You thought you wouldn’t get a chance to relive the golden days of the Cold War? Think again. Russia is back with a spanking of Georgia (not the U.S. state my friend thought) on Thursday in about 1 1/2 minute. Although the Georgian president and the Bush Administration are BFF, nonetheless, it did not stop Russia from flexing its newly oil and natural gas wealth filled muscle for a quick delivery of can of whoop-ass, as they say in the States.

For people in my generation the term Cold War is something we’ve only heard from movies or our history teachers. I always thought the world needs two super-powers, just like evil needs to be counteracted by good. If we only have one super-power, well, we know what that’s like. Besides, that Georgian president really needs to have his mouth shut at the least. For one, he did not win the January election fairly. Second, he thinks he has a right to start a war with Russia that the U.S. will automatically back him because he has the Bush Administration’s number on speed-dial.

Is it just me or this Saakhasvilli guy is a classic narcissist who can’t remove himself in front of the camera night and day? Every time I turn on the news, he’s right there blabbering nonsense when she should be doing what head of states do, mainly show dignity and restrain while letting his foreign minister do the diplomatic talk. Instead of using a dignified tone towards the West’s response and Russia, he’s thrash-talking as if he’s in a pick-up game.

Maybe I have an old-school view of international conflict and resolution, but still, Saakhasvilli really needs to keep his mouth shut for the most part and stay off of every cable news channel.

I was just trying to register my new address with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services online, and as part of ‘what country of citizenship’ question, I looked for ‘Somalia’ but apparently there are three different types of Somalia: regular, messed up, worst humanitarian crisis ‘Somali’, ‘Somaliland’, and a new country now called ‘Somali Democratic Republic’. It is interesting because I didn’t know such a Somali Democratic Republic country existed before. I always thought it was just plain Somalia (at least since the Siad Bare government).

Take note that even though the U.S. does not recognize Somaliland as a country, nonetheless one of its agencies  does. Quite perplexing to say the least. As for Somali Democratic Republic, which apparently is not the same as war-torn Somalia that I come from, I have no idea which country that is. Maybe there are Somali Democratic Republic citizens reading this post. If so, please tell me about this wonderful country called Somali Democratic Republic. 

For now, I’m still sticking with just Somalia.

I finally met with my study abroad advisor yesterday, what turned out to be the worst heat wave I’ve ever lived through - no exaggeration, I was sweating like Shaquille O’Neal in the NBA finals in the fourth quarter against Detroit. Although I couldn’t find a program in the Middle East as I hoped, I was offered to choose either Bangkok, Thailand or Hyderabad, India. Granted, none of these places are my first or second choices but I don’t have the capital backing of Wall Street daddy so whatever I’m offered is what I have to take. 

As far as I can see, these two destinations are pretty much similar - both in South Asia, more or less similar economic, climate, and cost of living. Of course, India and Thailand are a completely different countries in every aspect. But what I care about is the cost of the whole experience minus “personal” expenditure. In this category, Hyderabad comes on top. The dollar is worth more in India than in Thailand, so even after the initial expense, I’d still spend far less in India than in Thailand. 

During my research I learned that it’s $3,000 more expensive to study in Ghana than in Malta, a country that has one of the highest living standards in the Mediterranean. When I was sitting in my advisor’s office while he went out to get the application print out, I thought of using coin toss to decide which destination I should sign up. I didn’t go that route because I want to get the most consultation I can get before my decision is final.

Besides, I still have to get two academic reference letters plus the application itself, which then they will send it to a regional office (in my State), who then will send it to the International Student Exchange Program’s office, which in turn will send it to the host institution. The host institution will make my acceptance or rejection (yeah, even if you’re paying extortionist amount) within a short period.

Then I’ll just have to move on to the next bullshit - immigration, visas, travel shots…

So here’s my question: which one is the best choice for me?

I never knew bloggers also have ’slow cycles’. I clearly didn’t plan out to neglect my blog this long but it feels as if I’m in a slow-motion period, where everything takes forever to come to a conclusion. Not only have I neglected this blog but I haven’t really been paying much attention to what’s going on in the world either.

I guess researching a study abroad destination and all the things that come with it plus life’s usual daily grind isn’t exactly all that slow. However, I’m ready for school now. Just not the reading, writing, exams, and studying part.

Isn’t amazing this evil madmen was hiding nowhere for over a decade while the world was convinced he was hiding in the remote mountains of Serbia. It just goes to show that mass murders will always get away for the most part. Now all politician are chanting ‘this is a great day for international justice.’ I hope they don’t pull a Milosevic again. Actually, they’ve already indicated this guy’s trial will take up to six years. Right.

Crazy evil Serb

Well, keep me posted for his ’sudden’ death in his prison cell.  

Karadzic Arrest Is First Step In Legal Process

UPDATE: Apparently Karadzid was protected by the CIA all these years. I thought The Hunting Party exaggerated the facts “little” but everything in that movie turns out to be 100% accurate after all. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the biggest mass murderers of the twentieth century were protected and sheltered by the great Lady Liberty itself.

