Tibits Opening in Basel

I've been to the Opening of Tibits newest Restaurant in Basel.

Tibits offers vegetarian food in a new, trendy atmosphere. I don't want to talk too much about the food as for one, I have tasted only some and more importantly, I want to talk more about the Party itself. But I really like the interior design of the restaurant and I do really think, that I will eat there quite a lot. Even though I am no 100 percent vegetarian. Quite the contrary.

I have been asked a long time ago to take pictures at the opening, more than a month ago if I recall correctly.

The turnout of famous people was quite small.

Eva Camenzind, a moderator, is really good looking and she did a good job.



This is the best picture I got of her.

Tanja Dankner sung some songs. Not too special.

I had the luck to talk briefly to Nubya who is a real beauty and nice person. It was interesting talking to her. We bump often into each other, she as a celebrity, I as a photographer.

Murat Yakin also came, just I was leaving. He might have been the best footballer who grew up in or at least near Basel, but he acted as an a** h*le.

There was also a TV-crew present. And they wanted to do an interview with him.

He: Have you been waiting long?
They: Yes.
He: Then you can wait a bit longer...

And went to eat something. What a pr!ck.

Madagascar

A friend gave me this version of Madagascar. Of the three animated movies I watched this weekend (it was too f**cking cold to go out for more than half an hour...) this one I liked most.

It is the story of Marty, played by (or rather spoken by) Chris Rock, who lives in the New York Zoo and dreams of the wild. He somehow mangages to go to Madagascar with his friend, Alex, the Lion, starring Ben Stiller, a hypochondrig giraffe called Melman, played by the Friends-star David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith wife of Will Smith playing Gloria, the Hippopotamus.

They are joined by a cast of Pinguins and Lemurs and have a nice adventure trying to get back to the zoo. There was a rather short additional movie about the three Pinuins which also added to the nice experiance.

Not having too much time left, should go to bed at once, I will leave it at this and give it seven out of ten points. Why not more? I just am not a that great fan of animated movies.

Shark Tale

Four years younger than the last review, Shark Tale has what it takes.

Underwater has seldom looked better in an animated movie. Will Smith is a believable Oscar and the story, even a bit straightforward, is entertaining. Most of the other actors, I wasn't able to put the actor to the character except of course Robert de Niro who plays/speaks a shark, the Boss of the Bosses with his typical mole.

It isn't a movie you have to buy, but it is fun to see once or even twice. It has also got a great sound track and the extras were what you'd expect.

The Emperor's New Groove

Starting with the bad. To be honest, I don't know where to start.

The movie was released in 2000 and looks like it was made fourty years earlier. Hello! There is a whole new development going on in animated movies and it does not have to be as shiny as cars, but I want to forget sometimes, that it is a movie. Which I can not, if the technique is from the time, my father was young...

My collegue liked the movie because of the lines. Honestly I was bored. I felt waisting my time watching the movie and played Spider Solitair on my PC instead.

The voices didn't help either and I just could feel little to none sympathy towards the main character.

From me, three out of ten points.

Private Update

Friday I was working again for tilllate at an international company. It was a really nice party and they do seem to have a lot of money to spend. Not so sure, if I should sell my shares of that company or not.

The evening was themed cruise and all people working there (with the exception of my, the photographer and the two magicians) wore sailor uniforms. The walls had fake portholes on which moving waves with dolphins and whales were projected.

The organisers first wanted me to take pictures of the people without flash, but I could convince them, that light is the medium of photography. I just can get far better results with flash than without.

A three course meal was served and there were a lot of other attractions.

They had three opera singers, performing "La donna e mobile" and other songs. During the show blocks, there were pictures of the same theme (in this case Italy) on the portholes. Perhaps James can help me to better express myself...

One of the next acts was with Donghua Li a Swiss-Chinese gymnastic champion and 1996 Olympic champion with some dancers.

Followed by some Caribbean drummers and capoeira artists. And some more dancers. A real great show. Makes me wonder, what tilllate or my employer will offer at their Christmas Dinner ;)

I slept and worked most of Saturday and in the evening went to take pictures again. I had planned to go to the concert of Stress, but was turned down at the entry.

Afterwards I met with some friends when one of them got pissed of at me because I said, the there was a limit on how much money we can spend on health. He just wants to give everyone the best possible health care. But of course did not tell who should pay for it.

He got even more angry, when I mentionned, that a lot of people of our generation had forgot to stand on their own feet and rely on parents or the government to sustanin themselves. I don't think, we'll meet again so soon.

I then went to a party of a friend. But there were only very few people. I should have gone to 'tis, an other party location, because there was a huge crowd there and no photographer of tilllate.

On Sunday, I did only sleep, eat and wached a movie or two.

I recently also joined Facebook, an other social network-site and have met some friends I had lost contact with. Probably I tell more soon, but I have to go to bed now.

The Kingdom

The Kingdom is the title of the newest Peter Berg movie. My favourite movie by him is Very bad things, a superb story, with very black humour starring Cameron Diaz and Christian Slater.

Sadly, his newest movie does not satisfy the expectations I had.

It starts very well, rounding up the fact in the initial five minutes. Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil producing country with an extremely fundamental Islam is the worlds largest supporter of terrorist organisations. Osama bin Ladin is Saudi, 14 out of the 19 911 attackers were Saudi and without the financial and personal support of Saudis, most Muslim terrorist organisations would crumble.

On the other hand, the Saudi Arabia need the US to protect them even though Saudi Arabia is the biggest buyer of US arms. Probably Israel receives more, but Saudi Arabia at least pays for them.

There are no operational US military forces in SA since 2003 and the movie was produced in Abu Dhabi. The situation is very difficult. There are a lot of foreign workers in SA, the Westerners live in protected communities, separated by the SA public. The dirty work is done mostly by Philippians or workers who come from other Muslim countries. There are a lot of reports about mistreatments of foreigners, just these day a Swiss-French boy was raped by three Saudis.

The movie is about an attack of Saudi terrorists on a ‘protected community’ where US workers for oil companies live with their families. As there are a lot of casualties, the FBI sends in a group of four people to support the Saudi investigations.

As so often in these movies, we have Jamie Fox as the young leader of the group, Jennifer Garner bringing her boobies. At least, Peter Berg resists of trying to add a love scene between his two stars. Being an American movie, I had expected that. On the other hand, she could have at least dressed better not displaying her breasts in SA. Not that you see any skin, if she were a professional FBI-agent, she would have dressed more decent in SA, I think.

An other thing about Jamie Fox. I like him as an actor. But now, his teeth are just unnaturally white and his hair is always perfect. Sorry, I just can’t take him serious as an FBI-agent, when he looks too much like an actor. Hardly ever gets dirty.

The other two agents are believable. But do not play a major role in the movie.

There are some Saudi, who don’t want any US citizens on their ‘holy’ ground (besides the terrorists). The Saudi police force is shown as being incompetent, even stupid and mostly unsupporting of the ongoing investigation.

There is ‘of course’ a good Saudi police officer who helps, without spoiling too much of the movie, to take down the terrorist group.

In the end, all the bad guys are dead, their children and grandchildren swearing revenge and the good guys fly back home.

Why can’t I give this movie more than four out of ten points? There is not too much acting going on, Jennifer Garner and Ashraf Barhom stand out (a bit). The story would have a lot of potential and the topic is extremely interesting, Michael Moore should do a movie about it. But after the before mentioned five minutes, the story has done it’s duty and is replaced by action. I am not an enemy of action, but a good movie needs a good story and after the five minutes and the trailer, I had expected more information and some hints towards a solution.

