US soldiers alleged to have tortured Iraqi prisoners

Okay, way to go! That's how you "win the hearts and minds" of the local population in Iraq!

What's gonna happen when these prisoners finally leave jail (cause some day they will, won't they?) and tell their families and friends of the wonders of American freedom?

Sure they gonna feel like "loving and thanking America" for the grace of their presence in Iraq!

Russian Museum to Exhibit Rasputin's Penis

I wonder if this is true. Can a human penis really be 30 cm long? That must be if you include whatever is inside the guy's belly.

FT.com /Blair should listen to the experts

This is a surprising sample of lucidity from a reputed newspaper.

Last night I saw a documentary about soldiers hit by "friendly fire". It was made by the BBC, and mostly presented cases of American, British and Canadian soldiers fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Falklands.

It was very interesting, moving, and at times even gory. They described the case of a bunch of soldiers being hit while in their truck. One of the soldiers was wounded by shrapnel from his side's door, and this shrapnel was so hot that it even melted his uniform and made it fuse with his flesh.

A lot of traumatized guys, families in disbelief that the armed forces would misslead them into believing that their sons had been hit by the enemy (as opposed to by their own commrades). In short, a lot of "what did we do to deserve this?".

Yes, very sorry cases... but hey, what about the innocent civilians? What about all those "collateral damages"? Nobody cares? Nobody's gonna make a documentary about the 12 year old Iraqi boy who lost all his family plus several of his limbs, and now doesn't even have a house?

What?

Oh! He's muslim!

He's not an American voter!

Now I get it!

Russian weather forecasters face fines over wrong information

This is a wonderful idea! At last, public people being made responsible for their own wrong declarations!

How I wish some of my managers would also be made responsible for their actions! Some people no matter how much they fuck up, they never have to face any consequence to their own deeds.

Czech pensioner gets personal tram stop

Hey, this is nice! There already was space for the tram to make that special stop without any apparent inconvenience, so the transportation company decided to make this favor to the old lady.

In Japan it would've been impossible! Those guys must always stick to their freaking rulebooks!

Blair lives up to his 'poodle' reputation

Bravo Helen!

I wonder, are you American? Can an American have such a clear view? So removed from Fox News and CNN?

"Both Blair and Bush are Christian fundamentalists". Yes, you took the words right out of my mouth. When Arab leaders invoke Allah, it's because they're crazy fundamentalists who oppress women and non-Muslims. But when Bush says in political rallies "God Bless America!", it's a good good thing.

I feel so betrayed. Fucking idiot, believing all those exciting projects we were going to work on. Been waiting for so long ready to get going.

That guy the other day was asking me why I look unhappy, so I told him: It's almost one year since I came here, I look at myself, and I see I didn't get anywhere. I'm almost in the same situation as one year ago, except with a much smaller savings account. I told him I wasn't very happy that all the stuff we'd been talking about (doing stuff together, the "rat race" he liked to talk about, etc.) two years ago didn't look like the situation I saw now a days.

He stopped me and very fastly (that's his technique to try to make me forget the point of my conversation) said something about not taking "two years" ago as a reference point. Why not "one year ago" or "six months ago"?

Well, if he wants to take one year ago as a reference point... what we talked one year ago didn't happen either. And what we talked six months ago didn't happen either. The only parts that happened were the ones in which I spent a lot of my savings in getting ready, buying software, hardware, etc.

He just used me as some sort of support, moral and economic. Whenever he was in need, I helped him out. I even spent one Christmas and New Year alone stuck in the icy weather of the NE because I couldn't afford visiting my relatives. Why I couldn't afford that? Because I had given him most of my money to bail him out of his financial problems.

Now I see the deep sense of purpose all that fucking miserable winter had.

When he talks fast like that, a bit excited pretending to be angry like that... I know it's because he knows I was right and was just trying to get me distracted from those facts.

He's a good storyteller. But it's so sad I'm the only one who fell for them. The other guys in the office stayed away. They were smart.

Scientist says chocolate makes happy babies

Ha! I don't need a scientific study to know that. I know chocolate makes people happy, it always works like a charm!

However, this sample of English grammar puzzles me: So, having said that, for sure if somebody's pregnant (and eats chocolate), she'll have maybe a happier baby.

Is it "for sure" or "maybe" after all?

280 Iraqis reported dead in heavy fighting

"US Cobra helicopter fired a missile on a mosque compound"? What a wonderful way "to win the hearts and minds" of the local muslim population, huh?

I'm stressed / worried / disappointed. Is it that I need a smoke?

Nearly two years now I quit my job in order to start up some business with my brother. The deal was that I'd be preparing the field for when he's able to quit his high paying job. During that time I really spent a lot of time and money following many leads, practically all of them pointed by him.

