during the last days i made further migration attempts towards movabletype. i deleted everything i had done so far, downloaded it again and started all over from scratch. i even printed the manual! people who know me should laugh now, since the first thing i do whenever i unpack something new or run a new program or whatever it might be is to throw the manual in the corner and give it a first try without. well… certainly not with movabletype, that’s what i had to learn. i really gave it a serious moment and devoted quite some concetration on this project. after 2 hours of consequent working i had everything up and running. my thanks go to the people spending hours in the forum and answering stupid rookie-questions like the ones i posted! nevertheless, for all of you who are planning to install movabletype, i give you the good advice to proceed step by step always, be consequent and concentrated, and have a solid and profound understanding of how linking and folders work, and an at least basic understanding of sql. otherwise, please write me an email and i will install mt for you for a price lower the one mt asks ;). what should take me a couple more ages are the diffenrent templates i will have to develop (be sure that i won’t do with the standard ones!) and restructure my whole site to make the best out of mt. alice already declared me insane, for i already started with a new design, which also will account for the many new features i will deploy. wait and see – more great things to come! — acutally, besides my laudabile programming attempts, i have been quite a lazy bum since i am back to maastricht. however, yesterday i went to the library to have a first look at final theses. i was astonished how the different theses differed: the by far smallest thesis i browsed had only 37 pages, the most voluminous one 280. so i suppose i should plan to place my creative output somewhere between the lower quartile and the mean… if i only had a topic! i really need to find something soon, otherwise i will waste time madding about the ultra-shitty layout and design the majority of the people give to their thesis. this is certainly not true for esther‚s thesis which i found by accident, since it was misplaced. her mother is a designer and made it a really visual delicacy as well: content and looks in perfect harmony. — today, dani will come and visit me for the first time. the notice of her arrival triggered mr proper in me, and i did something i had sworn not to do anymore until i could attest my housemates some effort in houskeeping as well. so i once more cleaned. and how i cleaned! after the bathroom, increasing frustration and disgust drove me to clean the whole house from top to bottom. it took me almost two hours, but i found it to be a great workout, for i was sweating as hell. i won’t bore you with that any longer, but just for the record i have to state that everything (well, almost!) is clean now! — i will probably take dani to the center tonight. it’s a little sad that she will be arriving relatively late so she won’t be able to see all this nice city has to offer. tomorrow, we will drive back home together, since thomas, kai and me will be celebrating 1st of mai in the location where we did this for the first time exactly ten years ago. man, where did time go? but in fact, i do remember remarkably vivid lots of details from this celebration. no wonder why, since everybody reminds me of my puking after too much mixing cheap sparkling wine and beer in my stomach. at least it is true for all kinds of fuddles: one learns over time! — i wish all germans a nice 1st of may (actually, it is „tag der arbeit – day of work“; so it’s a holiday for everybody) and drop me a line if you like!

first and most important: i passed finance! now i can only hope that i don’t become a victim of post-publication changes. at maastricht university, everything is possible, you know?! i cannot put in words how relieved i am! this burden is off me, and that makes me really happy. the other nice thing is that i also passed my exam for information management, which together with the good finance-news means that i am done with maastricht, except for the thesis which i will start to start with in the next days (depending on my enthusiasm). — currently, i am making my first migration attempts: away from blogger and towards movabletype. i have tried installing the mother of all content management systems on a test-account from all-inkl.com, which is very likely to become my new webhosting provider in the very near future. i might switch to them just because i am no more willing to pay the high prices at 1&1, although i have no complaints about their current service whatsoever. but i would need to pay 25 euros a month for the features and tools i would need for movabletype and that’s definately not worth it. with php, my image-galleries and structure of content will reach a completely new dimension. at least this is what webmaster martin is aiming at ;). so, my friends, i will keep you posted, awright?

graphologies.de sagt:

