Happy Halloween!

Bush vs. Zombies

La Plus Belle Pour Aller Dancer Redux

Mes fidèles lecteurs se souviendront de ma faiblesse déclarée pour la chanson La plus belle pour aller dancer de Sylvie Vartan, dont j'ai présenté la vidéo il y a assez longtemps.

J'ai découvert entre temps d'autres versions, dont celle de Lara Fabian, que je vous présente ci-après. Anchois, comme disent les Anglais... What?... Oh pardon, il paraît que ça se prononce: enjoy.

Les trésors nationaux

Madame Phi Thanh Van, trésor national

Si vous me permettez une généralisation, je trouve que les Vietnamiens sont l'un des peuples les plus chauvins au monde, se plaçant au 3e rang après les Américains et les Français.

Je comprends certaines fiertés nationales, telles que la cuisine nationale, les bières nationales, la musique nationale, etc... Dans mes conversations avec des amis viets, nous compatissons souvent sur la malchance des autres peuples de ne pas être nés Vietnamiens, mais c'est dit sur un ton de plaisanterie et souvent dans un contexte ironique. On parle par exemple du bonheur de manger un plat de com tam bi tôt le matin, assis sur un petit tabouret sur le trottoir, avec un café sucré glacé à portée de main, et on s'appitoie sur le sort de tous ces non-Vietnamiens qui ne connaîtront jamais ce plaisir, I pity the fools... Mon fils B-Boy est par exemple frappé d'horreur d'apprendre que chez son meilleur ami Miles, il n'y a pas une seule goutte de nuoc mam! Oh, the humanity!!!

Mais souvent le chauvinisme vietnamien devient, non plus une célébration de ce qui est beau et bien chez les Vietnamiens, mais plutôt une attaque absurde des caractéristiques d'autres peuples. Le blog The Peculiar Vietnamese (http://peculiarvietnamese.wordpress.com/) a publié récemment un billet qui compare les Vietnamiennes à un trésor national et crache sur le reste de l'Asie.

On average, Vietnamese women are much better looking than our countries’ neighbors. Chinese women? Those tiny almond eyes is not all that attractive. Japanese women? Um, those funny legs are not very impressive. Cambodian and Lao? Yeah, but too dark and unsophisticated. Thailand’s? Aren’t they all sluts or prostitutes or something? Korean? Err… they’re too submissive and those fake nose/eyes/boobs job would not withstand the standard abusive husband. Now that the Koreans, Taiwanese, Chinese, the white-men and everywhere else have figure this… they can’t keep their hands off of our women.

Les Chinoises: super moches avec leurs petits yeux

Les Thailandaises: toutes des putes!

C'est ce genre de vantardise débile (mon père est plus fort que le tien) vaguement teintée de proxénitisme (je suis fier que les étrangers aiment baiser nos femmes) qui me hérisse: le fait d'être si peu sûr de soi qu'on se croit obligé de chier sur les autres pour se sentir supérieur.

The Game is Afoot

So, that's it! I've registered our crew The Deadbeat for Saturday's event Thrill the World. On October 27th, we will be dancing Michael Jackson's Thriller simultaneously with thousands of other people around the world, trying to beat the Guiness Book Record.

My son B-Boy is helping me and the rest of our crew train for the event. Hopefully, everybody will remember the steps and I will not look too ridiculous on the video. Whether our video will be accepted or not by the organizers of the event, we will have a lot of fun doing it. And I will upload the video on my blog, so watch this site!!!

I really don't know love at all

mog.com

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Kids Know About Love from Miss Cellania (http://www.misscellania.com/)

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toe nails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."
Rebecca- age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."
Billy - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."
Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss"
Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."
Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."
Nikka - age 6 (we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."
Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."
Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore."
Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night."
Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."
Elaine-age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford."
Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."
Mary Ann - age 4

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones."
Lauren - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." (what an image)
Karen - age 7

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."
Jessica - age 8

Spécial Brel

Ce soir j'attends Madeleine
J'ai apporté du lilas
J'en apporte toutes les semaines
Madeleine elle aime bien ça

Les joies du multilinguisme

Cela fait des années que j'ai mon téléphone cellulaire Sony Ericsson 801. Il est super parce qu'il est doté d'une caméra, et comme je ne m'en sépare jamais, j'ai pu prendre les photos ci-après au cours de mes promenades. Avouez que cela en vaut la peine...