About one and a half year after I quit, he too finally did. In the beginning he'd told me he'd quit no later than March 2002! Ha ha! He finally did in November 2003.

But instead of joining with me in doing something for ourselves and leaving "the rat race" as he calls it, he just joined another company that pays him even more money.

He said that he'd bring me onboard five months ago. He made me spend money (from my savings) in a lot of things to get ready for that; in things like a business suit, a laptop computer, etc. He also arranged for me to move to a better place, a real apartment, not the hotel room I've been living in for almost one year next to the garbage truck parking lot.

All of this I've payed by myself, even all of his expensive experiments for "our future business", even though I haven't received a salary for almost two years. I've never asked money from him because he used to tell me (before he got this current job) that he was short of money. I respect and love my brother very much.

But last night I learnt that he's taking his family to New Zealand for vacations, and also he offered a girl he barely knows to pay for her car. What the hell is that?

I even remember one day that I went to visit him in his new office very comfortably sat on his brand new executive desk, he told me he was "going to take care" of me. Except for a few meals and trinkets, I've taken care of everything by myself.

Is this "love and patience" for my brother or is this passiveness and laziness?

What I see now is very different from what he'd been telling me two years ago "we" would be doing. So much for the rat race.

I feel bad and lonely. I live in a hotel, so it's hard to get in the mood that I'm really going to live in this country, thus no incentive to learn the language. I need to smoke to forget for now.

"Juon 2" was very disappointing. Save your money and stay away from that film!

I went to watch it last night, and although it had very freaky scenes, it was not as scary as Juon (part one). I was very much looking forward to watching this film cause I'd enjoyed a lot Juon and had read in some electronic bulletin boards that part 2 is even scarier!

Not true. Probably the guys who wrote all those good comments on Juon 2 were members of the marketing team of the film.

Fucking MS Windows.

I don't know since when has this been happening, but now my laptop doesn't play music anymore. It must've been one of those freaking Windows Updates, but I don't know which!

My computer still beeps when I close the lid, so I thought everything was all right. But yesterday I tried to play some music (first time after a long time), and I just don't get any sound, no matter which media player I try.

I couldn't find any hardware conflict nor anything.

Well, if it doesn't get fixed whithing the next few days, I'll re-install Windows. Somehow with time, Windows just gets a bit less responsive and funny errors start to pop up. Reinstalling anew only the things I really need is the only way I know to do a real clean-up.

Ha! Last year when I was watching American Idol, I got the impression that this guy, Clay Aiken is gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that though.

But just a couple of days ago when I was watching MTV, they played a music video of him, and noticed that his album is titled Measure of a Man. I wonder, what measure was he thinking of when they chose this name? Was it dick length or circumference? Or maybe stiffness?

Pre-Sept. 11 speech shows focus on missiles, not terror

How sad that the richest and most powerful country in the world is managed by people who are so small as human beings. Instead of humbly and honestly acknowledging that "they didn't see it coming", Bush tries to make us believe that from the start he was taking good care of the terrorist threat. That is so cheap and low.

Hey, that's not even my country. But why do I care? Because it's so huge, many of the things they do influence the rest of the world. We cannot just sit on our butts indiferent to the stuff that happens over there, unfortunately.

Last night I was remembering the people I left behind in my previous workplace. I thought how sad that those guys, many of them, even though raised in affluent countries and now living rather lavish lifestyles, are so small as human beings, rather than big hearted people.

You know, people who live in rich countries and therefore you'd think tend to live more comfortably, are spared the worries of living in a poor environment. Like "I got to find a job or else I won't have money to eat". The most powerful encouragement for my friends in Japan to go to work is not so that they can buy food, but so that they can afford one more ski trip.

In that kind of environment, you'd think that people have more spare time to think more deeply about real important things. Those people should be above smallish things and have practiced some philosophy.

But many of the guys I left did not. Some of them were so freaking selfish, some others outright mean and prejudiced. How sad they haven't noticed how much happier they could be by being good with everybody. They must be idiots: they have the time to think, but they don't do it.

Iraqis drag Americans' bodies through streets

Well, I don't celebrate these killings, but the comments of some US government officials are just ridiculous.

These guys "were trying to make a difference and to help others"? Yeah, they sure were trying to help Bush and Cheney's ambitions. How noble, huh? The difference they're helping to bring about is the control of oilfields by a foreign power without any real say from the Iraqis themselves.

And "these are horrific attacks by people who are trying to prevent democracy from moving forward, but democracy is taking root". Oh yeah? How? With that pupet regime installed by the Americans? If the Iraqis give some hint that they may elect a goverment that is not friendly to the Americans, oh no no! That's no good for you Iraqi guys! We Americans know better than you do what is good for you! That's how democratic we are!