Categories
Sports

[585] Of Ajax will face Arsenal, again…

Ajax has been drawn into Group B of the Champions League along with Arsenal.

Alright. This is the last throe. No more Arsenal for me. I will no longer associate myself with Arsenal. Screw all English teams from now on. And earlier:

I’m not sure whether that is encouraging or not but according to reports, Ajax played quite well and was simply unlucky. On the side note, Ajax has got to stop playing Arsenal. OMG, every year, it’s all about Arsenal, Arsenal and Arsenal. If Ajax is going to meet Arsenal again this season in the Champions League group stage (of which thank goodness, that prospect is too minute for me too worry on), I’m going to be an ardent supporter of the Red Devils. With van der Sar on that cursed team, I think I could live with that, temporarily.

My ass. Screw all English teams. From Manchester United to Arsenal to Cambridge to whatever teams in the history of English football. I will only support former Ajax players in the EPL. To hell with everything English.

On the bright side though, it is all too possible that Ajax might easily qualify for the next round. Reason is Group B comprises of Ajax, Arsenal, Sparta Prague and Thun of Switzerland. At the very least, second place. With a little luck, even champion of group B. Arsenal has always been overrated in European competition anyway.

More about the Champions League draw is at the new UEFA site.

And oh, the most interesting group is probably Chelsea and Liverpool’s. Both have been drawn into a same cesspool.

Anyway, these are my predictions of whom will go through into the next stage:

Group A: Bayern and Juventus
Group B: Arsenal and Ajax
Group C: Barcelona and somebody. The second club is quite though to predict since the three of the rest, Panathinaikos, Bremen and Udinese do seem equally strong. But I’ll go with Bremen.
Group D: ManUre and Benfica
Group E: Milan and Schalke. PSV might replace Schalke but PSV has been stripped of its firepower. Many of its players are gone.
Group F: Real and Lyon
Group G: Liverpool and Chelsea
Group H: Inter and Porto. Rangers might cut in at Porto’s expense.

p/s – maybe Ajax doesn’t have to worry too much about Arsenal. Somebody at Ajaxtalk, in reaction to my post said:

I hear you but they struggle in the Champions League EVERY year the past few years, even though they seem to have always had a fairly easy group to qualify from, until now…..

Not too worried about them, their most consistent striker is bound for Jail!

Guess who we are talking about at Ajaxtalk. Hint: some Dutchboy that Arsenal bought recently from Feyenoord.

Categories
Environment Politics & government

[584] Of why an agreeable Iraqi Constitution is a green issue

Suddenly, I’m seeing the current negotiation for the new Iraqi Constitution with a certain shade of green.

The United Nations had planned to carry out a conference to rehabilitate of what was once the largest marshland in the world – the Tigris-Eupharates marshes – in Tokyo this week. The conference was expected to be attended by those that are interested in sponsoring the noble effort to care the land of the two rivers. Japan in particular has pledged $11 million for the rehabilitation project. Currently however, according to Associated Press, due to the current situation regarding the Iraqi Constitution, the United Nations has decided to postpone the meeting.

Iraqi politicians haven’t made much progress towards a charter that is agreeable to all sides. On the floor right now in Baghdad, three fractions – the Shiites, the Kurds and the Sunnis – are contending on three major issues – Islam, oil revenue and governance. The US has relented on Islam’s influence on a new constitution. I’m not quite happy with that but the Iraqis deserve to decide their fate for themselves but American’s compromise on Islam has allowed the negotiation to move forwards.

The deadline for negotiation was first set on August 15 but the Iraqis have agreed to give themselves a 7-day extension after failing to show up at their own date. Hence, the next deadline was to be on the 22nd but again, negotiation failed and the Iraqi Parliament gave the negotiators three more days to discuss the charter. The new deadline is looming and major disagreements still exist. With three fractions on three issues, many suspect that the Iraqi politicians will again fail to beat the deadline.

The NYT has said that the imposition of deadline on this issue is unhealthy. Part of me is starting to agree with them.

The difficulty of the issue at hand has led some to speculate the eventuality of civil war. Nobody wants a civil war but already there are sect clashes in Iraq, however minor it might be. And if civil war is an inescapable scenario, effort to restore the marshes will come to a halt.

The restoration project has been going slowly but steadily. Once covered nearly 20,000 sq km, Saddam Hussein audaciously reduced the marshes to less than 10% of the original size. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, the United Nations Environmental Protection and others have restored up to 40% of the area. With Japan’s aid, it is possible to run the project at a sustainable pace. Yet, all this ultimately depends on the development of the Iraqi Constitution.

At the same time, a civil war will putthe constitution talk to a stop indefinately. Therefore, subsequently, civil war is the last thing that all self-declared greens, and in fact the world, need in Iraq.

The rehabilitation effort must not come to a standstill. It must be carried out until the Garden of Eden on Earth is fully restored to its former glory. For this very reason, all greens should support any effort that might produce a constitution acceptable to all three Iraqi sides.

Categories
Liberty Politics & government

[583] Of the terrorists have won this battle

Terrorism has struck its target once again; free speech is being violated. Worse, free speech is being assaulted not by terrorism itself. Instead, the assault is being carried out by the very body that’s supposed to protect freedom.

A new law that bans thoughts and speeches that might incite extremism has been introduced in the UK. Under the new rule, if a non-British citizen is convicted, then he or she will be subjected to deportation.

The new law has been out and about for a few weeks now. However, part of the detail pertaining the new deportation law has only been made known to the public as late as a few hours ago.

It must be stressed that the British authority is threading on a dangerous ground. There’s a fine line between freedom and security and they’re negotiating the two components at the expense of free speech.