Maddin ist ein Gewohnheitsmensch. Er ist mit einer praktischen Intelligenz ausgestattet, die ihm erlaubt, rationell zu arbeiten, und zwar im Privat- wie auch im Berufsleben. F?r ihn ist verbindliches Auftreten und Arbeiten selbstverst?ndlich.
Er ist lebhaft und kontaktfreudig. Mit viel Verst?ndnis f?r die Belange anderer.
Er versucht, die eigene Meinung durchzusetzen. Wenn er etwas besser wei? als andere, muss er es ihnen auch unbedingt mitteilen.
Maddin ist ?berdurchschnittlich intelligent. N?chtern und zweckm??ig bew?ltigt er seine Aufgaben.
Er arbeitet sehr genau und zeichnet sich durch rationales, analytisches Denken aus.
Maddin ist sehr stark um Gerechtigkeit bem?ht. Er versucht stets, sich f?r andere einzusetzen.
Maddin neigt schon mal zu Ungenauigkeiten. Das kann seine Ursache in der eigenen Art der Wahrnehmungen haben, vielleicht steckt dahinter auch eigenn?tzige Absicht.

here at my parent’s place one gets the idea of the concept of ‚la dolce vita‘. being here for a week now, i have already had my first sunburn due to the incredible weather, have partied to my complete satisfaction, have made a couple of warm-up bike rides to actually prepare my physics for some more action in the coming weeks, have enjoyed ‚hotel mama‘ to the max and with that the wide array of home-shopping possibilities, have had decent beer and ?ppelwoi (something i really miss in maastricht; not so much the ?ppelwoi but rather the beer because i am now ready to state that dutch beer sucks completely – with one exception, grolsch!), and simply could relax bigtime here. nevertheless, i am up quite early, do lots of things that i couldn’t do during the last months (for example awarding the car the looks it deserves, that is, getting the alloys mounted…), and in essence use my time for something reasonable or even tangible. well well, as nice as life in maastricht can be, i don’t think i will ever feel that accustomed and settled there as i feel here as soon as i drop my luggage. mybe it’s only the fact that i am still living in this shitty studenthouse with no garden, no neighborhood and nothing around you get completely comfortable with. on the other hand, i asked my sister whether she would miss here dirty studenthouse and ass-monkey neighbors since she is moving to a new, own appartment next weekend. she immediately replied „not at all“. see, i am not the only one…. — last weekend it was party at lena’s place where she and katrin celebrated her birthday. they live on the 4th floor (stairs in the entrance not counted) in giessen inner-city. we had a grand time there! maybe we enjoyed too much „lady’s beer“ (beck’s gold) and other beverages as our headaches next day revealed. nevertheless we were still able to call ourselves a cab taking us to thomas‘ and kai’s place sometime in the morning to get some sleep. not bad at all. you can view the pictures here (in the ‚lena’s & katrin’s party‘ folder). — tonight we are probably heading to the ultimate „tia maria revival party“ – the discothek we used to go to when we were 15 and proud as hell to manage to get in there without showing our id… damn, that’s already 10 years ago! hell, where did time go? -anyways, shitty as the place is, i expect to meet a whole bunch of people there i haven’t met for ages. on the other hand, it’s karfreitag tomorrow meaning that dancing will be prohibited from midnight onwards. i don’t get any of this old-fashioned crap. but as long as religion plays a role in our legislation, i expect this to go on. what would the world look like if we removed all this church-stuff from public life? -i tell you, in the first couple of years one would miss the regular christian holidays, but after that i see a rosy future. just think about the economic costs of all these holidays… but enough of that. anyways, i still have a lot of people to meet in the remaining days, and i am looking forward to it. — tomorrow, we managed to plan and organize this season’s first bbq on lena’s terrace. despite „good friday“ we will mainly roast pork – as i mentioned above, we don’t give a fiddler’s fart, just like good „schwazzkittel“ do. on tuesday i will be back in maastricht, go to mercedes for the last time to hand in my access card and fetch my coffee cup. but before, i will enjoy easter…. with lots of eggs and chocolate bunnies!

happy easter!!!