Here’s the original article based on the movie. A great read, by the way.

The Sudanese president is so bad that the useless International Court is charging him with ‘genocide.’ Oh how noble! Conveniently propping up charges based on the interviews of rebel leaders, who I may add are part of the ‘genocide’, is exactly how to show the barbaric “arabs” they cannot get away with ‘genocide’ against the ‘black Africans’. Isn’t ironic how one race is divided into two races just using language? It baffles me to see how even educated people have come to believe that the conflict in Sudan is about “Arabs” ethnic cleansing “Black Africans.”

Note that the people from Darfur are “Black Africans,” not just Africans or Blacks, as where every Sudanese from the North is “Arab.” I know I’m not Arab because every Sudanese person I meet believes I’m Sudanese so I can only conclude that people from Sudan can only be black, not Arab. Furthermore, my former colleague from Darfur and my college mates from khartoum seem just plain black to me. They both speak Arabic. Yet looking at the ‘news’ it is impossible not to see the imaginary creation of a new race in Sudan. 

Remember when they use the terms ‘Arab’ for Northerners (associated with the ethnic cleansing of the genocide) and ‘Black Africans’ for the Darfuris even though both look the same (beside some skin shade differences), speak the same language, and practice the same religion (for the most part - a percentage of Darfuris have been converted to Christianity by missionaries since the conflict started in the early 1980s) because these terms denote the imaginary arab vs. non-arab narratives that have been created by the Western press. 

I’m not defending Omar Al-Bashir’s role in the conflict - after all, the Darfur conflict was already in progress before he came into power - but I find it criminal to single out Omar Al-Bashir for genocide when Meles Zenawi is doing the same thing in Somalia, Ogaden, and to the rest of non-Tigre population of Ethiopia. If that is too much for the noble-intentioned West, how about the warlord thugs they’re paying millions of dollars (in hard cash no less) in Somalia? I’m sure they can manage that, no?

I went to the post office today to get a $900 money order, all in $20 dollar bills - the only headache I find in money. I prefer $100 bills because they’re easy to count unlike the $20 bills. Actually, the money wasn’t mine but my mom’s. So on my way to beat the 2pm bank deadline she hands me eight hundred dollars in twenty dollar bills which she never tells me the amount. I get to the bank at 1:59pm, making the same-day deposit deadline - I felt like I was in a movie, especially as I made my turn to the road the bank was located at a high speed, a damned cop was sitting at the traffic light which for a moment gave me heart-pounding few seconds.

After I finished with the bank I went to the post office to make the money order. I get in there and give the nice lady at the counter the money and tell her I don’t exactly know how much it is so count it carefully. She counted just like I did: 1, 2, 3,4,5 - $100, 1,2,…$100. The only thing this technique of counting results in is confusing, at least for me anyway. She finishes counting and says it’s $900. I tell her to count it again, but this time put each hundred dollar she counts on the counter so we know exactly how much there is. Before I finish, she mumbles something like ‘I counted 40 twenty dollar bills,” but I somehow only hear part of it and as she is not going to count it again, I leave it alone. I pay the fees and she gives me the money order but I’m still confused if the money was really $900 and not $800 as I suspect.

I take the money order and receipt and head for home, although in the back of my mind there is this feeling that I may have taken money that doesn’t belong to me. As soon as I drive home, I call my mom to ask her how much money she gave me but before she answer my question she manages to ask me why I didn’t count the money as she asked so I tell her that I was rushing when I left home so I didn’t get a chance to count it. I ask her again how much money she gave me and she says $800. Now clearly there is no doubt I’m taking money that doesn’t belong to me, I make a swift u-turn in the middle of the street to go back.  

I get back to the post office within minutes of leaving thinking the lady may have figured out the missing $100 but surprisingly she has not and I get in line for my turn. So when my turns comes I tell her in my nervous voice that I just realized her saying she counted 40 twenty dollar bills which is only $800. She goes ‘oh my god, you are right, I did say that.’ She takes out the now bundled money (which I think is USPS policy) and starts following standard operating procedure so I tell to just take the $100 from my debit card and leave at that. But she tells me that she has to follow the SOP and have to void my money order then make a new one for me. 

In the middle of redoing the money order she starts thanking me for saving her job and $100 from her pocket, which I didn’t even think about it at that time. After I left I realized that $100, had I kept it, could’ve ruin that lady’s life. Still, it doesn’t come natural to return a money that technically you didn’t steal, rob, or con. But good deeds are a hardwork indeed.

Does this ever happen to  other people: your off from work and school so you decide to do something you want to do, but end up doing nothing that’s neither useful or you want to do? How may times does this ever happen? 

When I woke up this morning I had plenty of things I wanted to do: read the Qur’an, go shopping for summer-ish cloth, and hang out with someone I care about. Instead, I spend my whole day arguing with a human wall who doesn’t understand that writing a letter to the United Nation’s Refugee Resettlement Agency on behalf of your crazy nephew in East Africa doesn’t bring them here. I have already written two e-mails on behalf of this boofis-consumed individual (I don’t know the equivalent word of boofis in English - but it’s a word Somalis use to describe someone who spends day and night talking, thinking, and dreaming about emigrating to the West), which has resulted in nothing.