I am on Facebook

I recently started my profile on Facebook.com. I have joined a lot of groups and have met a lot of friends. Some I have lost contact with some time ago.

It has some privacy issues, as you can expose a lot of private information. You can either not be honest with the information you feed into your site or just trust Microsoft, who have bought 1.6 % of the company for 240 million USD.

Something to be afraid of?

R.I.P. Tilllate-Basel-Forum

Born on Januar 4th 2007, the private forum of the tilllate-team Basel had a good start. We joked about the problems of tilllate-team Bern, whose forum didn’t survive long.

Now, it is time to bury tilllate-team Basel. I had posted over 450 times, accounting for over twenty percent of the total posts. A lot of the members had less than five posts. Eight (including me), had more than 100 posts.

I think the slow death started, when baaluu wrote less.

Could have the forum be saved? I always have advocated the creation of an international forum for tilllate-photographers or at least a forum for all Swiss photographers.

But what would be a half day’s work, has never been achieved.

For now, at least, good bye tilllate-forum.

Youtube Favourites

I thought about starting a new topic, favourite Youtube-Vids.

You (should) all know the new Video of Nickelback newest song, Rockstar.

But there is an equally well made parody which you can see here.

He also has a myspace site worth wisiting.

Follow up to: Sex in America

Some time ago, I wrote about Genarlow Wilson, an America teenager (age 17) sent to jail for receiving oral sex from a soon to be 16 year old girl.

She even had stated, that the sex wa consensual, but because she was only 15 years old, she legally could not consent to sex. He was therefore not convicted to rape but to aggravated child molestation.

Three days ago, he was released.

Although society has a significant interest in protecting children from premature sexual activity, we must acknowledge that Wilson’s crime does not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children and that, for the law to punish Wilson as it would an adult, with the extraordinarily harsh punishment of ten years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole, appears to be grossly disproportionate to his crime.

But the release was also a bit by chance as the court ruled 4 vs 3 and that three judges thought:

the General Assembly expressly stated that in no event was the 2006 amendment to affect or abate the status as a crime of any act or omission which occurred prior to its effective date,” the dissent says. Wilson’s sentence cannot be deemed cruel and unusual “because the General Assembly made the express decision that he cannot benefit from the subsequent legislative determination to reduce the sentence for commission of that crime from felony to misdemeanor status.

Three out of seven judges believe, following the law, even if it is stupid and wrong, is the right thing to do. How can they sleep at night?

Private Update

I start a new post for this last week. I still had some trouble this week with Hellgate: London, almost keeping me to got to des Arts for tilllate. I went there on Tuesday and took some pictures which you can see here.

Yesterday I worked at Swiss Indoors for DHL. The party was OK, but a lot of people smoked cigars at it is Davidoff Swiss Indoors.

I am a bit drawn. I don't want a ban on advertisement for cigarettes and cigars (or alcohol) but on the other hand, don't like to work in a cigar-smoke filled room.

Sometimes, I believe that politicians just like to tell other people how they should live and I'd rather live in a freer society.

Even though it is already 19:00, I am not sure, what I am going to do with the rest of this day. Not much I think. You'll know soon enough.

Private Update

Almost two weeks since my last update.

Nothing much has hap pend.

I could leave it at this, but won't.

After my last post, I installed a beta of Tabula Rasa, Richard Garriott his newest creation. He is most famous for his Ultima series, a then ground breaking group of games which I really liked to play.

Tabula Rasa is set in a not too distant future, Earth has been overrun by aliens and the players have to save the world. Sounds familiar? Yeah, I know.

Never having been a big fan of massively multi player online role-playing games (MMORPGs for short), Tabula Rasa does not really please me. The graphics are not what I want to play and the story, I have found little trace of in the hours I have been playing. MMORPGs just seem too much work for too little reward.

I also tried to install a beta of Hellgate: London, but failed three times to download the files. As the files are 5 GB and the game will be out in less than a week, I stopped my attempts. I am not too sure if I will like Hellgate: London, but I think I'll buy it anyway. Fighting demons in an apocalyptic London, sounds just too appealing.

On Wednesday, directly after work, I took a train to Zurich where my trip to Prague started. It was a trip by bus and was less stressing than I had feared. Our group consisted of 25 men and 6 females and was organised by two DJs. We arrived early in the morning and after a short visit to the town center, could go to our rooms.

The hotel was located outside of Prague, I had a nice room on the tenth floor with three beds, all for myself. But still, I just used one...

In the evening, we went to a Pizzeria which I liked but most thought the food was bad. I probalby was the only one not eating Italian and what I had was OK.

Afterwarts we went to a small disco which was really nice, location-wise but just a bit too small for my taste. There was an old man, responsable for hanging the coats, but man, was he slow. I am sure, there are still now, people waiting to get their stuff back....

There were some Go-Go dancers which we were not allowed to take pictures of. They attacted a bit a strange crowd, people you'd usually don't find in a disco, drooling at them. The dancers had nice bodies, dancing seems to be good for keeping fit and I talked a bit to one of them. She was the only one, who seemed to like what she was doing. A lot of men talk bad about Go-Go dancers, but I wouldn't mind to have one as my girl-friend. I might even be proud, that people pay for seeing her half naked...

I also met a couple from Valencia, Spain, who knew tilllate from back home. That is one thing I like about tilllate, that it is becoming more and more international.

Next day, we went shopping, to a town about an hour away from Prague. I don't know its name which is no loss, because it (sorry) sucked. The weather was too cold and windy just to stroll around and the shops were not worth visiting. Therefore we took a bus to some shopping malls near the highway. Some of us bought some clothes there, I didn't feel like shopping.

In the evening we went to an other disco which was bigger but had too little people. I didn't stay there for too long.

After a brief tour of Prague on Saturday, we went to the third and last disco of our trip, the Karlovy Lazne. Their own hompage you can find here.

We arrived here quite early. And there were few people. I thought, boy, an other boring night. But the club filled up quickly.

It is located in a rather little building.



There were five dance-floors, each one for a different type of music. And there was even enough space to chill. The building might once have been used as a public baths, as the dance floors sometimes were still tiled. It was the lest shiny location of all discos I went to in Prague, but there were just so many people there.

I met a tilllate-photographer from Leeds, UK, and a lot of people who knew tilllate from Switzerland, Germany, UK and Italy. About half of the crowd were foreigners. I also talked to Russians, Danes, therefore, this was probably an even more international party as those I have been to in Ibiza.

I thing a lot of the visitors came, like myself, by car to Prague. At our hotel, we had some groups from Italy and Germany and probably one more car from Switzerland.

In this club, I had the best party since a long time. Some parties last year in Ibiza would be the only ones to top this experiances.

Partly because I met a girl from Moscau who I've been mailing since. I really love her freckles. Probalby I will spend some more time in Russia than I had planned.

Some new pictures

I was cooking today and took a few pictures, to brighten up my blog.



I really like my kitchen and invested (or rather spent) a lot of money for it. Girls, could you have bought a lot of shoes....



Just some beans, Risotto and meat.

wcities.com

I want to write for wcities.com.

They don't seem to be up to date with their information of Basel. So I'll try to help them a bit.

Logitech G3

In my post of Sunday, 26th August 2007, I wrote about my problems with the G7 mouse by Logitech.

Logitech does still sell the mouse in the US, here for example by amazon.

But there seems still to be a lot of problems, just read the reviews. The mouse works fine for about a year, then suddenly problems appear. Many have the same problems like I, the batteries seem to need constant reloading. Mine, I have to change ever two hours. Then there is also a lot of talk of defective buttons, resulting in constant double-clicking even though the button is just pressed once.

