Saudi Arabia?

People in Germany are all upset now, because Angela Merkel and her cabinet of assorted idiots have decided to sell tanks to the Saudis, which previous administrations had always refused to do.
People are saying that the Saudis will use the tanks against their own people (using them against someone else's people would be so much nicer, right?). They're saying that this move on Merkel's part really surprises them.
Really? It surprises them?
Have they already forgotten the Angela Merkel who, as leader of the opposition, apologized to George W. Bush when then-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder decided that he wouldn't help with the Irak invasion? The leader of our opposition apologized for a decision our government made to a foreign head of state?

And then the people went ahead and voted for her. Wow. Retards.

And it's not as if the others in her cabinet are any different: from Guido Westerwelle, who probably qualifies for a spot in the Special Olympics, to Wolfgang Schaeuble, who once famously uttered that "The Irak war was a mistake, but it's better than the United States losing face." Yep, he prefers thousands of people dieing -on both sides- to Bush saying "I was wrong, let's get out of here."

And now you people are surprised to see that Merkel acts like the neo-con puppet that she is? Kissing Washington's ass and doing what the White House tells her to do comes as a surprise to you? What a short memory you have.

The problem of democracies is that in theory, the cream should rise to the top so that the best people may govern society; but the reality is all too often that we are nothing but a giant ocean, in which endless waves of collective amnesia always bring the same excrement back to the top.

The good people have long gone into economics, and only those too stupid for something better get stuck in politics, where these dime-a-dozen bureaucrats masquerade as statesmen and diplomats. And we keep voting for them, for lack of credible alternatives.
And then we act surprised when they act like the unconscionable, morally corrupt embarrassments to the human species that they are.
One can only shake one's head.

Endlich!

Bin endlich mit der deutschen Uebersetzung von 'Methods of Suicide' fertig geworden.
War ein ganzes Stueck Arbeit, hoffentlich wird sich das auch lohnen. Jetzt bin ich dabei, das Marokko Buch zu uebersetzen, aber das wird dauern. Patience, patience....
 Methoden des Suizids

F1

So the Grand Prix took place this weekend here in rainy Montreal... i used to watch F1 religiously, when I was a kid. I'd spend the whole 2 hours glued to our tiny 14" TV, hoping that my hero, Alain Prost, would win. Which he did frequently
Nowadays though, I don't really care. Races are decided solely by pit strategies and tire wear, and driving skill seems to have become meaningless. There is so much aerodynamic downforce and so little mechanical grip that all cars take the exact same line through each corner, and passing or even -gasp- long battles for position have long been a thing of the past. Gone are the days of Prost-Senna battles, never to return. Well, unless the FIA finally get a clue and return to cars that have small wings and wide tires, to give the more importance to driving skill than to a team's aerodynamicist. But I'm not holding my breath...
For those of you who want to see what F1 used to be like, way back when, here's a nice clip featuring Montreal's own Gilles Villeneuve (in the Ferrari), fighting for second place with Rene Arnoux (in the yellow Renault). Enjoy.
Villeneuve vs Arnoux

Idols

I have to admit, as annoying as those "American Idol"-type shows are, I admire the idea behind them.
I do. Stop laughing.
You see, with people like Britney Spears and Lady Gaga, a record company must invest enormous amounts of money into the public image that it wants to create for their star, and there's no guarantee -in spite of all the market analysis that they undoubtedly perform- that the public will buy into it.
But with these so-called talent shows (on which only losers compete), the audience itself chooses which tone-deaf retard it prefers. Once the popular phone-in vote has established a winner in this loser contest, the media promote that person as if he or she were the second coming of Buddha, and the population at large embraces him. The producers of the show then quickly throw an album of inoffensive shmaltz together for him to, uh, 'sing' on; and everyone rushes out to buy it. It's brilliant, you make money off of the idiotic masses who cannot decide for themselves what kind of music they like, and you have to make virtually no investment of your own.
And on top of that, you actually get paid to sit in a TV studio and insult your guests. I'd do that for free (well, I already do that now, except I don't sit in a TV studio). The show itself isn't free (there's money from advertisers), the hosts receive a salary... and for what? Exactly, nothing.
It really was and remains a great idea, and the only thing that bugs me about it (aside from the god-awful 'music' and the insufferable 'stars' these shows create) is the fact that I didn't come up with this myself.

Just testing

I'm just testing to see how this works. I used to have two blogs on a site called weebly, but I shut them down after moving to a pay-site for my business. So now I'm experimenting with blogger.

I will mostly be posting random thoughts and ramblings, I don't think my posts will be making all that much sense; but I need an outlet for the bullshit that accumulates in my head.

You can find my books here:
amazon.com
and they are also available on amazon's international sites, directly through Apple's iBookstore, or from your Sony Reader. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.