Poster sur la porte de la salle de radiographie: c'est marqué: Enceinte? T'es sûre? [C'est peut-être une simple indigestion...]

Traduction littérale de: Come again!

À ne pas confondre avec l'entrée des artistes

Et..Le plus drôle:

Quelqu'un a dû se plaindre qu'il manquait un l...

Thriller To The Max!!!

I have a weakness for the Michael Jackson's song Thriller (I put 2 YouTube clips of it on my blog, one by an Indian Michael Jackson and the one by the Filipino prison dance club). Well, my lifelong dream is coming true: I will get to perform Thriller and get the video screened by millions around the world. This is so exciting, let me explain [join fingertips of both hands in a steeple shape]:

Thrill The World is a worldwide ATTEMPT to break the Guinness World Record (GWR) for the Largest Simultaneous Dance with Michael Jackson's “Thriller.” Thousands of people in cities around the world will learn the “Thriller” dance and perform it at the exact same time on October 27/ 28, 2007.

The video footage from each event will then be edited into ONE WORLDWIDE MUSIC VIDEO!!!

If you’ve ever seen the music video and thought, “I wish I could do that!” – this year, you will.

Thrill The World Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) at http://www.thrilltheworld.com/news.html

You can go on their website [http://www.thrilltheworld.com/index.html] and download the step-by-step instructions to the choreography. Then, if you live in Montreal, join me on October 27th and we'll do the zombie together!!

Below are three versions of the song: first the Final Fantasy version, next, an a capella version by BYU Vocal Point and finally, for Meimei, the Indian Michael Jackson version, with crazy English subtitles.

Update: Oh what the heck, let's have the Filipino's inmates' version as well. The more the merrier, I say.

Industrial Relationships 101

My office - I'm the one standing in the back

You must know by now that my post has been abolished and that Chief, Human Resources has asked me to clear my desk by the end of the year. The fact that I have a signed contract until the end of August 2008 did not really matter. Neither did the fact that I only have 15 months left to go before my retirement.

I was told that, in his deep wisdom and compassion, the Secretary General has allowed me to apply for a vacancy in the interpretation section, so if I'm accepted, I'll be an interpreter instead of a translator. Same shit, so I'll be fine... if I'm accepted.

For other firees, things are harder. For some reasons, people come to my office every day to confide and look for advices and reassurance, people I don't even know, but who somehow have heard of my being fired. I cannot give them any advice, but I'm good at listening. Some stories are heartbreaking.

• One of the firees is a single mother of a deeply handicapped adult child who needs to be attended to 24/7; she has less than a year to go before retirement.

• One Chinese interpreter had uprooted his wife and his two boys to come to Montreal. Now he cannot go back to China, because they quit their well-paid jobs years ago and now will have a hard time finding work back home. They will lose their house in Montreal and their second son will not be able to enroll in a good school in China or find work later on, because of China's policy of one child per family.

• In the IT department, the boss hates one of the programmers so he abolished three programmer positions, then re-opened two of the positions and asked the other two to reapply for their jobs.

People are angry, anxious, and paranoid. Rumors are swirling everywhere. The Chief of Legal Bureau has forbidden his staff to answer or advise people who come with questions. The Staff Association has been silent since the beginning of the firing salvo. I sent them this letter and am still waiting for an answer:

To the President of the XXX Staff Association and the members of the Executive Bureau

Dear colleagues,

As you may or may not know, I am one of the "chosen" ones to whom C/HR has recently given a letter informing them that their posts have been abolished and that they are to leave XXX on 31st December 2007. I have spoken to many of my colleagues in the same sad situation and I am therefore emboldened to write to you on behalf of our group, the first batch of staff members to be disposed of.

