Phew! Finished at last the first the Shannara series - 4 books and 2229 pages in total. i think i'd wait a while before i start the LOTR. Maybe read another genre for a change. It is quite embarassing being caught reading popular literature, although surely Terry Brooks is less heard of than say John Grisham or Stephen King. It is even more embarassing when people notice and ask if fantasy is your favourite genre.

Anyway, Shannara is not as good as i first read it err... 7 years ago. The persistence of Brin Ohmsford not to use magic in the direst condition, for example, is downright confounding and impractical. Many a time the characters also seem awkward, reacting to situations in very childish ways. But by the fact that i actually finished all 4 books, they are not too bad.  ¶

15:44 |

 

An ingenius website which i so so so enjoy (courtesy of eve):

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13:24 |

 

We have all been Bushed.

Yes that and completely. It doesn't help when you knew beforehand that the Senator ain't gonna win. It doesn't help when Bon Jovi threw his weight behind the Democrat. It doesn't even help when bin Laden failed to turn up, worn out and distressed.

We have been Bushed once again.

He is the one who brought the world into its current state of terror, where extremism no longer exists solely within the oppressed cells of the Middle East. He is the one who believes simplistically in the war which he deems just and heroic. He is the one who segregates America from her European sisters. And he is the one who sets about to create more problems, rather than solving them.

Yet 51.1% of the United States has once again voted George W. Bush into the White House.

If we look at the voters' distribution, we could easily see that Kerry's votes concentrated in the coastal states, or in other words, in the richer and better educated places. i'm not saying "Arizonians are fools" or "Texans are pumpkins" or "Carolinians are barbarians". But the majority of people there are downright retarded enough to buy the Republican's crap.

The insurgency had quietened down a little in Iraq just prior to the election. But merely a day after the results, clashes in the flashpoint city of Fallujah had once again begun. Now we know many more sons of America are going to die in a foreign land.

If there ever is an era of undisguised conspiracy, we are living in one now. With the likes of Junichiro Koizumi and John Howard, Bush is plugging the world deeper into un-civilization. The latter two had blatantly voiced their support for Bush prior to the poll. And what was that? That was bloody intervention in another country's internal affairs, not to mention the issue was the most sensitive presidential election. Koizumi and Howard should be tried and prosecuted for that.

Now Arafat has more or less stepped into his grave, a new crisis is arising in Israel. What the hell, it is always a crisis in Israel - a country which has never seen peace since its founding. i'm not saying this in sympathetic tone, however. The Jews are largely responsible for what they suffer. Now don't go accuse me of anti-Semitism. If the entire world dislikes you ('cept those who like your money), you have to start thinking why.

Sorry i digressed. i was merely lamenting the fact that Bush will 110% make the situation worse around Jerusalem. And this time, not even the Great Britain could save his ass. Blair might be a lap dog, but he is a smart one. He can smell trouble from ten miles away. And Israel is a big big trouble.

In fact, with the exception of UK, Bush had singled out America in NATO when he signed the war against Iraq. France, Germany, Spain - one by one they backed out of the vortex of revenge the Bush administration was creating in Iraq. The day when the US starts to isolate herself from Europe will be the day she begins to weaken. After all, the US had nullified the UN's anti-war resolution and almost completely negated the function of the world body whose formation it had once spearheaded.

We must count ourselves lucky that the permanent memberships of the UN Security Council still consists of Russia and China, both of which have never been quite close to the US. Together with France, they are the major balancing power we have. Just a fleeting thought: why don't they limit the number of vetoes each UNSC permanent member can have per year or something?

Whichever way you look at it, we must brace ourselves for the four years ahead with Bush in the Oval Office. The rich of Florida might laugh, but millions more in Middle East would cry. Personally, i hope the Tecumseh Curse has not been invalidated by Ronald Reagan.  ¶

02:11 |