What I do not understand is why they continue to sell a product in the US when they are not willing to sell it in Europe. Do they have less quality orientated customers in the US? I doubt this very much.

I talked (or mailed) a lot with Logitech and they are unwilling / unable to replace the G7 with the new G9 (with a cord) or the G7 (from the US). Instead they are sending me the MX™ Revolution. But I have to return the batteries of the G7 and the USB sender.

It seems, I'll have to let go and try the MX Revolution because the constant battery-changes are more than just annoying. You'll hear more as soon as I get my hands on it.

But I am still thinking of either buying the G7 again in the US, even if it is a error-prone bitch, but I love her nonetheless. I'll also might buy the G9. Seams you'll get some product reviews in the coming weeks.

If I had Logitech shares, I would think about selling them. The last few products I had, did not always meet my expectations.

The G7 is hardly usable after 18 months.

The G3 is not as they write, a perfect mouse for right- and left-handers but impractically for all due to the position of its buttons. Wasted money.

At the office, our keyboards are also not what you would expect from a Swiss company.

But on the other hand, the G7 is my favourite mouse ever from a haptic point of view and the G15 Keyboard rocks especially if you like to play in the dark.

On the plus side, the customer support was good. Even though I did not get what I wanted, they answered fast, even called twice, good work there.

Private Update

Almost a week since my last Privat post.

Yeah, weeks pass fast...

That I didn't do much intelligent is the fault of Medieval 2. I've been trying hard to win this game. I started a large campaign with the British, the Spanish, yesterday with Venice and today with France.

Why do I keep starting again and again? I succeed the early parts of the game and am able to expand my empire quite well. Better than all the other surrounding countries. But then suddenly, ever country surrounding me is attacking me, I am left with no friends and as I might have overexpanded my borders, I start to loose provinces and towns. To stop loosing to many towns, I cheat, which does help in the beginning, but does not make me feel any better.

So I stop playing the campaign and select an other country. I am getting better though, I survive longer and cheat less than I used to and I am confindent, I will be able to win the game with no cheats.

Probably I'll retry the English as their strong archers, cavalery and Hobilars suit my style of playing best.

But I do hate the Pope... Because somewhere in the game, you'll run out of Pagan enemies and have to fight your Christian 'brothers' (those pahtetic French for example) which often leeds to excommunication and thus giving all other countries the right to invade you...

I have also started to play Bioshock again and had my first fight with a Big Brother. Man, do they deal out pain. Soon the Orange Box with Half Life Episode 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2 hits the shelves so I will spend more time fighting virtual enemies.

The next weekend I'll be in Prag with Weekend2Dance. Three nights, three parties. Hope it will be fun. I am just a bit too old for the trip by bus. I would have taken a flight, but easyjet was sold out when I got the OK for the trip. I'll survive.

This Tuesday, I'll be back in desArts for the Afterwork Party. Got a bit mixed feelings.

Little Miss Sunshine

This is my first Movie Review and DVD Review. Movie Review first.

Little Miss Sunshine is a movie I myself would most probably not have chosen to watch. My coworker recommended it to me and even though we do have some different opinions, I usually can trust her advice about movies.

I just had bought enough DVDs so I didn't want to buy it for myself. Therefore, I bought it for a friend and lent to watch it myself. Nice friend I am.

But no more nagging and back to the movie.

Little Miss Sunshine is the movie about a six (?) year old overweight girl from a dysfunctional family. The grandpa is a drug addict, her brother has made a vow of silence, her gay uncle (from her mother's side) has unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide. Her father wants to promote his "Nine steps to success" with no success.

It is a road trip movie with some of the usual suspects. I would not call it a really great movie but it won two Oscars, Alan Arkin, the cocaine snorting grandpa won "Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role" and Michael Arndt won his for "Best Writing, Original Screenplay".

I liked the performance of Steve Carell best. He is staring in Evan Almighty, which I jet have not seen.

Even if I repeat myself. I'd give it an 8/10. Eight might be a bit high, but at least the ending is not as cheesy as I had feared.

***************

After I slept over my decision, I do not feel comfordable with 8/10 points. Therefore I reduce my verdict to 7/10 points.

***************

I review this version. I link to amazon even though I do not get paid for. Feel free to browse for the cheapest offer.

There is not much Bonus Content. There are three or four alternate endings, none of which are any good as well as an directors commentary (which I am not going to check out) as well as some trailers. The trailers you can not access from the menu. Why, I don't know. And there is also an Anti-Piracy trailer, which I do not want on my DVDs.

There is German and English Version 5.1 Dolby Digital, not that I heard a lot of Dolby nor 5.1. Not this type of movie. There are Turkish subtitles as well as German and English. That's about it.

For the DVD I'll give 3/10 points. There is so little reason you'd really want to own this DVD. And the Anti-Piracy trailer reduces the rating below 5.

Ratatouille

Not having expected much from the Ratatouile, mainly because of Pixar's last Movie, Cars, which I didn't like at all. I wasn't able to laugh once.

But having some cash to spend and an evening off, I went to a Saturday's Cinema Night with Ratatouille.

And I must admit, it was more fun than I had thought it would be. The voices I didn't know, which is a good thing because I don't want to be too distracted by them. Ian Holm, a.k.a. as Bilbo Baggins plays Skinner, the evil Sous-Chef and Peter O'Toole, probably most famous for his appearance as Lawrence of Arabia in the 1963 blockbuster with the same title lends his voice to Anton Ego, the food critic.

The first half hour is very pleasant. Which is not very common for any movie. But the last half hour is great. There are some great designs in the movie and some memorabel effects.

Taking all this in perspective, I'd rank it about as high as Ice Age II, but still a bit lower than Hot Fuzz, which I have reviewed here.

Therefore 8/10.

Axe a.k.a. Lynx

produces bad antiperspirants but knows how to advertise.

Check their Australian campaigns here and here.

Have fun.

Private Update

Last week, not much happened. An other weekend with no tilllate. On Friday, I went to town with some friends. But as I came directly from work, I got tired soon and left before midnight. I was even too tired to play Medieval II. Saturday was not much more fun. Sunday was Scuba Diving again and I finished the Padi Open Water.

Hope I can write more soon.

Private Update

After work, I took some pictures at an After-Work Party in desArts. I used to like to go to that bar. I have spent a lot of money there already.

I am not sure, why I didn’t go there any more, but there are just some places, I used to visit, but do so no more. But James begged me to go and he bitched a lot, therefore I went. You always seem to meet the same people there. I am sure, some of them, I see every time.

The music is nice, but as soon as the party starts, there is no room to move. Dancing is completely out of the question. I took about forty pictures which is OK, but not great.

After the last two weeks occupied with scuba diving, I was happy for a break. I don’t think I did a lot the rest of the evenings. I took some more pictures at a second party. I was a bit underdressed, as I came directly from work. At least I wore a nice black shirt.

The party was nice. There were some large photos of Salma Hayek, who looked great. There was also free food and free drinks, which I did not take too much advantage of. Stupid Weight Watchers…. But if I want to loose those pounds, there can’t be too many exceptions. I left about at midnight. Even though I had met some people I knew, the party was no success, personally. I did wonder, why I wasn’t invited to such an event…

I have to do something about that!

I had planned to play some Medieval II for the rest of the night, but went to bed after uploading the pictures. But at least on Saturday, I stood up early and played Medieval II. After some shopping and cooking, I went to bed early, as I had to go diving in the Lake Lucerne.

