ANYTHING

There's an ongoing flame-war on whether there's any truth to the story of a CIA plane loaded with 3.2 tons of cocaine that crashed in the Yucatan after being chased by Mexican helicopters

For instance, tommywotats says:

a gulfstream wouldn't even get off the ground with 3.2 tons of payload. writer is an asshat.

I'm tempted to say that anything and anyone loaded with 3.2 tons of cocaine can do ANYTHING. Unfortunately, I don't actually know anything about cocaine or any other illegal drugs (except for the fact that, uh, they're illegal). I'm an Uber Cool High Nerd, not a stoner, so all I can do is spout untested epigrams, witticisms, and the occasional solecism.

Or try to. Hehehehe.

[Update]
OK, so plane was used for CIA renditions, but has since been sold several times and fell into the hands of someone who was probably always running drugs. But then I didn't say ANYTHING about the CIA running drugs above :-). I'm just saying, anything loaded with 3.2 tons of cocaine can do ANYTHING!!! :-). hahahaha.

MEMO to George W Bush. If you invade Mexico now, you can get that 3.2 tons of cocaine. And then you'll be able to do ANYTHING!!!!

OLPC Pilot Project in Peru - awesome

I posted this on my other me because it's tech. But it's sufficiently good (socially, economically, emotionally :-) that I'll post it here too.

There's a great post on OLPC uptake and how it's changing the school experience in Arahuay, Peru.

This is very inspiring. If all (or even half of all) social/economic development projects were to end up 1/10th as effective as OLPC-Peru/Arahuay has been, the world would be incredibly good.
Antonio is repeating second grade, but:

The first day Antonio came to school with his XO laptop, instead of playing during recess, he kept on exploring the XO. He quickly became one of the most acquainted with it and empowered to help his classmates by telling them how to do this or that. The change was suddenly and highly noticeable. His teacher was amazed of how he had become more focused doing the class work and was helping his classmates with the computer activities.

And Diego's story is hard but heartwarming.

Diego is in second grade. He had stopped coming to school. However, he did come to pick up his XO laptop the day we handed them out. His teacher explained to me, that he has no father, and that his mother went to Lima, the capital, to work. And now, Diego and his two brothers are living by themselves, but a kind neighbor gives them their meals.

After that quote, there's a picture of Diego helping a first grader on using the OLPC.

Emilio is a hero:

“Once, when the teacher was explaining to the children how to look up some new words in the on-line Diccionario de la Real Academia Española [the best Spanish dictionary, costly and practically out of the children's reach in book form]. Emilio understood the procedure and quickly looked up the entire list of words while the teachers and the other students, together, slowly went through the process. The Internet connection went down. The teacher made the best of the situation and explained what the Internet was and about the satellite connection, for them to understand what was going on, and ended by saying, "We will have to wait a little bit until the connection is reestablished." To which Emilio replied, "No need, teacher. I got all the words, and everybody can copy them from me.”

But not just any hero. Anyone can shoot other people or order peons to shoot other peons. Emilio is a hero of the mind.

It's pretty clear that the OLPC is inspiring kids to stay in school. At best, they get interested in school and using the OLPC. At worst, they'll stay in school because if they don't, the OLPC will be taken from them.

Favorite

I have always loved this one. "I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?".

I didn't realize it was Tanzan though. Everywhere else I read it, it was always just "two monks" :-).

And I'd not heard this mother's advice before, but it's precious

Jiun, a Shogun master, was a well-known Sanskrit scholar of the Tokugawa era. When he was young he used to deliver lectures to his brother students.

His mother heard about this and wrote him a letter.:

"Son, I do not think you became a devotee of the Buddha because you desired to turn into a walking dictionary for others. There is no end to information and commentation, glory and honor. I wish you would stop this lecture business. Shut yourself up in a little temple in a remote part of the mountain. Devote your time to meditation and in this way attain true realization."

The united states of anuses

U.S. mercenaries provide firepower and protection to the U.S. State Department, so the State Department ignores numerous instances where the mercenaries kill civilians. When one mercenary kills the bodyguard of an Iraqi bigshot, INSIDE THE GREEN ZONE, because (from another report), the mercenary needed to kill someone that night, the mercenary is flown out of Iraq and is no longer available for questioning or justice

This has been a consistent pattern of U.S. imperialism. No one gets punished unless the shit hits the fan. Even when the shit hits the fan, no one gets punished unless there is an outcry in the U.S.

There's hardly ever an outcry. And even when there is, it's easily ignored. So Americans rape and kill with impunity. It's not just individuals they rape and kill, it's entire countries and civilizations.

Go home America. And stay the fuck home. Kill your own. Rape your own. Torture each other. But leave the rest of the world alone.

you missed two

So the Bush administration hires mercenaries run by some nutjob christian (there are quite a few of those, as there are quite a few in any religion, although there are fewer buddhist nutjobs than other religions have, and perhaps more pagan nutjobs than even christian nutjobs) fanatic. They strut through a foreign country killing people and there's neither oversight nor retribution.