my valued visitors, let me give you a recent and seemingly decent update. today -no, actually yesterday, since it is already tomorrow- was a quite exhausting, tiring, disappointing and relieving day. i wrote my last exam for this block, which could have been my last exam at maastricht university ever. after last week’s exam on „information management“, today i took this more than shitty „international finance and accounting“ exam for the sixth time, which to my great frustration is unfortunately one of the obligatory courses of the curriculum. i cannot tell whether i passed or not – i was too scared and too lazy as well to go to the university and pick up the answer key. believe it or not, doing an exam for the sixth time does not contribute to your selfconfidence at all. instead, you are more likely to forget everything you have achieved in your academic career (or whatever you wanna call it) so far but rather purely judge upon your more than evident incompetence, stupidity or unintelligence. i tried to free my mind from these thoughts, having the ultimate goal which is to pass this course before i handed in my final thesis. anyhow, i feel really bad. not mentally bad, but physically bad. i spent more than one week in a row behind my desk, and hardly went outside (people who know my place also know how far i have to go if i do shopping…). i was also experiencing a certain numb feeling in my legs – surely not a good sign at the age of 25. but this is over, for at least some time, since i will be spending the next ten days at my parent’s place, and there is no broadband-connected pc or desk i would wanna spend my precious time behind. rather, i will grab my bike and sporting gear and remind my tired bones of their true age. it’s a shame, really. one should do much more sports, that’s for sure. — after this quite relieving act of feeling alive for a long time after the exam, i decided to go to mercedes and get my employment conditions in order. to shorten up things, i am unemployed! well, to be honest, this didn’t come as a surprise. we have heard lots of this „due to the economic situation since 9-11, you know…“-bullshit, but this time it is the dutch law being against me. according to the so-called flex-wet (law for parttimers), one can be employed in three phases, each with a maximum duration of one year. ok, now you do the maths how long i had been working for mercedes? -exactly 3 years on march 6. that’s quite a long time. believe me or not, i have learned so much during these years, probably nothing what you would classify as hard skills, but more about people and organizations. plus, i know swabian ;) no, honestly, i had a good time there. my boos said he would like to keep me, if he could, but since this is not the case i have the honour to empty my shelf, hand-in my access card, take my coffee-cup and leave in two weeks. i will miss the money, the alternative occupation besides studies, and the warm athmosphere i always had with my collegues. not to speak of fantastic buffets, parties, events, merchandise and the like, and all for free. at mercedes, there used to be what is referred to as a ‚free lunch’! — when i came home, the first thing i did was switching on the tv. just in case i could have missed something spectacular during my 5 hours of absence. well, i just arrived in time to see saddam’s bronze replica falling from its pedestal. now, my congratulations to the iraqi people for being disburdened of your tyrant. however, my regards do not go to the us army, for i still believe in the wrongness of this war. period. i will stop commenting on the latest events in the middle-east and rather leave it like that, since shorty, a valued source of constructive input and member of the audience for ages reminded me of the fact that i am not writing anything personal anymore. rather, i fill my blog with endless comments on things that are basically nothing new. but allow me this remark: i do care how the world i will be living in for quite some time is made up and shaped – that’s why i simply need to speak up, especially when there is such loud silence. — basically, i will stop here for today, but i will leave you a very to-the-point quote regarding this new world order, you are kindly invited to comment on:
The Hares and the Lions
The hares harangued the assembly, and argued that all should be equal. The Lions made this reply: „Your words, O Hares! are good; but they lack both claws and teeth such as we have.“