You are obviously aware of the current rotten atmosphere throughout the Organization, the low morale and the rampant gossips and rumors. Every single day, I hear of another friend or colleague who has to go through the ordeal of being called to the C/HR office to receive the dreaded letter. People walk around as in trance, not knowing when their turn will come. I hear daily rumors that XXX has a surplus of funds, that chiefs of sections are scrambling around ordering furnitures in order to spend the extra money before the end of the fiscal year and that new posts are being created to accommodate friends and relatives of the Secretary General, the Council President and Council representatives. I hear rumors that the Staff Association is preparing a strike, a General Assembly, this and that activity, but these are all rumors. The staff is deliberately being left in the dark and with unreliable, contradictory information, many are afraid to make the wrong move or to take any action at all.

I know that the Staff Association is engaged in talks with the Secretary General and/or the Human Resources Branch. I would humbly request that the Staff Association issue a letter or some kind of announcement to all staff to inform us of your activities and your intentions. It does not have to be definitive and detailed information. Just tell us what you are doing to help those in need of support. At least, such announcement will reassure the staff that they are not being abandoned to deal with their problems separately and individually. I know that the Administration's method is to conquer by division and by threat of retaliation. I would hate to see the Staff Association helping them by keeping silent during this time of uncertainty and misinformation. Where are the transparency and honesty that have been promised to the staff? How can we plan any action to defend our jobs and our livelihood if we have no access to any information until it's too late?

Looking forward to hearing from you very soon,
Sincerely,

Buddhist

Thus ends the lesson on how NOT to treat your staff and/or union members.

Real Life Robocop

From Wired [http://tinyurl.com/3yhf49 and http://tinyurl.com/27aonf]

Robo-Cannons

We're not used to thinking of them this way. But many advanced military weapons are essentially robotic -- picking targets out automatically, slewing into position, and waiting only for a human to pull the trigger. Most of the time. Once in a while, though, these machines start firing mysteriously on their own. The South African National Defence Force "is probing whether a software glitch led to an antiaircraft cannon malfunction that killed nine soldiers and seriously injured 14 others during a shooting exercise on Friday."

SA National Defence Force spokesman brigadier general Kwena Mangope says the cause of the malfunction is not yet known...

Media reports say the shooting exercise, using live ammunition, took place at the SA Army's Combat Training Centre, at Lohatlha, in the Northern Cape, as part of an annual force preparation endeavour.

Mangope told The Star that it “is assumed that there was a mechanical problem, which led to the accident. The gun, which was fully loaded, did not fire as it normally should have," he said. "It appears as though the gun, which is computerised, jammed before there was some sort of explosion, and then it opened fire uncontrollably, killing and injuring the soldiers."

Other reports have suggested a computer error might have been to blame. Defence pundit Helmoed-Römer Heitman told the Weekend Argus that if “the cause lay in computer error, the reason for the tragedy might never be found."



The anti-aircraft weapon, an Oerlikon GDF-005, is designed to use passive and active radar, as well as laser target designators range finders, to lock on to "high-speed, low-flying aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and cruise missiles." In "automatic mode," the weapon feeds targeting data from the fire control unit straight to the pair of 35mm guns, and reloads on its own when its emptied its magazine.

Electronics engineer and defence company CEO Richard Young says he can't believe the incident was purely a mechanical fault. He says his company, C2I2, in the mid 1990s, was involved in two air defence artillery upgrade programmes, dubbed Projects Catchy and Dart.

During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, “I personally saw a gun go out of control several times,” Young says. “They made a temporary rig consisting of two steel poles on each side of the weapon, with a rope in between to keep the weapon from swinging. The weapon eventually knocked the pol[e]s down.”

According to The Star, "a female artillery officer risked her life... in a desperate bid " to save members of her battery from the gun." But the brave, as yet unnamed officer was unable to stop the wildly swinging computerised Swiss/German Oerlikon 35mm MK5 anti-aircraft twin-barrelled gun. It sprayed hundreds of high-explosive 0,5kg 35mm cannon shells around the five-gun firing position. By the time the gun had emptied its twin 250-round auto-loader magazines, nine soldiers were dead and 11 injured.


The makers of the film Robocop had already envisioned such mishap in 1987.

Warning: The following video clip is from the unrated director's cut, i.e. not for the faint of heart.