The alarm clock rang at 7:30 am and I took off soon afterwards. But I took the wrong road in Lucerne and arrived some minutes late.

The diving could have went better. I had some problems with the pressure but in the end, I saw one very large Esox and a smaller one. The smaller one was about 30 cm long, difficult to tell underwater. It swam in the bridge of a boat which was sunk some years ago. According to the dive-master, this was the first time, the Esox didn’t flee the divers.

We saw a lot of other fish, mostly too small to eat. And a lot of junk. There are only a few plants and after six meters, there is hardly anything alive. 15 meters was about the deepest we went in the two dives.

Chanthaburi Restaurant Sairung

Last week I went to Chanthaburi Restaurant Sairung. Honestly, I don’t know the right name. I guess it is Chanthaburi and Sairung seems to be the name of the cook.

It is located on Feldbergstrasse 57, in 4057 Basel, which is not the place you would seek a good restaurant, even though the before mentioned Da Grazialla is a stone’s throw away.

From the outside, the restaurant looks not too inviting. There isn’t even a menu outside, which was one of the reasons, I didn’t go in the last time.

The front part of the restaurant has some simple benches and two to three tables. Looks a bit like Ikea. Past the kitchen, which has a window to look into, and the stairs to the restrooms, there posterior restaurant is divided in a non-smoker and a smoker part.

There are not too many tables, so to make a reservation on Friday and Saturday would be a good idea. You can reach them here ++41/61/683.22.23. They don’t seem to have an internet site.

The food was good. Some was even great, nothing disappointing, most just good.

We had two starters, a Tofu-soup and Fish-balls, followed by a Lamb-curry, some Shrimps with rice noodles (please use peeled shrimps!!!) and a duck-dish, kind of a soup.

The Tofu-soup was OK, not bad, but not really special. The Fish-balls were per se great, but there was far too much sweet-chilli sauce on top of it. The Lamb curry was very good. Hot but not too hot.

I didn’t like the unpeeled shrimps and there was too much ginger in the rice noodles. I prefer ginger paste to the pieces of ginger you get there.

The duck was ok, but the soup or sauce was great.

We didn’t have room for dessert which left us with a CHF 140.00 bill. Which was not a bargain but OK. Still, if you have the money, you could do a lot worse.

Albanian claims towards Greece

Alba Çela writes in his blog about Albania and how the Balkan produces more history than it can consume.

He writes about the Tschams, a group of ethnical Albanians who used to live in the northern part of Greece and were forcefully removed from their villages after WWII. Wikipedia quotes that they had collaborated with the Nazis. Not having the facts on this topic the question still stands, if collaboration with the enemy really gives the right to oust a group of people even though not every single one has participated in such behaviour and if they were compensated for expropriation. Fear of the Communist Albanians might have also played a role.

He also writes about the Cameria Liberation Army, an other Albanian Terrorist group which has some minor cover on the internet. It seems at least, that they have made no high-scale attacks.

Their major aim seems to be, at least for the time given, to get financial compensation for their plight. Their terrorist organisation and the use of the word Genocide does not help them a lot.

Especially as most of the west is to some extent saturated with Albanian claims for land, money and more money.

The ethnic Greek mayor Vasil Bollano on the other hand, wants his community to join Greek and was even supported by the Greek ambassador in Tirana.

He writes:

The discussion is very much reflected in the popular daily discourse. Albanian blogs swelter with debates, comments, pseudo-analyses, allegations and counter-allegations on the issue, often expressing nationalistic aspirations that give out the wrong message to the Greek side.

Looking at the recent Balkan history, which message should we get?

There are further threats from the Albanian side. “There will be no peace in the Balkans as long as the Tcham problem is solved” writes Miranda Vicker. Do Albanians really want to go to war again?

I posted:

I think you miss the real question even though you put it in the first article of your article. Why does the Balkan produce more history than it can consume?

I do not care that much, what problems Albanians produce in the Balkans, but 100’000 Albanians living in Switzerland, constant talk about Albanian terrorist groups does not make me sleep any safer.

Do we allow the same problems that you have on the Balkan to happen here in Switzerland, as more and more Albanians live here?

Private Update

I did work on Saturday and therefore had to stand up far too early. It was a photographic job. I had to take pictures of people and car at a car show. But A lot of people didn't want their picture to be taken, so after eight hours of work, I had less than a hundred pictures.

The quality of my pictures was not as good as I had wanted them to be. But it was difficult. My college who worked on Sunday took even less pictures and his quality was about the same than mine.

On Sunday I too did have to stand up early and go to my nephews christening. The mother -in-law of my sister had an accident and missed lunch due to a visit of the local hospital.

The christening was OK. But I was surprised that all the children were taken out of the church as soon as they couldn't keep quiet any more. If they had been my children, they had to get red faces from screaming, before I would have them removed from the church.

The Restaurant we went to afterwards was located beautifully. The food was OK, not as special as I had hoped it would be. On my way back, in the train, I had an arguement with my dad about politics. We seem to have been quite loud as other people joined the discussion. Which was a bit arkward, but OK.

Men on a Mission

I have often seen these well dressed men, recognisable by their black nametags talking about God. I didn’t know, that they are Mormons as I shy away from too religious people. I have found a funny site promoting twelve naked Mormons showing “a different side of the Mormon male” or “12 of the hottest hunkiest returned Mormon Missionaries have come together to expose more than their religion” which is of course “not affiliated or endorsed by the Mormon church”. Quotes from this site.

PS I don’t really miss a female version of that calendar, nor of the local female police force. But there are some nurses, I know, whose calendar I would by. Take the hint, Ladies!

WTF is Terrorism?

Claudia Ciobanu asks on her blog the question "What the hell is terrorism?".

She

prefers to use the word violence, which allows for notions of different types of violence

in stead of terrorism, which I disagree completely because terrorism is an aim not a means. I wrote:

The biggest difference between terrorism and other forms of violence is that terrorism targets civilians. The groups using terrorism know, that they are too weak to win a fight with the enemy in the open and therefore they target civilians though trying to build enough pressure to achieve their aim or at least gain more support from their own community.

Are the Palestinians terrorists? As a whole not. But of course there are a lot of terrorist groups in Palestine. Is Hamas a terrorist organisation. Yes and no. Yes, they have used terrorist attacks but not exclusively. Life is seldom black and white.

You write, that ‘our’ politicians create fear. Which is also simplistic. Of course there are some politicians who use the threat from Islam to get more votes. But on the other hand, it can not be denied, that there are Islamic groups who are willing to attack us (the European public) and some already have.

