trip to Macau with Joseph

views from the old church

Macau is full of casinos, and the tack that comes with it.

The Roman ruins in Macau!!!


This is real-left by the Portuguese
This is not.

This is not real
This is why-Sands casino

Jack is 4 today.

moonshiner

waterfall

Footnote to Armenian Genocde

The Bill described below, has passed its first hurdle in congress-well done congress, this is against the wishes of George Bush, who as usual only supports policies that help the oil industry.
The EU also needs to make it clear that Turkey needs to face its past if it is to even discuss joining the European Union. If Turkey's values are so far removed from our own, then unfortunately it has no place within our union.

Atonement

Before we get into what the US congress is discussing, a clear line must be drawn between the two most heinous crimes of the last century:The Holocaust is the tragedy that the Germans inflicted upon the Jews, it was a form of genocide, the worst in modern history.
Whereas the Armenians were victims of attempted genocide by the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire during the First World War, which resulted in the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians. This is an irrefutable event in Europe's history, as is the Holocaust. As the Holocaust is always spelt with an upper case H, it is also now called the Armenian Genocide.
Here are the OED's definitions:

holocaust-ˈhɒləkɔ:st noun. In sense 4 also H-

4 spec. The (period of the) mass murder of the Jews (or transf. of other groups) by the Nazis in the Second World War.

F. Forsyth Yad Vashem,…the shrine to six million…Jews who died in the holocaust. M. French My students…don't even care about World War II or the Holocaust.

Comb.: Holocaust denial the mistaken belief or assertion that the Holocaust did not happen, or was greatly exaggerated.


genocide dʒɛnəsʌɪd
ORIGIN from geno- + -cide.]

The (attempted) deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group.



The US congress has begun a debate as to whether to classify the Armenian Genocide as genocide. Not for the first time Turkey has decided to deal with this shameful episode in their history by threatening punitive measures against the US if it goes ahead, the measures include canceling arms deals!, and no longer allowing US troops to use its airbases(not a bad thing really).The point though, is that they feel the need to threaten. ...

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." From Hamlet (III, ii, 239)

....and so too does Turkey.
Why not face your past, we have all had to at some point.The Germans have made it a crime to deny their past! The Japanese have at least acknowledged that they were wrong(although China still believes their apologies less than sincere). Our actions in India (and elsewhere) were wrong, we know that.
It is only by facing your past mistakes that you can ensure you don't repeat them.
Every parent knows that it is no use just punishing your kids until they have told you what they have done wrong.

Follow the link to find out more



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7037048.stm

US to debate Turkey genocide bill

Turkey denies genocide, saying the deaths were a result of fighting

A key US congressional committee is to debate whether to classify as genocide the deaths of 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians between 1915 and 1917.

Turkey - which strongly denies Armenian claims that the killings amounted to genocide - has warned of "serious consequences" if the bill is passed.

Ankara has threatened to restrict US access to a key military base used for its operations in Iraq...........(follow the link to continue)

you know

In the spoken language, 60% of all examples of the verb

know

occur in the phrase
'you know'

Find out more in the
Cambridge Grammar of English

What's in a name?

mercer /0ˈmə:sə/ noun. ME.
[ORIGIN Anglo-Norman mercer, Old French & Modern French mercier from Proto-Romance, from Latin merc-, merx merchandise: see -er².]

A dealer in textile fabrics, esp. silks, velvets, and other costly materials.

the Geneva Convention

And so, I have at last finished the most disturbing book ever written. 'The Great War for Civilisation,The Conquest of the Middle East' by Robert Fisk. As with any good book though, I want more though, I tried to find the Geneva Convention on Amazon, but no luck so far. From an early age the Geneva Convention was something I looked up to and admired.At that time I was reading the Warlord and Battle comics. They dealt with the first and second world wars. I looked up to the fairness and bravery of the British Tommy and the American GI s liberating Europe and Asia from the dastardly Germans and Japanese.They would never stoop so low as to hurt civilians or mistreat POWS. These were comics , but although romanticizing war, they depicted an all too real war. I lived next to Belsen, and this seemed relevant to me. I saw what happened when humanities rules were not followed(through the museum and mass graves).
What happened?
How did it come to pass that we have become the Germans, bombing civilians, raping women, occupying foreign lands that don't want us. We are not there by invitation. We have been responsible for the deaths of millions now in the 3 wars of the Middle East. The weapons of mass destruction were never there, Saddam is dead. We did not find Bin Laden, the civilians who have died in Afghanistan had nothing to do with Al Queda. The uranium that we have dropped in the weapons on civilians, and the sanctions regime have now been directly responsible for the death of at a conservative estimate at least 1 million children!
The only government structure still intact in Iraq is the ministry for oil!!
Our soldiers are not the enemy, they do their governments bidding, but the American and British governments are the enemies of everything we stood for post world war.
As for Israel, they continue to flout UN resolutions(strange how when Iraq flouted UN resolutions in 1990 we used them as a justification for war), and what's more brazenly flout the Geneva Convention.
All of this from 3 'civilized' nations, who in the years following World War ii were able to bring the world together to make a promise that we would never live the dark days of the first half of the 19th century.
Bring on the Revolution, let's get rid of all these fuckwits that call themselves our representatives,our leaders!!


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Now playing: Led Zeppelin - Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
via FoxyTunes

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Now playing: Led Zeppelin - 04 Dazed and Confused.mp3
via FoxyTunes

lesson plan

I have been in the office for just over a month now. I will complete my 156th lesson plan today! These lesson plans go together with 234 hours worth of lessons for p1-p6 kids(6yrs-12yrs), which I have also put together single handedly. That is a full years worth of materials for each level. The teacher just needs to turn up, and everything from powerpoints to handouts is all ready to go. Not sure what the next month holds, hopefully I'll get back into the classroom, or maybe I can just drink coffee in the office.