So today, because of this guy’s boofis-induced state of mind that concocted wild story, I had to spend my whole day explaining at length and eventually writing the useless letter. I’m all for helping out someone who has a “case” that needs help with translation and bureaucracy stuff, but I absolutely resent being asked to do the same thing over and over again, which I know leads to nowhere. 

I’ve gone through the process myself like millions of people and I know it by heart but when this guy thinks that a letter written on behalf of him by his elderly aunt (in which she will say she’s willing to take the financial burden of the trip, blah blah) will magically bring him from Jomo Kenyatta to JFK, I feel angry and disrespected. Just listening to his logical thinking infuriates me. 

People who have boofis are obsessive compulsive on top of having all the psychological disorders found on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder. I wasn’t doing for him but for his elderly aunt that happens to be my distant aunt. What is criminal about this guy is how he manipulates his elderly aunt day after day. I wish I still had my Mungiki connection so I can have him bumped off.

Until today, Nelson Mandela and Osama Bin Laden were equal in the eyes of the U.S. governmnet? That’s right, for nearly thirty years Nelson Mandela and his ANC party members have been on the U.S. terrorist list. What for, you may ask? Just fighting apartheid and its evil practioners.

Imagine that.

I’ve been reading the many articles that have been published since Friday’s Zimbabwe non-election election. Granted, Morgan Tsvangirai’s absence from the ballot is a clear indication that no election has taken place, yet what I’ve been reading about this in the West’s beyond absurd propagandist tabloid-coverage about Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe is even a bigger indication of a sustained and persistent attack on an independent country. I can’t fathom how the so called journalist covering Zimbabwe have convinced themselves that what they’re doing is actually a worth-while and in the interest of the public. Cut the bullshit.

As I have wrote before, Robert Mugabe is not serving in the interest of his people and his country - that has been going on for a while now so let’s take that off the table. But I refuse to be brain-washed and told what to believe about Robert Mugabe and his legacy in the fight against colonial punks who, not surprisingly, are behind the systemic efforts to demonize and eventually convince those of us who still have their independent thinking and choose to stand up to punks who use the pen as weapon of bullying. I refuse to accept Zimbabwe’s sovereignty be meddled in by neither agents of the British government or its mouthpieces: BBC, AP, NY Times, etc.

I don’t see eye-to-eye with Mugabe on most things, but I agree with him 100% everything he believes about the West, particularly those imperialist bloodsuckers at 10 Downing Street and its bully friends (including the press) everywhere. Reading these hate-filled propaganda leaflets makes me believe even more that Robert Mugabe’s suspicion about the West is as just true as it was in the 19th and 20th century. Sometimes it takes a semi-sane man to shout continuously what has always been right in front of us: Europe is at where it is today because it has plundered Africa’s resource during colonial Europe and after independence - it was just more careful in hiding its activities in Africa after independence, thanks to the countless wars and coup d’état Europe and America created and funded for years and still continue to do so. What a brilliant disguise to turn the ‘natives’ against each other while stealing the continent’s riches. I digress…

One of the propaganda talking-points that kept coming up almost in every story was the fake-outrage over the silence of African leaders, in particular the clear rejection of the propaganda whores’ demonization of Robert Mugabe by the African leaders. When Nelson Mandela spoke out late last week, the whores of imperialists were shocked to learn that Mr. Mandela’s criticism was only limited to the election and the violence that surrounds it, not what they had fantasized about. And earlier in the week Mr. Mandela’s successor, Thabo Mbeki, essentially gave the West the middle finger and told them to back off. This might be surprising to these assholes but all African leaders (whether elected or not ) know this propaganda is intended to essentially return Zimbabwe in the hands of the neocolonialists.

Just as I always write at the end of these types of posts, my defense of Robert Mugabe is limited to his fight against foreign and neocolonialism domination in his country, just as I would defend every people’ right to self-determination without interference from anyone, anywhere, at anytime. With that said, Robert Mugabe probably does have blood on his hands. Then again, so are those who are trying to destroy him.

UPDATE: Here’s an example of the British government mouthpiece’s spin on Desmond Tutu’s recent comments about Zimbabwe, “I think that a very good argument can be made for having an international force to restore peace,” which magically turns up in this headline as: Tutu Urges Zimbabwe Intervention. They don’t even try to ‘hide’ their propaganda bullshit. But if you read just a paragraph below, you will see Morgan Tsvangiria distancing himself from the war drumbeats of the British Bastard Corporation and prefering to take out Mugabe through his party’s majority seat in parliament and ‘political’ pressure, even if that means allowing Mugabe to be ceremonial head of state. It takes a smart man to recognize bringing in foreign occupiers to your land is not in the best interest of your people and sovereignty. Just as Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga settled their differences through dialoge and compromise, there is no reason why Mugabe and Tsvangiria can’t do the same.