Bis später!

There will be little or no posts until Tuesday the 5th as I will be in the mist of the Köln Karneval, where me and 3 friends will try to make our way as a Mariachi Band. Hopefully, and most likely, incredible stories will take place and will be told in the blogg upon return.

A tout a l'heure! bis gleich! hasta luego! jajajajajaja!

No offense, but you look kind of fat!

It is high time to comment on the expression "No offense but.." or "Don't mean to be arrogant but.." Many people think that by using these expressions, the gloves are off, and it's suddenly ok, or humorous, to be totally honest about someone's new haircut, new clothes, new kilos, new date, etc. You get the point. They will say "No offense but.." followed by something that is very difficult not to take offense from. These people are using the expression the wrong way.

So what is the right way to use this expression? Well, in my opinion, it's when you HAVE TO say something that might come across as rude, arrogant, or none of your business. Not just when you feel like it. And even then it's difficult. If you’re going to get away with this it requires what the Germans call "fingerspitzgefühl", good taste, or tact. That's it, lesson over. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I have better things to do with my time than trying to teach stupid people how to behave themselves!

A can of cheeseburger

The consumer price of this mouth-watering product is a reasonable 4 euros per can. I advice you all to stock up! Bon appetit!

Water(boarding) under the bridge?

In the Jan. 25 issue of the National Journal Magazine, former Director of National Intelligence in the Bush administration John Negroponte, admitted that the United States has used an "interrogative technique", classified as torture in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and banned by the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which the US has signed.

The "technique" is called waterboarding, or artificial drowning. The subjects to this technique are immobilized on their backs, with their heads tilted backwards and their faces covered by a cloth. Then a huge amount of water is poured into the breathing passages. Sometimes a piece of cloth is placed in the mouth, and the water is poured directly on the cloth. The effect is that, through suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences drowning and believes that he/she is going to die. The technique can be questioned on the grounds that most people would admit to anything when they think they are about to die, and therefore the method is useless.

In most cases however, the gag reflex is evoked, and the subjects survive, without any visible physical damage to the body, (one of the reasons the method is so popular). But apart from extreme pain and psychological trauma, serious damage to the lungs and the brain (due to oxygen deprivation) can occur. Agents who volunteered to subject themselves to this method endured a maximum of 14 seconds before they gave up. CIA has admitted to destroying tapes of 9/11 suspects being subjected to waterboarding.

It comes as no surprise to me that Bush’s deputy Dick Cheney has referred to waterboarding as "an important tool" to interrogate Sept. 11 suspects. Nor that the Gung-ho NY mayor and current republican presidential candidate Rudi Giuliani has rambled about not supporting the version of waterboarding depicted in "liberal media". That it depends on how it's done and who does it, etc. What does however surprise me is the Kreml-like comment made by Negroponte, arguing with very questionable logic that "waterboarding wasn't used when I was director of national intelligence, nor even a few years before that. I get concerned that we're too retrospective and tend to look in the rearview mirror too often at things that happened four or even six years ago."

Come on guys! Maybe people were tortured, maybe international human rights conventions were breached, BUT IT WAS SEVERAL YEARS AGO! It’s all water under the bridge…

Impossible love

When you were here before. I couldn't look you in the eyes. Your're just like an angel. Your skin makes me cry. You float like a feather. In a beautiful world. I wish I was special. Your're so very special. And I'm a crêpe. I'm a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here...

Welcome!

It is with distinct honor, narcissistic pleasure, and great self-respect, that I welcome myself, the one and only "Adonis", to the worldwide world of blogging on the wild word-web!

This blog will be commited to the strange ideas and reflections going through my mind, things that I think are wrong with the world, things that I think are right with the world, reflections on current events, and a lot of sex.