To which two replies I wrote:

apostolisfotiadi writes, that “it is not useful or easy to define terrorism”. Still this was the question of Claudia Ciobano and even the title of her article.
I do believe, it is not only useful, it is necessary to distinguish between terrorism and other acts of violence. It might not be very easy in every case, but in law, facts are often disputed (sorry, here my not being native English speaking hampers me).
For some acts of violence, it can disputed, if the label terror is correct or not, but others and I believe most, can be labelled easily.
According to wikipedia the key criterias are violence, fear, political goal, targeting of non-combatants and therefore illegitimacy.
I agree, that terror and terrorism has been used a lot; sometimes just simplifying sometimes like anti-Semitism it is used as a label to quiet opposition.
apostolisfotiadi simplifies a lot. He writes that according to Clausewitz civilians are the centre of warfare as if Clausewitz suggested mass slaughter to win a war.
He also suggested, the Food for Oil program was a tool of the UN to kill as many Iraqis as possible. The idea behind the Food for Oil program was to allow Iraq to sell Oil and with the revenue buy food and medicine. Not weapons as Saddam Hussein probably would have. That it failed does not mean, that the intentions were bad or that the aim was unrealistic. It was just bad government on the UN and Iraqi side.
I am not saying, that I agree with GWB nor think the situation in Iraq has changed for the better. But a lot of critics of the US seem to forget, that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and has used WMD against his own people. And that Osama Bin Laden has attacked the West more than once and will continue to do so till he dies. And that there are Muslim terrorists attacking civilians in New York, Madrid, London and in many other places.
I can understand, that there are a lot of people, who say, the US never should have invaded Iraq. Or who say, they have invaded Iraq, but should leave a.s.a.p. But what I don’t understand is when these same people who protest when Iraqi civilians die, rejoice in terrorist attacks in Europe or US.
In Iraq, a civil war is happening or at least is at the very verge of happening. If the US leave, there will be further attacks between Shiites, Sunni and Kurds. The Shiites as the largest group will win with the support of Iran whilst Saudi Arabia will try to support the Sunnis and Turkey will try to take control of the north of Iraq.
Any talk of all problems going away, just because the US go, is nonsense.
apostolisfotiadi misses further points. On the one hand, we know that there are also non Muslim terrorist organisations such as IRA, RAF and ETA in Europe, Aum Shinrikyo in Japan and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. At least the first four are no real threat anymore. So the only real danger comes from Muslim terrorist groups.
Once again, terrorism is not just a word for Muslim freedom fighters. Only a minority of the acts of violence from Iraqi/Muslim fighters in Iraq is directed against the US invasion force and its allies. And the situation before the US led invasion was not as in paradise. Nor were the differences between Shiites and Sunnis caused by the US invasion.
Democracy and freedom of Speech as well as other Human rights are worth fighting for. Even killing for.

I'll sure get punished for using the last sentence.

Hot Fuzz

Wanting to have more fun than at sex? At least more laughs? Then go and watch Hot Fuzz.

It's a story of a London police officer who is very uptight and successful. This of course annoys his co-workers and they manage to promote him to a small village far, far away.

Of course, the peaceful village is less peaceful than at first glance and with his new tubby friend, he saves the day.

The humour is sometimes a bit too gory but after a bit a slow start, there was hardly a moment which I couldn't laugh.

I also liked the cast as well as the photography even though I would have changed it a little bit. But nothing to distract from a real great movie, the best I have seen this year.

Therefore I'll give it 9/10 points. Well done.

Introducing Snap Shots from Snap.com

I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.

Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.

some seconds of TV time

I had some TV-time on Glanz & Gloria only in the background of the part labled Modeschau. I am the one in the background taking pictures.

Private

I have written less these last few days.

September belongs to Scuba Diving. Besides work, I have four evenings of Scuba Diving theory and four dives in local swimming pools. And I am tired a lot.

After theory and work as well as scuba diving and work, I am too tired to write my blog.

I also had two tilllate events I did. Not too much for it already being the 18th of a month but on one hand, they were longer than usual and they were farther away so I had to drive for about two hours each way. As the pictures had to be online till 8:00 am, I had to take off the next day. At least I got paid for them. But as I am running low on days I can take off this year, I won’t be able to do many more.

The first one was nothing special. But the second one was a fashion show with the active runner up for Miss Switzerland 2007 Xenia Tchoumitcheva who many (as myself) think that she should have won.

Christa Rigozzi, the Miss Switzerland 2007 is not ugly, but she has a bit a large nose. But she seems to be bright.

My all-time favourite, Bianca Sissing was also there and I managed to talk a bit to her and even have a picture taken with her. She was Miss Switzerland 2003.

Sonja Grandjean ruled in 1998, Tanja Gutmann in 1997 (she still has amazing eyes!), Jennifer Ann Gerber in 2001 (without her friend Doris who I wanted to meet, but she had to travel to London), Anita Buri was Miss Switzerland 1999 and they were joined by Miss Zürich Sabrina Knechtli and Miss Bern Yvonne Würms. I didn’t like those two very much. They didn’t seem to have potential for Miss Switzerland.

But I liked the Miss Africa Schweiz Coumba Faye whom I took a lot of pictures of. She has a very dark skin and looks really nice. Usually I don’t like dark women, but her I do.

They were joined by Tim Wielandt Mister Schweiz 2007 who is almost as old as I but looks much better than me and Raphael Kägi (Mister Coke light, shouldn’t that be Mister Coke Zero now???). The show was moderated by Sven Epiney and Plüsch also played some songs.

I also bought a new game for the PC, in fact just an Add-On. Medieval 2, Kingdoms. But even though I only have original games on that PC, I could not start the game. It has some copy protection from SecuROM which somehow blocks the game from starting. SecuROM belongs to the Sony Empire, making me like Sony even less than before. I tried to get in contact with them, but did not receive any good advice.

At least I am not alone with my problems. But I am still angry. There is a lot of anger in the forums and they seem to put the blame on other companies. The cracked version of Kingdoms is already available for download, but as a buyer, I should not have to download a crack just to play a game. I wasted four hours of my precious free time to no avail. I managed to install it, but could not start the game.

Meantime I have found a way around the problem, I just had to start the launcher of the original game, then without closing the launcher, swap discs to the Add-On and then start the launcher of the Add-On. But WTF. They can be lucky, that they don’t live around here, I would really like to pay them a visit myself.

An other friend has bought War Craft and could not install it, I have never been able to run any of the Splinter Cell Games on my PC due to copyright protection programs. Even though I don’t have any illegal software on that PC.

We honest buyers are getting butt-fucked by the industry. Even in Bioshock there seems to be a copy protection which disables the game any further installations after installing it two times. They now seem to have raised the number to five, but that still is not enough.

I also have ordered personal designed ear protective plugs to wear at loud concerts or discos. Discos are not too loud in Switzerland, but very bad in Ibiza.

Last week I have started to loose weight. I want to loose about 15 kg, from 85 to about 70. My boss says, that is too much, because I am about 1.81 m, but he has gained a lot of weight even though he does a lot of Sport. We will see, if I can loose as much as I want to.

Ups have to go. I’ll write more soon.

All pics uploaded to blogspot?

Here you can see a slideshow of all picutres being uploaded to blogspot.com. Real neat even though it is a bit timeconsuming.

Tag Cloud Link

I always missed the Tag Cloud of ones lables and have found a good discription here.

Have fun!

An other Link for Friends

I am quite busy right now with all the scuba diving and have only the link of all the scripts of Friends.

Just a picture I am proud of

Further pictures of Basel

Today I was walking through Basel and took some pictures. An old debt.

Here is the first picture taken of the Lohnhof, a part of the former town wall. It now contains the Museum of Musicical Instruments .



There is the statue of Dr. Rudolf Riggenbach, also known as "Dinge-Dinge", who was a monument conservator for Basel.



Only a few minutes walk away, there is the "Consulate Kingdom of Lepmuria", which of course is no real place just the head quater of a carnival group.



It is located in the alley of spices. Pepper and Ingwer.



On the other hill of Basel are the houses of two brothers building a white and a blue house next to each other. One of the two brothers wanted to have observatory built on the top of his house, which was not allowed by the government. So instead of complying to the rule or breaking any laws, he decided to change the use of one of the chimneys to an observatory. It is the one on the right marked with the red circle.



Here a bad picture from the front.



