Thursday, August 31, 2006

MERDEKA! MERDEKA!

While you guys back in Malaysia have a good rest, I am busy rushing work for my supervisor going for the conference. Sigh! No life! No life!

Happy National Day! 49 years old already!

Saturday, August 26, 2006

I AM BACK!

After some good rest in Miri and a short trip to Bintulu, I am back to Singapore refreshed and ready for the semester rush! I sure miss alot of football news during the break. I totally am outdated with so many events. Diarra signing for Real Madrid and Martins signing for Newcastle United are really two good news for me. They are really good players who will help both clubs alot this coming season.

The victory of Liverpool in the Charity Shield and another defeat of Chelsea to Middlesbrough were some really shocking news to me. What happened to the strongly reinforced Chelsea? The Champions League group stage draw is out too! It is extremely shocking to see Chelsea meeting Barcelona again! Mourinho must be cursing the system this time, hahaha! Werder Bremen is in the same group too so it will probably be the toughest group.

Real Madrid were drawn into a group of average difficulty with difficult opponents Lyon and Dynamo Kiev. Valencia and AS Roma are in the same group, Internazionale and Bayern Munich are in the same group, Liverpool, PSV Eindhoven, and Galatarasay are in the same group, Manchester United with Celtic and Benfica, Arsenal with FC Porto and AC Milan with Anderlecht. This will mean Liverpool and AC Milan have the easiest groups.

Barcelona's defeat in the European Super Cup to Sevilla is another major shock. A small slim victory may be possible but a 3-0 victory? That's unimaginable. Still, Zambrotta and Lilian Thuram were not playing so maybe it could be much better if they had. The defeats of both Chelsea and Barcelona gave hope to other clubs that nobody is unbeatable. This will give them great passion to play these big clubs.

Sarawak is extremely hot and hazy. Miri is like so heaty like a microwave while Bintulu is not far behind but it cools off so much by evening. I drove to Bintulu for a one day trip through the new road and going back using the old road. The old road was like a nightmare with the condition which is extremely bad! I wonder how people can drive through that road without much complaints.

Will update soon, just arrive in Singapore.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

FOOTBALL: THE 'HAS BEENS'

I coined up the term 'Has Beens' to indicate players who had gone through their peak of football. It means players who got an automatic starting eleven place for their achievements in the past, their past glories and greatness. It is therefore not surprising to see David Backham and van Nistelrooy dropped by their respective countries. It is about time! The next person they should drop is Raul too. Another 'has been' and who can forget the fat boy who run so slowly or aimlessly or looking uninterested to chase any balls at the front? Therefore, Real Madrid can be summarized as a Has Been team. A collection of stars who don't deserve their starting eleven places and who play for their past glories.

They should plot a graph to show the amount of goals scored by Beckham from a freekick and see the drop in years in comparison with tries made. I will tell you the graph will clearly show he sucks big time in this so called his specialty expert department of football. Then you realize why all these people are given the chances for what has been over in the past? There are many Has Beens in Real Madrid, which include Ronaldo who is playing in the starting eleven for his incredible ability in the past. Another 'Has Been'.

Guys, I will fly to Miri on Monday for 12 days stay. Any sucker coming there, please meet up! I got tonnes of hot stuffs ready for you! Haha! I guarantee they will blow you away into pieces!

Anyway, I think I will post up some posts before I leave. This blog has been so quiet and dead lately. Like a ghost town........it is Hungry Ghost month anyway. Becareful.....wooooooooooooo......

Royal London Circus is in Miri now. I plan to go carrying alot of handcarry and purposely red bottled drinks! Haha! My friends are cursing as they are going London yesterday and they found out they cannot carry their laptops on board to do their work. Instead, they will waste 16 hours watching boring movies and playing boring games. Hopefully some hot air stewardesses will cheer up their day. Haha!

By the way, if Reyes is coming to Madrid, I plan to retire from watching football. I have enough disappointments before the start of the season. I will break up with football!