And MarkTheShark on the Daily Kos limits himself to "Impede, impeach and imprison".

That's not enough. Close to (or perhaps more than) half a million Iraqi dead and millions of refugees cleverly created by the anti-christ in the white house and you shrink from penalties that don't fit your alliteration?

No, you missed two. Convict. Execute.

I'd consider torturing Bush and Cheney too, but I'm not an American.

Reich Wingers!!!

Hahahahaha in the comments to an article on "Taser This! FUCK BUSH", EnderW gives me a wonderful new phrase.

I once told a good friend the spanish for "To Fuck", and she started shouting it in public. At the time I was merely embarrassed. Now I know what she was feeling. Hahahahaha.

good news, bad news

First the bad. Timmy is sick. He's got colds and a cough. Because of the cough he's tired and irritable in the daytime and doesn't sleep for very long at night. He'll recover, of course, but he sounds bad when coughing.

We've been told (by maelene, his aunt-pediatrician) to give him medicine. I forget exactly what everything is, but there's a nebulizer, and solmux, and something else. All treat the symptoms only. But that's because the cough will go away by itself, we just need to suppress the symptoms so that timmy (and his parents) aren't too stressed out by the coughing.

I almost didn't go to work yesterday because I wanted to be home to help out. Went to work though. Today, it's similar. Going to work though, after this post.

On the good news side, we've got our invitation to apply for immigration to NZ. It's been a long process, but I've been glad of that. This way, the schedule works out pretty well. We have 3 months to actually lodge the application. And once that's accepted (probably within a week of application, NZ Immigration is frighteningly efficient) we'll have a month or so to make the trip. I hope we can stay in the Philippines up to 3 months after the application is accepted. I'd like to finish up some things at work. We'll see what happens though. In any case, we'll be in NZ by March, certainly, or maybe a little earlier.

There's still the option of sol going over and finding work and timmy and I staying in Manila until sol is stable. That would be much the more practical choice (financially). I don't think it's likely that we'll do that though, unless money is extraordinarily tight. And it's unlikely that things will be that tight then.

[Update]
It's Wednesday now. Timmy is still sick and the weather is bad. I'm working remote.

not so good today

I ate something yesterday and it's been winding its way through my system. Slowly. I'm getting better though. So I'll be at work today. Or if not, I'm well enough to sit up and do work :-).

hahahahaah

George is da Meyn!!!!

NerdTest

I saw Orly point at his his nerd test.

Didn't have much to do (timmy is at a children's birthday party which we didn't go to since we were busy procuring the carrot cake and brazo de mercedes for sol's birthday party), so I went and did the test too.

Sol's birthday dinner

It's Sol's birthday tomorrow. Dinner tonight is very special. She and her mother are preparing dinner. Mostly it's sol doing the preparing. It's sort of unfair since she really should be able to relax. But she's also the best cook in the house, so she gets to cook.

We've got some lovely tuna sashimi. Sol and I taste tested some and it is very, very good. We're definitely going back to Citra Mina for more.

The ziti is waiting to be baked. The sea bass has already been prepared and is waiting there, maybe it's soaking up spices. It's also waiting to be baked. The blue marlin is now a misono (taste tested personally, very lovely). It's too bad we already had the Metrus Shiraz with apples and cheese last night :-). But there are goodies in the refrigerator, particularly cheeses. We'll make do.

I'm not sure what we're going to have tomorrow. Sol wants steak, so it's probably Outback steakhouse or similar for lunch. Then badminton. I've been informed that I'm to buy the chocolate cake, from Mary Grace. OK, mission clear tomorrow :-). Buy cake, eat cake.

Michael Gerson is a lying bastard

In a Washington Post article, Michael Gerson holds up the Bush administration as one that "has placed human rights at the center of his foreign policy agenda in unprecedented ways"

Apparently leaving other countries to decide their own government (Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq) and, more important, leaving the citizens alive instead of raping the women, killing the women, children and all men of military age in an area are efforts toward defending human rights.

Michael Gerson is a lying bastard. Possibly a more dangerous one than that other lying bastard Charles Krauthammer. More dangerous because he isn't foaming at the mouth and talking about how great it would be to ethnically cleanse and kill all the ragheads.

Both Gerson and Krauthammer have infinities to spend in hell, being raped repeatedly and continuously by the heroes whose nether regions they are so avidly licking now.

Desktop Wallpaper

Naturally, timmy is on my desktop.

Reflecting moon

Via digg and reddit, I saw:




So as to be able to post an IMG here, I copied it to photobucket and linked there.

It's by Licya

The original URL is: Reflejo - Reflection

Great work.