- Aristotles

- operation iraqi liberationthe level of ignorance is incredible and almost unbearable. everyday, we receive news from allied casualties, but we see this ass-monkey bush grin into cameras, when giving interviews on the state of affairs. us-media casualties always are lower than on any other tv-station’s report and essentially they occur one day later and under totally different circumstances. as i said it before, i am glad to have the www and manifold european and overseas‘ news media at my disposal to get as close to truth as possible. still, i believe that every american citizen should spend at least 30 minutes a day reading what the world’s papers write, not only what us propaganda tells them. take for example the latest blooper of us marines who attacked a convoy of iraqi refugees, including mothers and children, in the best rambo-manner. the cars were perforated with gunshots – and so were the bodies of 12 innocent, non-threatening iraqi humans. luckily, mark franchetti, a reporter from london’s sunday times, enriches the world with his article on that incident and teaches us what it means to have the world’s greatest army: „[…] Their mistake was to flee via a brigde of strategic importance for the supplylines of the coalition – running into a group of scared to death young american marines who had order to shoot everything that moves.“ phantastic! impressive! — what really strikes me is that the invasion of the world’s greatest army does not work out as planned. again and again, they receive proof for what i said from the beginning: you cannot simply pack your bags, invade another country and assume that you will be welcomed with open arms and that regime-averse groups and parties become allies! maybe the us have a false understanding of war, but who can reproach a nation for rejecting and fighting against the path towards the chance of a better life without a tyrannically regime at some time in the future while strangers invade your fatherland, bombs destroy your city, rockets and missiles hit your house, and bullets kill your family? every status quo is better than being bombed and killed. as a matter of fact, it’s our natural impulse to defend our lives to every kind of threat that appears.
„the west won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. westerners often forget this fact, non-westerners never do.“
– Samuel P. Huntington
now, mr rumsfeld, shouldn’t you better have listened to you generals and military experts? as read in an australian paper, many casualties could have been avoided if planning would have been better. besides, as often controverted by us officials, the supply of troops is everything but perfect. being of particular interest to a logistics-student that i am, armies can theoretically move up to 300km (absolute maximum) into a country. then, they must have a logistics center with a well-working distribution network in order to move on. now, what kind of plan is it to move to baghdad via the iraqi motorways, avoiding enemy contact wherever possible and let supplying trucks follow days after?! as seen on german television, in an interview a marine said he was glad to receive his first warm meal in 3 days….. — yesterday night, i could have puked over the incredible, unthinkable ignorance of dutch youths debating in a tv-program over the war. this, my friends was the most idiotic, european-continental bullshit coming out of people who are of my age that i have ever witnessed. it is no secret that the netherlands are heavily ass-kissing with the us. but how they spill us propaganda bullshit arguments all over the country and even into schools really scares me. wouldn’t the program have been in dutch, i would have felt like following the president of the poor people of the united states himself. if balkenende & co want to forget who buys 90% of dutch exports and what is more important, the one voice of a united europe or the big cowboy, go ahead, but leave it to your otherwise so liberal people to get an accurate picture of what operation iraqi liberation really means. if europe is ever to gain the power in the world it earns because of manifold motives, then we should now use this kind of shock therapy and move towards that goal. — to round up today’s blog, i present the most insane sentence i have heard for long (though everything in this war is insane):
„the iraqi people are diseased – and we are the chemotherapy. i begin hating this country.“
– us marine subofficer.
for your readings:
bush administration readyring for 2004 invasion of iran
warblogging.com
warblogs.cc
iraqbodycount.net
back to iraq 2.0
where is raed? (blog from baghdad)
al jazeera english pages (down quite a lot)

