I had the bad english major class. The class is so annoying because even though they are worse students than the other class they don't know how to have fun. Today as a start up activity I tried to do the game where you make a story as a class, everybody adding three words. The problem is they try to damn hard. They spend the whole time thinking up the perfect three words, but then when it gets to them, their three words don't make any sense, and they don't make compound sentances, just shitty litle three word ones. So the story is like "It is night. I am hungary. It is beautiful..." and a rest of a string of shitty little sentances that don't make sense (what is beautiful?, i tryed to ask them). It's not like their english is so bad that they can't make more complicated sentances, it's just that they don't understand the frivilous spirit of the game. I wanted people to say things like "There is a," stupid little sentace fragments that make the next person think about what he is going to say. But each of them was concentrating so hard on teir own little sentance that they couldn't get the hang of it. It was like pulling teeth getting sentances out of some of them. I would just stand there and stare at them, saying "just three words," whil they woud twitch in their chairs thinking of something. And this game was supposed to fun! It worked well with the advanced class, anyway. I was taking to this German mechanic who is in town working on some big industriail furncae and he had similar complaints. He aid that he would tell the the chinese people under him waht to do (through a translater), but they just wouldn't really get it right. They wouldn't organise themselves properly. In China you realise that cultural differences are real. ::: posted by Alf at 6:02:14 PM Thursday, March 13, 2003 ::: This qoute is way more funny than it should be. "A remotely piloted aircraft that the United States has warned could spread chemical weapons appears to be made of balsa wood and duct tape, with two small propellors attached to what look like the engines of a weed whacker. " ::: posted by Alf at 10:54:52 AM Tuesday, March 11, 2003 ::: Dude, this is too strange. I googled my name, (being the closet narcissicts that I am) and at the bottom of the page is this link, to what appears to be a ALF the TV show fan site. I can't open the page myself, it's probably blocked. The wierd thing is the little description under the link. "... ALF's grandfather, Hickey Shumway, worked for eighty-six years as a wolf shortener. One day he gave it all up to write the popular ... " ALF's grandfather was named Hickey? To fuckign wierd. ::: posted by Alf at 10:30:44 PM Chinese parenting techniques are strange at times... Today I was buyin gsome Xiao Bing from the guy family down the street and while he is getting it ready he give his cigarette to his five year old kid to hold. The kid was looking at it real hard, thinking about smokin git but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Or another time time I was at my usaul hang out drinking some beer and the owner comes in with her toddler and sits down with us. The kid is a crazy little monkey, always running around the place getting into trouble. I like him cuase whenever he falls down he dosn't cry but just gets up and runs aroud some more. He comes up to us while we are talking and trys to jump in my lap. I grab him and hang him up side down. Then I start using the english words he knows, "stand up" and "sit down." If you start saying them fast he starts popping up and down like a spring. After that he wants something to eat. He goes over to his mom and tries to drink some of her beer. She thinks this is hilarous and lets him try. He really likes it. He holds up the glass and says to me "ganbei!" I'm not gonna be out drunk by a three year old, so I down my beer. He finishes off a good sip and then asks me to do it again. I inquisitivly at his mother, but she is just laughing. So I take another sip and he does too. After that he goes running around the room even more rambuctious than before. He might have been a littl etipsy, but he's always kinda crazy so its hard ot tell. Now every time he sees me, he reaches for the nearest cup and says "he jiu, he jiu" "Drink alcohol, Drink alcohol." ::: posted by Alf at 9:58:57 PM This article dosn't bode well for the immmediate future of Iraq after our litle war there ends. Particularly disturbing is this part "The Army�s concern bubbled up publicly two weeks ago when Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army�s chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that �several hundred thousand soldiers� could be necessary for peacekeeping duties. Two days later, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz � one of the architects of the president�s postwar ambitions in Iraq � took the unusual step of publicly differing with the Army chief, dismissing his estimate as �way off the mark.