Thang Long, Imperial City

Today's New York Times carries a well-written feature on the current archaeological excavations going on in Hanoi, seeking to understand the ancient capital of Thang Long, which was founded by the Ly dynasty a millennia earlier. The excavation is said to be the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia.


New York Times
By JENNIFER PINKOWSKI

Published: October 16, 2007

HANOI, Vietnam — Nine hundred years before Ho Chi Minh declared Hanoi the capital of a newly independent Vietnam in 1945, the first king of the Ly Dynasty issued a similar decree.

In 1010 King Ly Thai To picked Thang Long (“Ascending Dragon”), situated within present-day Hanoi, as the capital for a country that had defeated the Tang Dynasty less than a century before, ending a millennium of Chinese rule.

“It is situated at the very heart of our country,” the king declared in Edict on the Transfer of the Capital. “It is equally an excellent capital for a royal dynasty for ten thousand generations.”

The enormous royal complex that Ly Thai To built did last, not 10,000 generations, but 900 years, through three major dynasties and repeated foreign invasions. For the last five years, archaeologists from the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology have been slowly unearthing the remains of Thang Long, uncovering millions of artifacts and building features spanning 1,300 years. Hanoi is gearing up to celebrate its 1,000th anniversary in 2010, and Thang Long, a potential Unesco World Heritage Site, is its centerpiece.

“The history of Thang Long citadel is the history of the Great Viet,” Bui Minh Tri, an archaeologist, said as he looked over the 7.3-square-mile site, thought to be the largest archaeological excavation in the history of Southeast Asia. The Great Viet are considered the founders of northern Vietnam. They probably descended from the Bronze Age Dong Son culture, which is famous for its enormous bronze drums. In 2002, the site, across the street from where Ho lies in state, was scheduled to be the new home of the National Assembly, the highest government body. Modern residences were razed. Archaeologists were called in to see whether anything remained of the citadel.

They had a good sense of where to look. The flag tower and Confucian university, the Temple of Literature, survive as tourist attractions. The area had also been mapped twice, by Vietnamese cartographers in the 15th century and by the French 400 years later. Earlier archaeological work had turned up a 13th- to 14th-century brick road.

One to four meters beneath the surface, the archaeologists found the foundations of at least 11 palaces, pillar bases, brick roads, drainage systems and deep wells. A dried riverbed held what immediately became the largest collection of ceramics in Vietnam, virtually all imprinted with imperial marks.

Terra cotta sculptures of five-toed dragons and coil-tongued phoenixes, symbols of the king and queen, eyed the excavators from the dirt. Similar artifacts had been found in the past at Buddhist temples built by Great Viet rulers. Now archaeologists had a confirmation of their royal origin.

After 1010, the Great Viet ruled the northern half of present-day Vietnam, continually expanding southward in wars against the Indian-influenced Champa state. The north-south divide witnessed in “the American War” had a precedent going back a millennium.

By the 18th century, the south was ascendant. The Nguyen Dynasty moved the capital to Hue in central Vietnam in 1802, and the Thang Long citadel fell into disuse. Shortly after Hanoi became the capital of French Indochina in 1887, the French destroyed it.

The royal complex once covered an area now home to Ba Dinh Square, the modern military citadel, the military history museum, the presidential palace and Ho’s mausoleum. It had dozens of palaces for the king, queen and royal family; pagodas and communal houses for the court and staff; and audience halls for government business.

As the military command center, it was enclosed by brick walls and guarded by armies who were also laborers.

From architecture t diet, Thang Long was an imperial capital in the tradition of Beijing’s Forbidden City and Japan’s Heijo Palace. The court feasted on deer, pig, chicken, fish and shellfish. They drank clean water from nearly 12 wells, the earliest dating from the seventh century. The rulers commissioned artisans to create ceramics and sculptures with classic Chinese designs.

They surrounded the complex with walls and roads built from bricks made all over the state. Today, these bricks are stacked in the thousands at the site, imprinted with Chinese characters describing where and when they were made, and for whom.