Sunday, August 06, 2006

FIRST ATOMIC BOMBING 61ST ANNIVERSARY

I have been busy lately with the deadlines of submissions next Friday so I was unable to update much. Also the football world has been loaded with alot of rumours of transfers which were claimed, then denied, then claimed and then denied again - a vicious cycle. Well, football fans are very much used to these kind of drama around this period of time before the season starts. I was almost dying when I read the news of the possible transfer of Reyes to Real Madrid, another actor player I hated to the maximum. Luckily, it was confirmed to be untrue.

Anyway, I just watched the documentary of Hiroshima Episode 1 and Episode 2 in Discovery channel to commemorate the 61st anniversary of the first ever atomic bombing of this planet. It just gave me some thoughts of us as humans who go to war because of different ideologies, political stances, economic gains, skin colours, religious beliefs, pride and greed. Looking at the never ending wars related to Israel, related to Tamil Tigers, related to United States and close allies United Kingdom and Australia, borders between Pakistan and India, borders between South Korea and North Korea, the religious struggles in Thailand and the Philippines, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran issues just give me the very clear indication that peace on earth will never happen in my lifetime.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and later Nagasaki did ended the second World War but it is also the beginning of the start of atomic warhead collection by many of the world superpowers. Countries around the world just keep on collecting more and more of this weapon of deadly destruction just to defend themselves. Therefore, it is a race to out-collect each other, if you have alot, I have to have more than you - a vicious cycle.

The Little Boy was dropped on 6th August 1945 at 8:15am on the city of Hiroshima, which was surrounded by mountains, giving it a more focused explosion. The famous plane, Ebola Gay named after the mother of Colonel Tibbet who piloted it was responsible for the bomb drop. Little Boy exploded 600 meters above the city with a blast equivalent of 13 kilotons of TNT and instantly killing 70,000-80,000 people. The radius of destruction was about 1.6km, with the resulting fires across 11.4 square km. 90% of Hiroshima buildings were either damaged or completely destroyed.

Three days later, Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki, a port town, not as a priority but second choice after Kokura at 11:01am and 43 seconds later it exploded 469 meters above the ground with an explosion converted 1.176kg of fuel to energy with an equivalent blast yield of 21 kilotons of TNT. The bomb was not dropped because of cloud covers which prevented a clear visual attack required by orders. According to estimations, 70,000 out of 240,000 were killed instantly and up to 60,000 were injured. The radius of total destruction was about 1.6km, followed by fires across the northern portion of the city to 3.2km south of the bomb. The total number of deaths amounted to as many as 80,000 including those who died from radiation poisoning in the following months.

So is the atomic bomb necessary for the surrender of the Japanese? Sources indicated that the Japanese were in the process of declaring defeat while others said their honour and pride will not make it possible for them to accept the terms and conditions. Others mentioned that United States wanted to show her military might to the Soviet Union. Is it a war crime then? To the perspectives of the victim countries, it was necessary. To the American allies, it is also the case.

Others condemn it as a war crime and crime against humanity. Even Albert Einsten and Leo Szilard are opposing. They were both the ones responsible for the first bomb research in 1939. They argued that if the Germans had dropped the atomic bombs on cities instead of the United States, the definition of the dropping of the atomic bombs on cities will be as a war crime and they will sentence the Germans who were guilty of the crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them. International law found in the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of 1907 and the Hague Draft Rules of Air Warfare of 1922-1023 had made the atomic bomb dropping on cities illegal.

Laws are useless as demonstrated by the invasion of Iraq by the United States. Sometimes as I look through the records of the amount of wars in human history, I just cannot believe that you actually have laws of 'how to play fair in a warfare'. It is just plain dreaming. I mean if a country is preparing to go to war, it will want to win the war at any costs and therefore, fairness will be the biggest obstacle to succeed. You always want an advantage over your enemies. That's pure human common sense. If the biggest superpowers of the world are the biggest bullies too, there is nothing you can do about it.