i have just returned from my weekend in krefeld at alice‚s home. still, i cannot calm down about the accumulation of idiots on the streets. ever had the feeling that actually you yourself are the one behaving against all rules and rationales of traffic just because the entirety of drivers around you move their cars like morons? ok, nevermind… nevertheless, this weekend turned out to be very productive. once again, i was able to make my move against mobile phone rip-off! after almost 2 years with my 6210 and high tariffs of a prepaid-card i decided to take the opportunity to take one of o2‚s grand 3-euro-per-month-student-contracts together with a nokia 6610. the guys from o2 wanted to give me the phone for 30 euro more than advertised because i chose the cheapest student contract. after one day of negotiations with myself i decided to do it anyways. but due to a packed shop, the original salesperson gave just my package and papers to one of his collegues to whom we had not talked before – and who therefore didn’t know about the 30 euro extra. guess how quickly i slipped my creditcard through the device and pressed ok when i found the normal price…. damn, that’s good luck! i should, however, mention that alice was kind of pissed about that because she paid the same for the same phone with the next higher contract…….. but hey, what a great little thing is that?! color display, ringtones that sound like c64 instead of the emergency-beep like your refridgerator, ultra-light weight – and simply way too stylish to let your mate touch it. just kidding. no, i really like it. the only stupid thing is that nokia bundles this nice toy with extensive software but does not include a decent data-cable. only laptop-users can get started right away… grrrr! now i only hope that the people from e+ are able to transfer my current mobile number to o2. i will let the usual suspects know whether they have to save a new number with my name in time.
news from the evil empireit’s simply incredible: our texas wanker is faced with a totally different scenario than he had expected the world’s greatest army to encounter. after the first days of only glorifying news from the gulf we have watched a different picture during the weekend: 25 us casualties and marines in saddam’s hands. or, us antiaircraft fire shooting down a british plane and helicopters crashing due to pilot’s mistakes. plus, baghdad bombed continuously but saddam alive and civilians dead. bombers in iran’s airspace. marines throwing granades at eachother at night and shooting journalists. -well, not exactly what the world expects from an upcoming superpower.
what’s the difference between the mad 9-11-pilots steering their 747s into the wtc and the b52 pilots dropping their bombs over baghdad? -the bomber pilot returns to his base for refill.
meanwhile, ‚old-europe‘ strikes back — webwise. pages like boycottusa or boycottwar need no further introduction, so let’s indeed reverse the ‚tea-party‘ the axisofweasels carried out some weeks ago! the german audience may also wanna read an interview with j. fischer. i believe he is absolutely right: the us did not have a verdun. but what really scares me is the high degree of visibility this war offers. we see a live-picture of baghdad at night, we watch bombs falling and hitting their targets, followed by intense explosions. we see soldiers firering their machine-guns, see tanks moving and firering their cannon, and helicopters releasing their rockets. what we -yet- do not see is the true amount of destruction of every round causes. soon, also live and in color…. having just followed a comedian’s program on tv, i cite one of the statements for your discussion and comments:
„the usa have liberated the germans from hitler and we should be grateful for that. but now the time has come to pay back our dues and to free america from george w. bush.“

congratulations georgie, you really made it! on your continued strive to gain world domination, you have declared war to humanity, intelligence, all rationales and ethics. man’s stupidity is infinite, quod erat demonstrandum. saddam inc. was given 48 hours to leave the country, although iraq handed in the missing documents yesterday before the speech. as blix said yesterday, iraq has made real advancements in destroying its wmd, and that his commission would need 3 more month of inspections in order to give an accurate report about the weapon arsenal of iraq. 3 more months, that would have shaped the course of history and the world of tomorrow totally different. now, the cards are on the table: saddam is not going into exile, and so the 250000 soldiers will receive their suidice commando pretty soon. it shouldn’t be forgotten, that bush is doing all that without a mandate of the un security council – rendering himself into a criminal in the sense of international law (which the us in wise foresight did not sign) and later as a criminal of war. this, my valued readers, means that if he gets accused by the international criminal court, he can be busted in virtually every country of the world. but this is only a dream. who would ever have the balls and stand up against big brother america? basically, the vast majority of the whole world’s population, except for israel, which is of course in line with the us. nevertheless, 2 british ministers already took their hat and withdrew from duty. bravo, that’s the way. but as long there are supporters, their voices will always be heard better. as just seen on tv, a war without the mandate of the un is to be regarded as an offensive war. the constitution of germany prohibits any participation or assistance in leading such a war under sentence. since a country’s constitution exeeds every kind of contracts and international arrangements, allowing the us army to overfly germany or move troops in germany is definitely a crime in the sense of the germany constitution which is punished as breach of the law of nations, meaning that schr?der and co could go to jail for 10 or more years. now, people, think again about the german position in this idiotic game we have been following the last month. — this world is sick. it has cancer. and in my eyes, a good part of this cancer has found its nutrition in the us where it can blossom and flourish… go america, fight everything. fight nations you defined as enemies, and fight your own people’s free speech and thoughts – something, what we in ‚old europe‘ have learned to value more than being the world’s greatest nation. freedom, my friends, does not mean waving the star-sprangled banner. it means being free as a human being, being free as an individual. life is a sexually transmitted desease……..