Next to the oldest sculptures of some elephants, not very accurate,



Here is the picture of a plate inserted into the street which can be translated to:

Here begun
on March 9th 1981
between
Harald and
Gabriele
the Love
to bloom.

I know, the translation is not too good.



I marked where you can find it here:



near the cathedral of Basel, which is constant state of repair.



There was a strange festival with stalls



and some bagpipers and some public bathing, kind of strange...



Next picutres are about a red glove is nailed to a ground near my favourite restaurant.



Here is a second picture to easier find the place.

Getting full in here

As I want to write about a lot of different topics, the Label-List is getting full.

Therefore I have started to add some Links to my own site, starting with the Java Games-Link on the right side.

Some nice 3D sculptures of sexual positions

Warning! Mildly Adult Content.

Here you can find some well made 3D sculptures of sexual positions. I really like the quality and you can even rate those positions you liked most.

Best Mahjongg Online Game

Here you can find my favourite online Mahjongg. Even though I never was able to finish ist. The text is on German but you don't have to understand what it says. It's just about a princess captured by a villain. Have fun.

Teletubbies go Blockout

A Fun game a mixture of blockout and teletubbies.

Save a Teddy-bear, ehr, bunny.

Click here so save a dying bunny. Please be careful!

A link for you big boys

I have found a Java Game containing some nudity. It is very well done and a lot of fun to play, even though the replay value is probably low.

First time diving in the basin

Yesterday I went diving for the first time. Man, was I lucky that I tried this at home first. Even though the water in the swimming pool was chlorinated freshwater and not saltwater it did not help the taste that much.

They wanted to go to a bar afterwards but with all the luggage, I just wanted to get home. Having no balcony I had to hang everything in the bathroom which is rather small.

Hope everything gets dry before I have to use the equipment again tomorrow.

Ups, forgot one Photo of the two Lion Babies

And here it comes:

First Lesson at Scuba Diving

Yesterday I had my first lesson in scuba diving. Not in the water, only theory and equipment. I have a bit a weird feeling. The couple running the school and the shop were very friendly and not just in a superficial way. Simon who gives the lessons is quite young and besides a tendency to stare too long, is OK. But still, I have the feeling to be taken to the cleaners.

I think I am unfair and that I should not trust my feelings, but we’ll see.

I dislike that we have to take all our equipment home, which is a lot and very heavy.

I bought goggles and a snorkel. The rest of the equipment is either included in the prize of the course or rented.

Today we’ll go underwater for the first time. I won’t be writing much these next days, as I have a lot to do.

On Sunday, I intend to take some more pictures of Basel.

Statistics

I had some more visitors from the US. First one from India. Also first visitors from search engines. Which is weird but welcome. I just hope, I receive more comments. Up till now, I had 67 visitors from 13 countries. Most from Switzerland followed by the US and the UK.

New Story of Putin's Russia

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like those often slimy often criminal russian oligarchs. They got rich fast. Rather they got very rich, very fast. Of course their wealth causes a lot of envy by the public and by the government and Putin has the power and will to take their weath, throw them in jail or make them flee the country and then try to kill them with Polonium.

I would not mind, if the wealth Putin steals back would really do the normal Russian any good. But I have very strong doubts. What would you expect from a fucking Ex-KGB who might be less Ex than we hope for.

And I disdain Schroeder, the former German Chancellor who called Putin to be a flawless democrat. Probably Schroeder should have stayed away from the Vodka. At least his Putin has repaid his brown-nosed friend with a job in a Russian-German joint venture and an adopted two children from Russia (with love).

But I am drifting from the topic which is Mikhail Gutseriyev, born 1958, founder of one of the first cooperative banks and later started and run Russneft.

In July 2007 Gutseriyev stepped down from his oil company Russneft due to extreme pressure from Putin.

The usual modus operandi of Putin is to take advantage of the ambiguous Russian tax laws and then to claim tax evasion. An other approved method, used mainly for Western companies is to claim that environmental laws have been broken.

I am not saying, that neither tax evasion or environmental issues can happen, but their prosecution is very specific. As long as you are Putins friend, you can evade taxes and spill oil, but just don’t loose his friendship,.

Gutseriyev as many before him have fled Russia and arrived in London. There are claims he somehow transferred most of his 3 billion USD forture to London.

Putin often denouces Britain as a haven for criminals and terrorists later referring to Boris Berezovsky (whose friend Alexander Litvinenko was most probably murdered by the Russian Secret Service with radioactive poison) and to the Chechen rebel leader Akhmed Zakayew.

Numerous other Russian dissidents and opponents of the Putin regime now live in London including the former Kommersant journalist Yelena Tregubova and executives from the bankrupt oil company Yukos. Bankrupt thanks to Putin.

Mr Berezovsky said: "I know him and although I don't have an especially close relationship with him I will help if he gets in touch, although he will not need all that much help because he has big experience abroad and he has money." Mr Berezovsky said he expected more Russians to come to London because the UK's legal system offered protection from what he described as Russia's "gangster" government.

Gutseriyev was last seen at the funeral of his son who died last week following a mysterious car crash. It is very possible, that Putin had to do something with this ‚accident’ too. There are just too many critics of Putin dying premature.

The Guardian writes here.

Mr Gutseriyev's woes appear to have started after he bought up assets from the oil firm Yukos. On July 30 he published a damning letter accusing the Russian authorities of using regulation as a pretext to grab back oil and gas assets from Russian and western companies.

He wrote: "They made me an offer to leave the oil business, to leave on 'good terms'. I refused. Then, to make me more amenable, they tightened the screws on the company with unprecedented persecution." The letter marked the most significant public challenge to Mr Putin from a leading businessman since the imprisonment four years ago of the former chairman of Yukos Oil, Mikhail Khordorkovsky.

Khordorkovsky was jailed for eight years in 2004 for tax evasion and fraud. The case was widely seen as political punishment for his refusal to stop funding anti-Kremlin opposition parties ahead of 2004 elections. The oligarch, once Russia's richest man, is now in jail in Siberia.

Yesterday Russian newspapers dubbed Mr Gutseriyev a "second Mikhail" - a reference to Khordorkovsky. They predicted that, like Yukos, his RussNeft oil empire would be swiftly dismantled, sold off, and most probably absorbed into a new state-run firm. Russian investigators have already seized the firm and accuse Mr Gutseriyev of failing to pay $800m in tax.

Yeah, the virtue of a flawless democrat.

Feeding the caged animals

On August 21st 2007, NZZ writes about the total blockade of Gaza from our Jewish friends. One point that seldom breaks news, is that the blockade also helps Jewish companies. The Pepsi bottling plant in Gaza can’t buy any carbon dioxide and had to shut down. Not just did Mohammed Yazegi, director of that plant, have to send home 250 workers, but also he loses market shares to Coca-Cola which still can be imported from Israel.

Mohammed Almi, owner of Future Tech in Gaza, says „Israel wants to controll our market and a total blockade is the best way to ruin the Palestinian competition. Some businessmen had to flee to prison because they feared revenge of their creditors because no business means no paying of debts.

UN says 1600 containers heading for Gaza are being held in Israeli storage costing around 80 dollars a day. 2500 workers have lost their jobs because Israel does not allow building materials into Gaza, 25'000 workers have lost their jobs because 600 textile and cloth factories can’t export, clothes worth over 12 million dollar are ready to be exported but are not allowed to leave the Strip.

You may attack me if I use Jewish and Israeli synonymic. I do make a difference in Switzeralnd or outside of Israel. But I feel wrong, when I say that this is the mistake of the Israelis, because with that I include the Christians and Muslims Israelis who don’t support the politics of the Jewish majority.