� " If we want this to be succesful we should go in with overwhelming force. Why is the does Wolfowitz wanna be half assed about it? This wasn't widely reported at the time, but I after Gulf War I, american troops wre actually fighting kurdish troops in the north. Scary stuff... "While U.S. forces began by confronting the Iraqi military, they ended up squaring off with Kurdish militia, a cautionary tale for U.S. peacekeepers entering the north. �A VERY BLOODY TIME� �It was really a wild time, a very bloody time,� said an officer who served in Provide Comfort, noting that the operation involved multi-front fighting in which Kurds attacked Iraqi security forces, and also attacked each other, while the Turkish military attacked one Kurdish faction, the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK."" This is an excellent general overview of our military condition. it's worse than you might think. " ::: posted by Alf at 8:37:25 PM Monday, March 10, 2003 ::: Good arcticle about choosing what you wanna do when you grow up "What am I good at? is the wrong starting point. People who attempt to deduce an answer usually end up mistaking intensity for passion. To the heart, they are vastly different. Intensity comes across as a pale busyness, while passion is meaningful and fulfilling. A simple test: Is your choice something that will stimulate you for a year or something that you can be passionate about for 10 years? " a good compliment to Garrison Keillor's graducation speech at macalester last year ::: posted by Alf at 11:10:47 PM Even the begger children in beijing are from henan, what is wrong with this place? From Bokane.org Another night, I'm talking to Patrick, an Irish guy from Waterford who speaks Chinese with a Taiwanese accent, and we strike up a conversation with the kids. He asks where they're from - they don't have the Beijing accent - and they say Henan.... The French guy is outraged that someone would steal his plank from a child. "Ask if zey saw ze mozerfacker," he says, and I do. They did see him. They know him, in fact: he's another beggar from Henan. When they describe him, I realise that I've seen him too, a mummified-looking man in his forties who walks up and down North Sanlitun with his begging bowl, being ignored by the foreigners and yelled at to fuck off by the Chinese. I feel rally bad for the begger children, but sometimes they just piss me off. Espiecially in Shanghai. After I didn't buy flowers from this girl, she starting hitting me and stepping on my feet! ::: posted by Alf at 9:50:06 PM Great article laying out the Bush administration's policy of "refime change" and why it is unworkable in the real world. Man I'm totally in love, I was cruising home at my bike, cutting people off and being a menace to china as usaul, when this cute little chinese chick flys by me. She was riding even more crazy than me, just flying into traffic, trucks and buses be damned. I got right on her ass and followed her through the crowd since I was amused by her antics and she opended up nice space for me to ride. She took every turn on my usual route home so I got to watch her the whole way. She kept going but hopefully she lives close by... ::: posted by Alf at 6:50:27 PM Fucking internet, waisted all my time there tonight, no wonder I never learn Chinese. Go check out these links. this one is super dope Check out these cool ass opticol illusions they will blow your mind Go see what crazy antics the pres is up too, it's satire, but Cheney says they should stop, asshole. Christians! Here is a rather bizarre article by Supreme court justice Scalia In it he seems to be pissed off about the moral changes brought about by the enlightenment and the rise of liberal democracy. Pretty fucking wierd when you think about. Actually I agree on his interpretion of the death penalty being a choice about retributive morality, but unlike him I don't think the state has any authourty to take revenge. But its a complicated moral issue. Intersting comments at Brad Delong's site, Particularly about Scalia's claim that civil disobeidence is a sin against god. this is a good lefty site, wageslave check out the comic it's pretty funny. ::: posted by Alf at 1:08:54 AM Sunday, March 09, 2003 ::: Got to frunk last night, one of those nights that make you say I really need to stop doign this to myself. I vaguely remember talking to some random chinese girls, so I guess I practiced my chinese. Then today I had to teach a private class. i teach the last hour of a three hour class and none of the kids wanna learn by then. Their chinese teacher tells me to teach from the book, but they don't wanna do that and when I'm hungover I don't wanna do it either. So I tried to have them do this name game that John tought me. It's really easy, and everybody like playing it, but today the kids just didn't want to learn. I think next week I am going to have a lesson on following directions. Then I got to teach these little kids which is allright. I don't think I could ever teach little kids. I am always sympathising with the bad ones. Like there was this girl who kept pulling the boys hair in front of her. Then his chinese tacker got mad at him, totally unfair. I don't know about their teaching methodology, I know I'm just there for my blue eyes and american upbringing, but I question the value of me just standing in front of the class reciting words which is what the teachers like me to do. We sould play some games or some thing. All the teachers have really annoying british accents anyway, so the kids are getting mixed messages. Most chinese I meet want to learn american accent, but what they actually learn is some haorribly annoying british