chinese language

I think learning, being able to speak, read and or write in Chinese is cool. Not to mention very useful if you happen to be in Asia. In the Chinatown areas of non Asian cities, knowing Chinese will help one get by with ordering food and purchases. Reading the menus and signs outside the shops. Of course all their menus are displayed in English as well. Via Simon World, this other blog asks Why We Use English Signs?

Within the broad term of Chinese as a language, lie many branches of dialects. The most common being Mandarin which is the national language of China, and Cantonese which is spoken by almost all of Hong Kong's population. Other known dialects that spring to mind are Hakka(also called Khek), Hokkien which is commonly spoken in Taiwan and Teochew. There are many more dialects which I have not named out of course.

browser

It perplexes me, the fanatical following that the Gecko engine based Firefox browser has. I find it ridiculous more than anything else. What do these fans really go for? Do they love the cute Firefox logo? Do they simply love the technology behind Firefox and what it as a browser has to offer? Or are some of them just going with the flow, against the grain? Have a read at Nikkita's and SCoooBY's testimonies. They managed to shed some light amidst the madness.

As for me, I use Maxthon which is essentially IE on SP2. I play around with browsers quite a bit, thus far I have Maxthon, Firefox, IE and SlimBrowser on my system. I've just removed K-Melon and long removed Opera and Mozilla.

Entry Date: 1st Novemver 2004
I've changed my opinion on Opera. I like it now after having tried the latest versions. Currently on their preview version. It's great! A toss between Maxthon and Opera for me now. Firefox is definately out.

not good

Shame on Canada. A nation that sits on the fence in a time of urgency, harbouring terrorists, excessive liberalism thus producing lax morals and strange laws, basically anything goes for them.

Canada announced that it will continue to fund the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees despite an admission by a UN official that Hamas members were employed by his agency.

make the switch to pass phrases

Do you see a pattern here? Pass-phrase LENGTH, not complexity defeats these attacks. Short, but complex passwords should be shunned as they are not truly secure anymore and you are deceiving yourself if you think they are. Long pass-phrases (14 characters or more) are the future (along with 2-factor or more authN, but that's another blog for another day) and are the only way to go if you want to ensure that you won't get hacked via any type of password based attack of any kind.

News source: Robert Hensing's blog

bursting with flavour

Fruits seem to be the rage in naming an OS these days. This red ruby of a CherryOS caught my attention and it looks sweet and juicy (I'm talking about the cherry fruit pictures on their site). It is an Apple emulater though - not something I would go nuts about.

indeed

Hahaha! About time Iran got nuked!

Bush accuses Iran, a fierce foe of Israel, of pursuing nuclear weapons and says Syria supports anti-Israeli Palestinian groups and has done not enough to stop foreign fighters entering Iraq to attack coalition forces. Kerry, who says halting nuclear proliferation will be a priority if he becomes president, believes Bush should have done more diplomatically to curb Iran's alleged nuclear weapons ambitions, which Tehran denies it has. Kerry also accuses Syria of sponsoring terrorist
operations.

Iranians had mixed views about the candidates. Political analyst Kavoos Emami praised Kerry for mentioning the need for dialogue and understanding with Iran. "If Kerry is elected, a U.S. military attack against Iran would be off the table or a very remote possibility," he said. "The presence of Bush and his hawkish advisers in the White House will be a potential danger to Iran."

Hahaha another reason to support GW Bush for presidency! Of course these crazies have every reason to be wary of Bush (or Kerry for that matter if he plans to fight against terrorism) because at the back of the minds they know they have it coming.

historic voting in Afghanistan

After all the protests against the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, I think this speaks a lot for itself. People of Afghanistan are voting for the first time for a new president. Whoever thinks that freeing a ravaged nation from oppressive regimes must come from another world. Support George W. Bush for presidency.

intentional delay of aid to Israeli bombing victims

Need I say more...?

Israeli rescue personnel were not permitted to cross into Egypt at first to care for the dozens of wounded. Immediately following the attack, Israeli medical personnel, as well as the IDF's Search and Rescue Unit gathered on the Egyptian border, but Egypt closed its border with Israel completely, preventing Israeli rescue personnel from crossing.

According to Channel 1, Israeli rescue personnel was only permitted to cross the border after half and hour had past due to a call from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Egyptian Prime Minister Hosni Mubarak.

Witnessed reported scores of injured Israelis made their way to the Israeli border by foot to be evacuated to Eilat's Yoseftal hospital. Several Israelis said Egyptian soldiers had fired in the air to attempt to stop them from crossing back in to Israel through the Taba terminal.

Not hard to discern evil. Egypt reeks of it.

hamas members on UN payroll

Another pointer as to why the UN is a joke. Read here for the news report.

Some members of the Hamas terrorist organization are on the United Nations'
payrolls - so confirmed UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) Chief
Peter Hansen.

An updated report on this. Seems the mass media is conveniently ignoring the facts.

article at Azure

A well written article which makes for good literature reading.

In the Name of the Other: Reflections on the Coming Anti-Semitism

arab leaders seething

It certainly is not the fairest of fair statements, to blatantly accusse Israel of attacking, making them out to be ruthless murderers - they are not. what the IDF is doing is counter offensive, defending Israel from the murderers. Just last week, a Qassam rocket launched by Palestinians with an agenda killed three children. It was not aimed at any military targets, but at civilians with the sake of killing more Jewish people.

"Israel persists in committing war crimes and acts of state terrorism
against the Palestinian people," al-Kidwa said. "There is no justification
for this Israeli hysteria, for these widespread killings and deliberate
destruction."

The above statement is what I will term as a twisting of the truth. Again, the lies spew forth with much unjustified anger from the lips of leaders of the Arab nations. Who can blame any nation for taking action to defend and protect their own citizens from an agenda that aims to
wipe out, annihilate if you may, the very existance of their nation and people? Above quote taken from here .

terrible

This is truly disgusting. Once again the UN does nothing but disgust me. Read here for the full scope.

The IDF Spokesman's Office disseminated a short video clip yesterday,
showing terrorists loading a UN ambulance van with a Kassam rocket. The van
was
later attacked by an IDF helicopter.

Israel has documented UN involvement in past attacks perpetrated by Hamas as
well as by Hizbullah.

alternatives

Lately given the whirlwind about Firefox being the next radical thing to appear in light of Internet Explorer's unpatched vunerabilities, I now bring you Maxthon . It is an IE extension which is feature packed, and worth checking out. So, before you throw in the towel for IE and switch camps to Firefox or Opera...or what have you, give this IE extension a spin. This is of course beneficial for those who have already applied SP2 on Windows XP because IE then would be patched up.