You may also attack me you think there is no difference between what I say and what Jean Ziegler says. I do believe, there still is. I do not hate the Jews, not even the Israeli Jews, but I think that a lot of them don’t see the reality or don’t want to.

I am not saying that the Israeli Jews are the SS of today. But I do strongly believe that the Israeli Jews have lost the right to criticise the Germans of WWII not directly involved in the Holocaust because as those Germans were to some extent were involved in the Holocaust, they are responsable for the suffering of the Palestinian people today.

Interview in BaZ

Some say, I am only critical of the political Right which is just not true. In the Basler Zeitung, there was an interview with Adolf Ogi and Jean Ziegler. They are the two top ranking Swiss UN-Officials. Adolf Ogi was elected to the Swiss Federal Council consisting of seven people and is the supreme executive and directional aughority of Switzerland.

He is (or at least was) a member of the center-right-wing Swiss People’s Party and in 2001 he was appointed to the task of Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace. I don’t like him and think of him of being rather silly.

I don’t know, if he was involved here , but it might be possible. What I got angry about most in his article was his statement, that „besides the Vatican, every state is a UN-member“. Hello Mr. Ogi, ever heard about Taiwan? 24 million democrats not being represented in the UN.

I sent him a mail to aogi@unog.ch and will post his reply.

Jean Ziegler is even worse. I really hate him and feel ashamed for him as a Swiss and as a Social-Democrat. He believes that the US is an „imperalistic dictatorship“ and is commiting „genocide“ agianst the people of Cuba by means of ist trade embargo.

In the interview he writes that „Israeli state-terrorism rules in Palaestine“, „every child that starves to death is murdered by the American agro-corporations“. I won’t comment on these statements because I belief that they are just too stupid. But I don’t want the reader to think that those two are the best we can offer.

Apostates in Egypt

I have written about the difficulties to convert from Islam to Christianity. In Egypt, a close ally to the US and multi-billion recipient of US arms, Mohammed Higazi (sometimes written Hegazy, if you want to google) has renouced Islam and converted to Christianity.

Not that I do like evangelistic Christians that much, I do believe that one’s belief is his private affair (I like Jews, because event though they are rassist, at least they don’t try to convert you).

On Egyptian IDs the religion is mentioned. And as it is very easy to get a new ID if you convert to Islam, the fall from Islam is frowned upon and Mohammed Higazi (will he also change his first name?) being one of less than eighty converts a year wanted to change his legal status which was much more difficult than you’d expect. About ten times as much convert from Christiantity to Islam with no problems...

But as his also Christian wife was pregnant he wanted to legalize his state so that his child could be raised as a Christian, visit Christian schools etc.. The clock is ticking.

As his case hit the news, death threats against his lawer started and Mohammed is not optimistic to win the case after being jailed and tortured in 2002 because of his converstion. But at least he won't go down without a fight.

His lawyer Mahdouh Nakhla, director of the Al Kalema Center for Human Rights is fighting since 1996 (eleven years!) for twelve born Christians who coverted to Islam due to a marriage but after the devorce wanted to return to Chritianity.

Due to those threats and due to additional preassure form the Egyptian secret police he gave up. It is widely known, that torture is rather the norm than the exception in Egyts prisons.

Islamists call apostates Murtad and support death penalty for apostates. As a lot of Egyptians worked in Saudi Arabia they got in contact with a more strict and militant Islam as the traditional Egyptian Islam and with the Muslim Brotherhood extremism threatens the about 10 percent of Copt Christians in Egypt.

Binge drinking

I have really little experience with drugs. I have never smoked, never used any hard drugs or even soft drugs as religion and marihuana. Alcohol is a drug I use on a weekly basis. Not every week but sometimes more than once a week.

I have been drunk about two times mostly because of love. Not love-drunk, just drunk to get over rejection. Less than once a month, I probably drink more than I should. Tilllate 7 was the last time, the last night in Ibiza an other.

As I normally drive to parties by car, I drink one unit max. Beer I don’t like much, therefore I might drink less than six a year. Gin Tonic is my poison. And I even might drink a Gin Tonic at home alone, but a bottle lasts for a very long time.

I am disgusted with drunk or intoxicated people and therefore keep excesses to a minimum.

Today, as I took the tram to work, a drunk had collapsed at a station surrounded by open and full bottles and his friends. I get a lot of cases of drug users at work and know how they end. And with their stinking breath, dirty clothes and ‚good’ company, they are nowhere where I want my life to go.

But I know I might sound old, I am also suprised how drunk young people get today. It is not as bad yet as what I saw in London last year, which was terrible, but drinking seems to be a major problem of young people. When I was younger and we experienced, we were more secret. Today it seems to be OK to get drunk in the middle of the town.

And don’t get me started on littering...

Having fun with hand grenades

One of my favourite blogs is fun with hand grenades also here at blogspot.

If you really are interested in a grunts view of Iraq, you have to read his blog. I am not sure, if he still writes, I’ve just reading what he has wrote from the beginning till December 2006.
Here he writes under the topic “Issues” and “Decisions, decisions” a lot which I agree completely. I will write more in the future but for the moment, I will just cite some of his thoughts. I hope, he won’t sue me.

While home I was constantly asked what we should do about Iraq. Do we send more troops, bring some home, or totally withdrawal? I used to think I knew what to do about Iraq but in the end it doesn’t matter; when the bullets start flying politics really do go out the window; people are trying to kill me and foreign policy doesn’t mean shit in that situation. On the flip side you’d assume I’d be a better position than the actual policy makers because unlike our think tanks I’ve actually been in the shit with my boots on the ground. I eventually realized that I simply don’t know what to do about Iraq anymore.

Which is the same with me. And he continues:

Iraq has no concept of national unity or patriotism. … Islam is divided up into two major sects, the Sunnis and the Shiites. The Kurds live in the Northern part of Iraq and generally have kept to themselves. Back in the day, Saddam, a Sunni, oppressed the Shiites along with persecuting and massacring the Kurds. Fast forward to 2006: the Sunnis are pissed because they don’t have their Saddam-era power base or wealth, the Shiites want retribution, and the Kurds still want to be left alone but wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to get a vengeful piece of that Sunni ass. What fuels the whole “Iraqi Civil War” scenario is just that, three distinctly different sects who generally don’t get along well. Because of the oppression/demand for vengeance there isn’t much national unity and the country is split along those lines.

If the US just left, Iraq would destroy itself in a matter of weeks. The Shiites would exact vengeance on the Sunnis then naturally and understandably the Sunnis would react. As much as I love the Kurds I wouldn’t be surprised if they also tried to pull some crazy shit.

The point is not anymore if it was right to topple Saddam Hussein, but how to get out of the situation.

It’s a good possibility that if Iraq was thrown into chaos its neighbouring countries (Turkey, Iran, Syria, etc.) would carve up a chunk for themselves. This would be totally unacceptable and particularly dangerous in the cases of Iran and Syria.

We shouldn’t leave. Iraq isn’t ready for us to leave. If we do the results could be disastrous. From my past writing you’d think I don’t give two shits about Iraq and I’m just concerned about getting home in one piece.

There isn’t an easy way to put this; we create more enemies everyday in this country. … it’s virtually impossible to actually fight.

We need to make sure Iraq becomes something that the Iraqi people deserve. Iraq will never be a world power but it can be a lot more than it is now. Twenty thousand plus American wounded and almost three thousand dead will have suffered and died for nothing if we fail. How we get to that point is something I don’t think I’ll ever figure out.