The Vietnamese clearly inherited their royal tradition from the Chinese. Yet Thang Long shows evidence of singularly Vietnamese traits. Examples are on display in the small on-site museum. Among them are terra cotta tile caps on the roof tiles in the shape of Bodhi leaves decorated with dragons and chrysanthemums, and terra cotta phoenixes that once reared, gargoyle style, from palace roof corners. Neither have been seen before.

“We knew very well the architecture from the 15th to the 19th centuries, but until we found Thang Long, we didn’t know about architecture from the 10th to 15th centuries,” Dr. Bui said.

Some collections may need to be reassessed in light of Thang Long. At the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, a 15th-century bowl long thought to be Chinese was recognized as Vietnamese only after nearly identical examples were found at the site.

These and other finds are discussed in the Vietnamese Institute of Archaeology’s bilingual volume “Thang Long Imperial Citadel.”

One percent of the site has been excavated. Archaeologists expect to learn more about individual dynasties as the dig continues over the next five years.

Today, the long pits excavated from 2002 to 2004 lie under corrugated metal roofs that channel heavy summer rain to be pumped out. Workers scrape the pottery-laden riverbed clear of moss that grows easily in the humid climate. In an adjacent closed area, some 200 more are excavating a section as large as the initial dig.

Only military officials, a handful of journalists and Vietnamese diplomats can visit Thang Long. Many people expect it to open to the public for Hanoi’s celebration in 2010. Although some of the festivities take the form of public works like industrial parks, high-rise housing and road improvements, Thang Long is central to the commemoration.

A museum planned for 2010 will trace the development of the city from its beginnings as Thang Long, and an effort to designate it a Unesco World Heritage Site is in the works.

“It’s very important to us that Unesco recognize Thang Long as a World Heritage Site,” Dr. Bui said. “Thang Long is a symbol of the country.”

Thang Long resonates today. (The city became known as Ha Noi, or between rivers, in the 1830s.)

It can be seen on shop signs for washing machines and on banners draped between sycamores greening the jammed streets. An oilfield discovered a few years ago off the southern coast of Vietnam was renamed Thang Long.

The city will have a second opera house, perhaps meant as an answer to the French-built Hanoi Opera House, by 2012. One guess what its name will be.

Thang Long may also develop as a case study in how archaeology can serve nationalistic goals, said Robert Murowchick, director of the International Center for East Asian Archaeology and Cultural History at Boston University.

“This is not necessarily a bad thing,” Mr. Murowchick said. “It can promote tourism and economic development, and inspire national pride and unity.”

There can, however, be cause to worry if the information is distorted “to provide ‘concrete evidence’ of the glory of a particular culture, as we often see in Chinese archaeology,” he said.

So far, this doesn’t seem to be the case at Thang Long. Considering that the construction of the Parliament building was delayed by the discovery of the site, the finds could have been “disappeared,” as occurs in many countries, Dr. Murowchick said.

Instead, the project was moved to southwest of the municipal center, and Vietnam enacted its first heritage preservation laws. Unesco and foreign universities have been permitted to run field schools and conferences at the site.

You know you're an Asian

Yes, you're an Asian

This is a test or something...I'm not sure cause I stole it from another blog and I'm too lazy to read the whole post.