accent. Farm has an "r" in it, and often is not pronounced "ofen." I think chinese people have corrected me at least 5 five times on my pronunciation of "often." I met this welsh guy and he dosn't say "ofen." Why do the chinese think this? ::: posted by Alf at 9:08:29 PM Saturday, March 08, 2003 ::: Damn chinese people learn to need how to be on time. They are always early. I always try to tell people an excat time to come see me and they always come at least five minutes early if not fifteen. Me being a lazy person isn't generally ready for them until 5 seconds before the time I told them to come. Like yesterday, This chick wanted me to help her with some english test and said she was goign to make me dinner. So I tell her I will meet her at 4:30, I'm running a little late and am about to leave the door at four fifteen, when the phone rings, It's her. She's all like are you coming, I'm waiting here for you? What the fuck, why would you call me right when I need to go? Why would you get there so early? So then I try to follow her directions to take the bus there, but I can't find the proper bus, and just decide to take my bike. I show up where I think I am supposed to be, but she isn't there. I try to call here a few times buit I don't think I had her numberright. I just go see what another of my friends in the area is up to. The next morning I get a call from her and she was very worried abut me about me! She thought I was lying dead in the gutter somewhere. She called my school and told them I was missing, because I wasn't at my house at 9:00 pm. Thats another thing I hate about Chinese peple, the night ends at ten o'clock when for me the night usaully starts at 10:00. Then later of course my Waiban calls me and says, you shouldn't stay out so late, you should tell me where you are going. I try to protest that it was just some stupid girl who called and I got back at 10:30, which isn't so late, but he dosn't listen. If they are so concerned about me, why didm't they bother checking on me at 10:30 or 11:00. Is it inconcievable that I would be out that late? Ah shit here is another stupid girl coming over at 10:50 when I told her to come at 11:00. I think I'll answer the door shirtless and see what she does. ::: posted by Alf at 10:52:31 AM Friday, March 07, 2003 ::: Representing fo rminnesota, Coleen Rowley lays the smack down Here's an article where a lot of dumbasses say that Rowley's claims that a war against Iraq will increase terrorism are unjustified. Do they say the same thing to the director of the FBI. From Rowley's letter ::: posted by Alf at 1:33:38 PM Wednesday, March 05, 2003 ::: And communist asian countries aren't quite like the democratic ones One of the things I really feel is lacking in China is the general blandness to the mass culture. Look at the Russian magazine I linked to below and look at the japenese articlles in the website I posted above. Those two cultures are definilty fucked up, but they are also very intersting. Hell, american culture is about as fucked up as it gets (We do have the best televisoin though). The thing is that crazy shit does go on in Chinam it's just that it all goes on underground. I'm just sick of seeing all the crap on Chinese television. It's crap except for the monkey king, and thats only cause it's based on an old story. Creativity is stifled byt the goverment. One of the major reasons chinese pop music is the soulless crap that it is is probably becasuse the goverment supports that kind of music. And I really hate CCTV 9, the english channel, there is something in the snide robotic way that every chinese person on the show speaks english. It's so planned and crafted and fake. Thats how a lot of art here is in china. It's either fake goverment shit or fake corporate shit (note to self: right post on how the communist goverment seemlessly matches with a coporate environment). But it's not natureal for a society to be this way, people are perverse, they are gonna find ways to express there feeling and the more you push it underground the worse it's gonna get. Update: I realise those two links may look like I am lamenting the lack of Russian whores and schoolgirl prostitues, but China already has lots of those! What I miss is a free press that can write about them. ::: posted by Alf at 1:11:46 AM Tuesday, March 04, 2003 ::: How can you tell the difference between a communist country and an ex-communist country? Communist countries don't have ex-pat magazines like this ::: posted by Alf at 12:12:50 AM Monday, March 03, 2003 ::: I'm sitting here holding a beer in my hand that I bought down at the local convenience store for 11 rmb for 9 6201 ml bottles. I look down at the cap and what does it say? Oh wait, I just looked at the expiration date in the beer, it's '98. maybe globablisation isn't so great... ::: posted by Alf at 5:54:56 PM Saturday, March 01, 2003 ::: Intersting article from the financial times The other side of China's success story, It says that a lot of the growth in the inner provinces is due to goverment deficiet spending which cannot keep growing forever. Makes me think about where the money is coming from for all the road and skyscraper construction in my little city... " ::: posted by Alf at 12:18:21 AM © A. A. S. H. |
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