Statistics

The weekend was no good for my blog. Probably, everyone was enjoying the sun outside so I had only six visitors in two days. But the first one from the US. Welcome! Hope Yuki reads this soon, so I have my first Japanese visitor booked.

Sex in America

Yeah, sex sells, so lets have more of it. But what I want to talk about now, is not something to make fun of.

We in Europe always like to make fun of the Americans, but we have also a similar case in Turkey which I will talk more about in the near future.

Genarlow Wilson is imprisoned. He is black, which is no help in the US judicial system. But he had no contact with the police till his arrest.

His internet site describes him as „good son, good athlete and a high school student“. His life changed for the worse, when in the morning of New Year 2004 Michelle woke up with a hangover, wearing nothing but socks in a hotel room. Surrounding her were used condoms and empty Cognac-bottles.

She called her mom and told her that she had been raped.

The police interrogated 14 black teens aging from 15 to 17 years and found a videotape documenting the orgy with marihuana and alcohol. Michelle is being seen to have sex with several boys and Tracy, being only 15, gives blow jobs to some other boys. Not under threats or because being violated, but consensual.

That the sex was consensual was not denied by those two involved girls nor by a third girl who was also present during the party. The last one even transcripted, that the first two girls thrust themselves upon the boys.

Because Tracy was only 15 years old, the police concentrated on her case. Five teens, all 17 years old, were arrested on charges of aggravated child molestation (because Tracy was two years younger than they were).

They did this, because under Georgia law, the penalty for engaging in oral sex with a minor is more severe than raping a person of the same age.

Almost two years before this case, a 18-year-old black man was accused of raping a white classmate who was fifteen, but only three months from her sixteenth birthday. Even the author of the statute argued, that the aim of the law was to protect children from grownups, not to meddle in teenage sex.

Some of the teens accepted pleas to lesser charges in exchange for lighter terms. They would not have to serve the 10 year prison term but they would stay registered sex offenders forever. And would you give a job to a sexual offender? Didn’t think so.

Genarlow, the one kid without no prior problems with the law and a second guy decided to go to court instead of a bargain. They hoped, the jurors would understand their position and even though they knew, that what they had done, was not good, at least would not have been put to jail for at least ten years. They were teenager, and as teenager trying to find their way into adulthood with no ill will, no malice and no intent to commit a crime.

As the trial begun, the second guy caved in and made a bargain. The judge and the jurors did not seem to understand the situation nor did they understand what the law intended for and sentenced Genarlow guilty of rape and aggravated child molestation and sent him to jail for 10 years.

McDade, the district attorney says that the law did not allow him to plea for any other conviction and throws the ball back to the legislator. Which is also the excuse Eichmann had in WWII. “We don’t believe that a 10-year sentence is an appropriate punishment [in this case], but he made that decision to put himself in that predicament,” explains McDade, of Genarlow’s refusal to cop a plea.

And he also says, that race was no topic. Hear, hear. “Calling me a racist denigrates the people who are victims in this case.”

But there are also other cases of white adults prosecuted by same Judges for sex crimes involving minors and received far lighter sentences than any of the teens in this case.

You can find more here.

The DA involved was also accused by two female employees of sexual harrassment some years ago and even though those charges were dismissed, where there is smoke, there might be fire.

The Campaign for Juvenile Justice say that African-American and Latino are far more likely to be trialled as adults even if they were juveniles at the time of the crime and that less of their cases were transferred back to juvenile court comparing to White teens.

But for me, the question of race is not that important. I rather fear the conservative backlash on sexual liberation. A lot of people, even those calling them Liberals or thinking of themselves as progressive have a very hostile view of sexuality and even though I believe in honouring women and even though I would not have sex with a drunk woman, I do not believe it is right, to send a young man to jail for ten years, just because he got a blowjob from a girl two years younger than himself.

Tilllate Party 7

Yesterday I went to the 7 years Party of tilllate. I hadn’t quite figured it out, if I wanted to go at all or not. In fact, I even had planned to cover some other parties in Basel for tilllate.

I didn’t really mind going to tilllate 7, I just didn’t want to drive on my own nor did I want travel with the tilllate-coach. Not that I minded travelling with the other tilllaters. But I wasn’t looking forward to have to wait till six to take the bus back.

But Christian asked me if I would join him and I reluctantly agreed. The trip to Zurich was pleasant. Christian has a big car. We found a free parking and were suprised that we were not VIP. A theme that would continue the evening.

I met Debby at the entrance. Talked a bit but then went inside with Christian. He met two girls, one of them I did not recognize at first but I really knew from some other parties. But she remembered me. I liked her and her friend who I hope to meet again soon. James came and asked us to meet for a picture, which is when I last saw the ladies. Bad, bad James.

The Lounge for the photographers was, hm, I try to put it politely, shitty. There was no place to sit and it really didn’t look very stable. The usual photographers were not allowed in the VIP-Section. So I missed talking to some of the other people at tilllate who themselves were allowed in the VIP section. Debby told me, that this happened because last year, some photographers puked next to our clients. From the outside the VIP-section looked nice. Anthony was very pissed, that we were not allowed inside as the photographers used to be the most important part of tilllate and now, according to him, are less important than the companies. He added, that we should go on a strike for a week or two.

There was something about the worlds largest Vodka bottle, which is no fun, if you’re not allowed to drink from it. And there should have been the launch of tilllates new design. But I saw nothing of it. Some Mister Switzerland made a speech which didn’t receive much attention. There was even clamour. They should have taken an ex Miss Switzerland or Christa Rigozzi, the Miss Switzerland 2006 because most of the photographers are blokes. Or even a vice-Miss Switzerland. I was looking for the other guys, to no avail. Talked to Debby again who even though she had been told to only have to work till 23:00 wasn’t relieved from duty till 3:00 when I went home. She is nice, even more than just nice.

The music was OK, but the rest of the party, better to forget asap. Next year, if I’m not allowed in the VIP-section, I will pass.

Photos from the Zoo of Basel

For the first time, I want to show you some small pictures I took in the Zoo of Basel.

Moldova

Claudia Ciobanu gives in her post an inside view of life in Moldova.

She writes, that a Romanian journalist working in Moldova receives 100 Euro for daily expenses which equals the monthly salary of a Moldavian journalist.

An other important topic is the freedom of press or rather the restrictions of free press as well as the corruption and nepotism in the government of Moldova.

Claudia Ciobanu writes:

Still, in spite of these limitations and disappointments, Chisinau gives the impression of a very lively town. The center is full of posters for theatre and dance performances. Young people meet, chat and fill up the internet cafes in search of information. Many will go aboard, some will stay, few hope that life in their country will get better.

Der Fall von Madrid by Rafael Chirbes

I’ve been thinking for some time about further rankings. I am even working at a few.

But now I want to talk about the book I am reading right now Der Fall von Madrid by Rafael Chirbes. I have not found an English translation. Even though I read the German version and not the Spanish Original, I really do like this book. The story takes place in 1975, Franco, the dictator of post WWII is dying in an hospital. We follow the paths and thoughts of about eight people somehow related to José Ricart who on this same day celebrates his 75th birthday.

The aftermath of the Spanish Civil War between the Republicans on one side and the Socialists on the other side separate Spain’s citizens till today and will continue to haunt its people in the future.

This trench runs even between families and what I like most about this book is that Chirbes writes each person differently. A professor talks and thinks in different words than a worker. His writing is best when he writes how the wife of Ricart, who herself is in a state between sanity and madness, sees the world around her.

I can really recommend this book and would give it 9 out of 10 points.