50 WAYS TO KNOW IF YOU'RE AN "ASIAN"

1. You were/are a good student with very high GPAs.
2. You majored in something practical like engineering, medicine or finance.
3. You have more than one-college degree, especially more than one Master's.
4. If you play a musical instrument, it must be piano.
5. You have a vinyl table cloth on your kitchen table.
6. Your stove is covered with aluminum foil.
7. Your kitchen has a sticky film of grease over it.
8. You beat eggs with chopsticks.
9. You always leave outdoor shoes at the door.
10. You use the dishwasher as a dish rack.
11. You keep a Thermos of hot water available at all times.
12. You boil water before drinking.
13. You eat all meals in the kitchen to keep your dining room clean.
14. You don't use measuring cups when preparing foods.
15. You save grocery bags and use them to hold garbage.
16. You have a rice cooker.
17. You're a wok user.
18. You fight over who pays the dinner bill.
19. You wash rice 2-3 times before cooking it.
20. You make sounds when you have a bowl of soup.
21. You don't dry-clean clothes, even if they need to be dry-cleaned.
22. You iron your own shirts.
23. You like congee with thousand year old eggs.
24. You always cook yourself, even if you hate it.
25. You use credit cards, and pay monthly bills in full.
26. You keep most of your money in a savings account.
27. You buy Christmas cards after Christmas, when they are 50% off.
28. When you hand wash dishes, you only use cold water.
29. You hate to waste food:
a) Even if you're totally full, if someone says they're going to throw away the leftovers on the table, you'll finish them.
b) You have Tupperware in your fridge with three bites of rice or one leftover chicken wing.
30. You don't own any real Tupperware - only a cupboard full of used but carefully rinsed margarine tubs, takeout containers, and jam jars.
32. When toilet paper is on sale, you buy 100 rolls and store them.
33. You have a collection of miniature shampoo/conditioner bottles and little soap bars that you take every time you stay in a hotel.
34. The condiments in your fridge are either Price Club sized or come in plastic packets, which you save every time you get take out or go to McDonald's.
35. You carry a stash of your own food whenever you travel (and travel means any car ride longer than 15 minutes).
36. You spit bones and other food scraps on the table.
37. Your dad thinks he can fix everything himself.
38. When you go to a dance party, there is a wall of guys surrounding the dance floor trying to look cool.
39. Your house/apt. is always cold in winter, and hot in summer.
40. Your Mom drives her Mercedes to Price Club, or Shoppers Food Warehouse regardless how far it is, even if Safeway is next door.
41. You always look phone numbers up in the phone book, since calling Directory Assistance costs 50 cents.
42. You only make long distance calls after 11pm or during weekends.
43. You prefer your shrimp with the heads and legs still attached.
44. You never call your parents just to say hi.
45. You think ONLY Japanese can make good CARS!
46. You use a colored face cloth every morning.
47. You starve yourself before going to all-you-can-eat places.
48. You've joined a CD club at least once.
49. You never discuss your love life with your parents.
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST:
50. You take this message and forward it to all your Asian friends

No, you're not! (Not all of you)

So You Think You Can Dance?

Everybody! Rock your body!!! Aaaaark! Aaaark!

Congratulations!!

Associated Press
October 12, 2007

OSLO — Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change jointly won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for fighting it.

Mr. Gore, who won an Academy Award earlier this year for his film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, had been widely tipped to win the prize. He said that global warming was not a political issue but a worldwide crisis. "We face a true planetary emergency. ... It is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity," he said. "It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level."

Couldn't happen to a more deserving person. Bravo Mr Gore!


Update:

From the Rude Pundit [http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/], this comparison between Gore and Bush:

It's the difference between a man who traveled and studied the world by choice in his life and a man who has to be dragged to different countries like a particularly incontinent dog is dragged out to the sidewalk on a snowy day.

Un peu de baume sur mes plaies

J'étais un peu déprimée par ma situation de future chômeuse, mais cette nouvelle me redonne un peu d'espoir: apparemment Mme Pauline Marois, la future Premier Ministre du Québec, baragouine à peine l'anglais, comme en témoigne le clip vidéo ci-dessous:

Pauline Marois Parle Tres Mal Anglais
Uploaded by mediawatchqc

Si j'envoyais dès maintenant mon CV au Parti québécois, en offrant mes services d'interprète, je serais sans doute parmi les premiers à être recrutés. Et voilà, no need to be inquiète!!

Monkey Business

Arby's (the sandwich company) had a great commercial with dancing monkeys:

But now, there's a remix.

So Much For My Brilliant Career!

I didn’t tell you about it, but this has been brewing for at least the last 6 months : the organization where I work has been planning to cut its staff by a third. Since it’s an international non-profit organization, the reason for such a drastic move is not a drop in profit, a slowing demand or obsolete products that nobody wants to buy. No, it’s simply because : a) some poorer member States haven’t paid their contributions for years, so now that the contingency fund is exhausted, there's not enough money to cover the operational costs and b) member States who could afford to pay their contributions are getting tired of paying and decided that some cuts have to be made. I work as a translator/reviser in the Language Branch. The French Section has nine Professional staff, five of which will be fired, among them yours truly.