Whenever free speech is sacrificed in the name of security, terrorism at large has won. There’s no need for any terrorist to set up another bomb in another major city to threaten free civil society. They need not to do anything anymore to shake the foundations of free civil society. The guardian has done that for the terrorists.

It’s a harrowing feeling to find out that a bastion of liberty is bowing to those that despise freedom. Britain doesn’t have to stoop as low as those religious fanatics that are intolerant of freedom. Britain doesn’t have to erode civil liberty in order to secure itself. But yet she does and ironically, Britain is limiting free speech so she might fight those that seek to vanquish freedom.

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eight-Four mentions of thought police. The deportation law might be an attempt to criminalize thought of which is no different from Orwell’s dystopia. For this very reason, freedom lovers should be wary of the new restriction, Brit or no Brit.

p/s – where one fails, others will rise up. Nine states in New England (reg. req.) are taking the next step to cut power plant emissions while the federal government has yet to concretely act on climate change.

pp/s – Ajax has qualified for the Champions League by beating Brøndby 3 – 1 in the second leg in Amsterdam. The aggregate is 5 – 3 in Ajax’s favor. It was almost a bad game – Ajax was in terrible shape in the first half but luckily, things changed for the better later with new wonder kid Babel scoring 1 and (super) substitute Sneijder scoring another two.

Enough talking. I’m going to watch the video at www.ajaxfans.de.

Categories
Environment Photography

[581] Of Kuala Lumpur is pedestrian-unfriendly

I haven’t explored as much as I would want to yet despite already being in the city for nearly two months now. I’m excited to rediscover the city all over again. Unfortunately, there are some whispers in the wind, telling me that Kuala Lumpur hates pedestrians with a capital h.

Generalizing is bad and I might be generalizing. Yet, in the several times that I had taken a walk in the city, I found that busy intersections, like the one nearest to the Indonesian embassy on Jalan Tun Razak, have no crosswalk light for pedestrians at all. Even the paint that mark the crosswalk on the street has somewhat faded. Worse, at some junctions, there is no crosswalk at all. Motorcycles and other vehicles that stop on existing ones instead of behind it don’t make the situation any better.

On the same stretch of road, only closer to the national library, there are crosswalk lights and the crossings are clearly marked. However, most of them don’t work or simply broken. And you don’t have to talk about ergonomic design. I have this one picture to demonstrate that common sense is not so common:

Why does the button face the fence instead of its possible users is beyond me. The button up close and personal:

And this is how people adhere to traffic rule. Observe the crosswalk, the position of the car and the position of the motorcycle on the far right:

And do you see the light for the crosswalk?

It doesn’t work. I waited for nearly 15 minutes, which is enough for the traffic system there to complete maybe two or even three cycles, but it never turned green. And I swear I did press the button several times. Note too that the button that I need to request for a crossing is the one button that faces the fence.

And the person on the other side of the road simply ignored the light when he found out that it doesn’t work.

Beautiful, isn’t it? A nonsensically placed button for a nonworkable crosswalk light is definitely an invention worthy of mention millennia to come. Who could have thought of it, I ask you?

As if it is not enough our rivers look like sewers:

Yes, that is actually a river.

Bah! I’m mad. And rawr! I want to be a cat.

Here pussy, pussy, pussy…

Categories
Sports

[580] Of damn you Drogba and your sloppy goal

When I found out that the fixture between Chelsea and Arsenal was going to be aired on ESPN, I said to myself, hey, this should be a great matchup. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a dull match. Worse, Chelsea won with a very unexciting goal.

The first ten or fifteen minutes were entertaining though. Both teams were tactically aggressive and the game was almost as fast as ice hockey. It could have easily been one all if luck were on both side.

After Ljungberg was replaced with van Persie, my god, I thought golf was much more arousing than Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi. In the match, van Persie seemed to be a liability. To me, it does seem pointless to have that former Feyenoord player on the grass. However, I can’t say that without being biased since I’m love Ajax so much, anything related to Feyenoord is bad.

On the other hand, Arjen Robben was effective. He played very well though his did far better during the Netherlands – Germany game that he played days earlier.

Crespo – yuck. I don’t know why Mourinho bought him from Inter Milan in the first place. Every time he received a ball, the ball somehow magically ran to Lehman with much problem. I’m sure Mourinho was thinking of the same thing when he substituted the Italian with Didier Drogba.

However boring it was, for the most parts, Arsenal did control the game. I don’t know what the final metrics look like but if it wasn’t for Drogba, it would’ve been an Arsenal game – a draw probably still but an Arsenal game nonetheless.

And as I said, the game was boring. The same statement applies throughout the first part of the second half. Specifically, until I said, god, this is boring. Please give something to light up the game.

And voila!

Drogba scored – rather sloppily I must add. I was dissatisfied with that goal but a goal is a goal. And god, if you are listening, I think we misunderstood each other. When I said light up, I really meant a goal for the men in maroon, not in blue. Bah!

After Drogba’s lucky strike, the game did get a bit more interesting as Arsenal tried to step up. The game also got a tad more physical. I mean, c’mon, Makalele was so excited to show van Persie some brotherly love that the Frenchman hugged the Dutchman at one time. The referee had to give Makalele a card to make him stop.

Near the end, Drogba had a chance to increase the lead. It would have been a beautiful goal but Lehman was in the way.

On the 93rd minute, the ref blew the whistle. Blurgh…

Anyway, Ajax will be up against Brøndby again on this 24th in Amsterdam for the Champions League qualifier. Current aggregate stands at two all. Ajax should have won the away game but an own goal made a hell out of that match. Regardless, I’m confident that Ajax will make it.