i survived last week! this year, i managed to successfully avoid carnival, or fasching, as we call it. i escaped from maastricht just before the whole city turned into a gigantic lunatic asylum, but with the difference that mental and challenged people are allowed to move freely in the streets. not my piece of cake. i had a good talk with kai about the phenomena of simply just feeling totally pissed by all this carnival-rubbish. firstly, we were not born and raised into this culture. i remember dressing up rediculously and going to the kid’s carnival party, but just because everybody else went there. later, carnival was something for sissies. even later, we had unlearned to behave totally nuts for a couple of days. second, having to take the car for every party or event you wanna go to, carnival and coke simply don’t go together. you gotta be at least as drunk as your next neighbor in order to tolerate this crazy business. third, endurance is the key. how are you supposed to party in a decent manner, when you have to get up next morning? fourth, our area is simply not a carnival area, no matter how hard they try. going to cologne is not an option, since they call it karneval and shout alaaf. going to mainz is neither an option, since they have a strange sense of humor i at least don’t understand. fifth, all this shit they broadcast on tv already weeks before makes you so damn tired of this t?t???? t?t???? t?t????-bullshit that you yourself can’t get into the right mood to join these idiots. i could never go to a dedicated carnival party – i would need to punch someone’s face every now and then… concluding: we are not made for european carnival -or- european carnival is not our kind of party. period. i guess we would have fun in rio……
news from the ‚imperium americanum‘george „diabolo“ bush continues to present himself as the world’s leading terrorist. yes, terrorist i said. he is no better that any of the dictators whose throwns he is preparing to sweep clean. the us lineup is completed they say. last week, someone bright remembered the importance of a northern front. after the negative voting of the turkish government on troop lineup in turkey, the mr rumsfeld has no scruple to override this decision an sort of invades this country with a shipload of tanks, trucks and machinery. unbelievable. meanwhile, saddam has signalled cooperation and started scrapping his rockets. well, given all circumstances, is that nothing? apparently not, since newspapers already state march 13 as the first day of us attacks. speculation or not, it is a fact that us troops already started cutting the border fence from kuwait to iraq, which is of course not allowed by international law. meanwhile, saddam has had talks with iranian mullahs, whether they shouldn’t team up against georgie, since as a matter of fact, iran is supposed to be the next playhouse on bush’s world-tour. -or north korea, since the us were really pissed about two north-korean intercepters getting as close as 15m on to a us intelligence aircraft. well, what the heck are they doing in north-korean territory in the first place? i will not advocate the possession of nuclear weapons, but i can understand the north-korean point of view of simply not being willing to obey every compelling act of big brother united states anymore. the world’s greatest nation is on the path to some strange form of world leadership, but in the negative sense, thus being better called world-dictatorship. after the fall of the sowjet union, and with the absense of the eastern block threatening the ‚free world‘, the us can and will exercise power in every way it wants to. does it make sense to have supra-national organizations like the un/uno or nato which were put in place to ensure peace on a long-term basis and balance power, if countries like the us are allowed to have prize idiots like bush trying to rule the world and giving a shit about what un decides? no mr bush or mr rumsfeld will ever end up in the hague for being criminals of war. the world and especially those countries supporting the criminal actions taken by the us must not forget about its responsiblities: to ensure freedom and peace. i read in an article that history has proven that regardless what country, what religion, what economy, all attempts to force a nation on democracy and free markets have failed. the authors pointed out that the time for change has to come – it doesn’t fall out of the skies together with bombs. besides, saddam wouldn’t have his weapons of mass destruction if the us and other nato-members hadn’t delivered them. one shouldn’t forget that those economies made good bucks from deals with those countries on the ‚axis of evil‘. right now, as the economies hold breath wherever you go, it seems funny that there are still some sectors heavily booming. i am not referring to the arms industry, or the biochemical industry, for they are terribly busy producing enough placebo that will keep the masses quiet about the threat of b- or c-weapon attack. rather, the number one booming sector is the banking industry. you would say the opposite is true, but as a matter of fact, us sperm banks are running extra shifts to freeze all the spunk of frightened marines fearing they could return impotent or in a body bag from the gulf….
thank you so much! after the „axis of weasels“ website that has attracted lots of attention lately, the world’s greatest nation has more wise citizens who have brought up another site that is stoking the hatred against germany and france. the title couldn’t be more direct, it’s germanystinks.com. now, whereas the axis of weasels simply helps morons multiply their stupidity, gemanystinks.com goes one step further and provides advise how best to demostrate the deep antipathy to germany. people can even find a list of products to be avoided there. (although i believe they forgot some of the -let’s say- less convenient products.) i won’t talk about this site too much, go and see for yourself, but i must declare, that in the name of my european ancestors, i deeply regret that „old europe“ ever discoverd america. a point often made on the websites mentioned is that germany should be grateful to the us. i know that history and geography does not belong to the strengths of the world’s greates country, but there are quite some people in germany not having forgotten what the allies did for us in ww2:

 

on february 12, robert c. byrd, u.s. senator for 45 years held an amazing speech which somehow only today could be found in a german newspaper. i really recommend reading through it, in either german or english. i am very impressed by mr byrds, for finally demonstrating that there are high-ranked politicians in america having the balls to speak up. it is so refreshing and relieving to follow his words:
[…] To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. […] Anti-Americanism based on mistrust, misinformation, suspicion, and alarming rhetoric from U.S. leaders is fracturing the once solid alliance against global terrorism which existed after September 11. […] This Administration has not finished the first war against terrorism and yet it is eager to embark on another conflict with perils much greater than those in Afghanistan. Is our attention span that short? Have we not learned that after winning the war one must always secure the peace? […] In only the space of two short years this reckless and arrogant Administration has initiated policies which may reap disastrous consequences for years. […] Frankly many of the pronouncements made by this Administration are outrageous. There is no other word. […] I truly must question the judgment of any President who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50% children is „in the highest moral traditions of our country“.
-robert c.byrds
however, should you be interested in the american bullshit-talk we hear everyday, don’t miss the „axis of weasels“ website, but don’t forget to puke!
stadskern in beweging – maastricht city in motionwell, when i walked the city last week, i noticed that they had already started turnig the vrijthof and the administration buildings at the maas down. next day, i grabbed my camera to make some pictures:

   

martin in motion?well, actually not too much. i cancelled my efforts for an internship at mercedes benz. that was on monday. after weeks of talks, emails, phonecalls, it unfortunately boiled down to a topic/department/job description i did not feel really comfortable with. and since i was faced with the alternatives of doing that for 5 months or not at all, i followed what my stomach was telling me. no hard feelings at all, i simply had to make a decision. i should add that i am probably of the kind of people who need to be enthusiastic about what they have to do. and, if this is the case, they can and will give 150%. so i am following my last courses at maastricht university ever. to my great exitement, my grade for international competitive analysis and strategy was revised after i visited the complaint hour. i received additional points and they found a severe error in their formula for the grades. so i got a 7 now and am happy. so, i need only one more course and i am through with my domestic curriculum – technically. wouldn’t there be finance… however, due to my change of plans, i will be able to give it a last try. should that fail, i will ask for ‚free graduate‘ and substitute finance with another 4th-year course and drop that burden. — thursday night, i got a call from roel. he asked me whether i could do him a favor and design a banner and buttons for a website he was developing. of course i did, but i couldn’t stick to the task of designing something really „simple“ and not spending too much time on it. well, the result can be seen here… — time to say goodbye volume 2934: shorty and mathieu are off for korea. south-korea. i am very exited to hear updates and see what they ‚picture‘ there. — that’s it for now, tomorrow another beautifully boring week will start, reminding us all that every minute of our lives is valuable and should therefore be treated accordingly. stay tuned….