I received my pink slip last Friday. I was told that my post has been abolished and I will have to leave at the end of the year, with three months of compensation. Since I have a signed contract until the end of August 2008, I told them that I will appeal the decision, but that didn’t seem to bother them too much. After all, 110 posts in total will be abolished, so I guess they are used to hear the word "appeal".

My friends and colleagues in the French Section were very upset at the news and supportive of the five "firees". Everybody came to see me in my office to cheer me up, most of them asking why they didn't fire X or Y, instead of me.

They invite all the firees to lunch that day. So I’m still out of a job, but at least I’ve got a free meal out of it, hehehehe…

My colleagues

My thoughtful and mature reaction to the news

Devoir filial

Tous les weekends, B-Boy et moi allons visiter ma mère, que les enfants appellaient Bà Mai quand ils étaient tout petits (au lieu de Bà Ngoai, et on avait trouvé cette prononciation erronée si cute qu'on l'a gardé). Parfois, Asperge se joint à nous, comme on peut le voir sur la photo ci-dessous.


Aujourd'hui, Asperge s'est de nouveau joint à nous, d'où la photo ci-dessous:


Je sais, le billet d'aujourd'hui n'est pas particulièrement intéressant pour les non-membres de la famille. Sorry.

Let's Go After The Buddhists

By Roy Zimmerman
Via Pharyngula (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/10/lets_go_after_the_buddhists.php)

Mmmm! Pizza!

What Your Pizza Reveals

You have a hearty appetite. You are likely to complain if a restaurant has small portions. You are a very picky pizza eater. Not any pizza will do. You fit in best in the Northeast part of the US. You like food that's traditional and well crafted. You aren't impressed with "gourmet" foods. You are generous, outgoing, and considerate with your choices. You are cultured and intellectual. You should consider traveling to Vienna. The stereotype that best fits you is redneck. Your friends secretly agree.

What Does Your Pizza Say About You?

N'importe quoi...

My C*ck Is Bigger Than Yours

An Iranian University Invites Bush to Speak

By Robin Wright, Washington Post

After the controversial appearance of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University last week, an Iranian university yesterday invited President Bush to travel to Iran and speak on campus about a range of issues, including the Holocaust, terrorism, human rights and U.S. foreign policy, the Fars News Agency reported yesterday.

The invitation from Ferdowsi University in the northeastern city of Mashhad asked Bush to answer questions from students and professors "just the same way" that Ahmadinejad took questions "despite all the insults directed at him."

The rhetoric followed the passage of a nonbinding resolution by Iran's parliament that labeled the CIA and the U.S. Army "terrorist organizations." That move came after the U.S. Senate last week approved a similar non-binding resolution, by a 76 to 22 vote, that urged the Bush administration to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group.

Will It Come To This?

Rangoon, 1st October 2007 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7022437.stm

About 4,000 monks have been rounded up in the past week as the military government has tried to stamp out pro-democracy protests. They are being held at a disused race course and a technical college.

Sources from a government-sponsored militia said they would soon be moved away from Rangoon. The monks have been disrobed and shackled, the sources told BBC radio's Burmese service. There are reports that the monks are refusing to eat.

Last week several monasteries were raided, and there were reports of monks being beaten and killed.With many monks behind bars, the demonstrations have now died down.




Saigon, 11 June 1963 - http://www.buddhistinformation.com/self_immolation.htm

On June 11, 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk from the Linh-Mu Pagoda in Hue, Vietnam, burned himself to death at a busy intersection in downtown Saigon, Vietnam.. Eye witness accounts state that Thich Quang Duc and at least two fellow monks arrived at the intersection by car, Thich Quang Duc got out of the car, assumed the traditional lotus position and the accompanying monks helped him pour gasoline over himself. He ignited the gasoline by lighting a match and burned to death in a matter of minutes. David Halberstam, a reporter for the New York Times covering the war in Vietnam, gave the following account: I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think…. As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.

The monk's protest came to symbolize the repression of the US-backed South Vietnamese regime against Buddhism.