World United

I am sure you all have heard many countries including US and Israel have offered aid to Iran with rescue teams and medical supplies. Even though the earthquake itself is tremendously tragic, the fact that all these countries offered help is indeed beautiful. Also people all around the world have offered condolences and many have donated money to help the survivors. For once, the politics have been put aside. Human beings are simply helping human beings. I wish we, as people who live on this planet, could put differences aside, and just live together, as one nation. That way, all human tragedies would rightfully get the same amount of attention. But for now, I feel obligated to thank every single person in this world who donated something to those affected by the earthquake in Iran, even if it was their condolences. So, thank you and God bless you all!

Earthquake in Iran

It has been a sad few days. I was coming back from another trip on Saturday when I read the news. We stopped at a gas station on the way back. In the gas station's store there were few papers sitting on the shelf. On the first page there were pictures of a ruined city. An the title had the words "earthquake", "Iran", and "city of Bam". One of the titles also had the number "20'000" and the word "dead" in one sentence! It was shocking. I don't think the news sunk in me for a while. Not until we got home and I turned on TV and put the channel on CNN. They were covering it. I just sat in front of TV, still shocked. They estimated at that time about 20'000 had died. TWENTY THOUSAND DEAD!!!
Well now they say the number of dead has reached 25'000, and it will rise even more that this. My God, this is indeed one of the biggest tragedy of the decade. It is very sad. Even writing about is the hardest thing. But please, if you haven't come across ways to help the survivors by donating money, go to eyeranian.net, Pedram has posted ways to help.

God bless you all, and may the survivors find a way to get pass this great tragedy, Amen!

I was away!

I got back from a ski trip last night. I snowboarded for two days in Tahoe. It was a good trip, even though thanks to few girls in our group, the trip was full of drama!! So us guys decided from now on, either took girls who are single, cool, and cool, or just don't take any. I personally think it is not worth the drama.
Anyhow, even though I was away since Friday, so for only three nights, it felt like I was away from the city for a week or two. It is indeed an strange feeling when you come back from trips like this. When I am away from TV, traffic, Internet, and email for few days and come back, I always have this strange feeling. Basically in the country, you get away from many many problems and issues in your life, no? And once you come back and realize, yup, they are all still there, you feel sorry and sad. But hey, that's me. I am sure there are many that are different.
But overall, it was a fun trip and it being my first time snowboarding in a big mountain (and second time snowboarding ever) it was a lot of fun.

On Capture of Saddam

His was finally captured. He was finally brought down. I am talking about Saddam Hussein of course. His image with the long beard was weird. It gave me a strange feeling. The reason I didn’t post anything sooner about the matter was this strange feeling. I was trying to figure it out. It cannot be sympathy. It definitely is not sympathy. My childhood's memory is full of days with the "orange" and "red" sirens, "orange" when Iraqi fighter jets were approaching our towns and cities in Iran, and "red" when they were above our heads bombing everywhere, even non-military locations. Eight years Iran and Iraq were at war. 1 million, 1'000'000 people died in those 8 years. All because Saddam was (and still is) a crazy man, and the West, including USA, USSR, Germany, and France supported him at the time with weapons, information, smiles and handshakes. I remember witnessing the building ruins in Tehran, Isfahan, and even in Khorram'shahr, a city closest to Iraqi boarder in south of Iran. I also remember the images from gassed soldiers. It indeed was terrifying. So you could imagine how I feel about Saddam growing up during the Iran-Iraq war, and the "red" sirens! So, no, the feeling couldn't be anything but joy. Maybe it was half astonishment, and half pleasure that a dictator like Saddam was actually hiding in a hole in the circumstances you all saw. Maybe the feeling had something to do with hope too. Hope for realizing yet again that all the dictators' fate is the same. They all will be brought down, one way or another. All it takes is time. So my fellow Iran-lover Iranians, be patient please. Time is indeed with us.

Why?

The world I tell you gets sadder everyday! Just watch this clip, in which you see an Iraqi man wounded on the ground. A second later he is executed by a marine, who with other marines cheer up after the execution!!! Why? Why did they have to kill the man like this? WHY??
I say we should try to spread this clip around, even though it is a sad and disturbing clip, so that as many (American) people as possible could see the clip and see the dark side of them “cowboys”!!
So, stop reading, and start spreading around.
(Thanks to Faramin for posting this clip in his blog.)

More Afghan kids were killed by US

This is outrageous! You do not know how mad I got be reading the news. Yet another 6 Afghan children die in a US air strike. Yet again the thought a militant was in the house. Yet again they were WRONG!! Not that a militant being found dead in the house would make the situation any better. No. There are still children dead. Innocent children are not alive any more. Could you understand how miserable this is? In my last post, when I said the person behind these air attacks should be shot in the head I thought I am being a bit harsh. But know I strongly believe the person responsible for these kind of attacks should indeed be arrested and shot in the head.
If the US army thinks there is a militant in a house, why don’t they face him on the ground? Are they scared? Doesn’t US supposedly have the best or the strongest army?
Think about it this way: bombing a house in a village that you "suspect" it shelters a militant, and you "know" there are civilians near that house is like bombing a bank in which there is a terrorist lets say, who holds some civilians, lets say American civilians hostage. Now, would the police or Special Forces or FBI or whatever just throw grenades in the bank to kill the terrorist? Of course the answer is no. But what the hell is different in the two cases you ask? Well in the first case the civilians are Afghans and in the second there are American. Killing Afghans is OK according to US army!! This is unbelievable.

Check this out

Eyeranian posted this: Go to Google and type in "miserable failure" with the quotation marks, and then click on "I am feeling luck". The most interesting part for me was GWB's career and public services:
- Owner, oil and gas business
- Partner, Texas Rangers Baseball Team
- Governor of Texas
- President of the United States

You would think a president's experiences would be much more sophisticated that this. I swear at first I thought it was a joke. But then I realized it is as real as it gets!!!! Oh boy...

Yet More Children Die

This time Afghan children. Six of them are playing in front of a house, and two other, 2 girls, are carrying water to their homes. Then BAAAMMM!! There are two US bombs which hit a house that the children where near by. Supposedly the house belongs to a Taliban member. But first of all the villagers say he wasn’t even in the VILLAGE, let alone being home. He had left 10 days before the attack. Second of all, according to BBC, that house wasn’t even his!!!! They US bombed a wrong house. This is unbelievable. They just bomb a house, which they “think” it a house of a Taliban member, and they “think” he is in the house. Oh no, they don’t care that there might be some innocent civilians around, nor do they care if they guy’s wife and children are in the house. As long as they get him, doesn’t matter how many other die. Just as long as they get him. BUT THEY DON’T!!! Because not only he had left the town 10 days ago, but they hit the wrong house!!! As you can see, I am having a hard time understanding they way US army thinks or acts regarding these bombings. Do they even think about the consequences of such attacks? Or maybe they do, but they simply don’t care? Either way, I think the people responsible for such attacks need to be shot in the head, the exact same way Taliban or Al-Qaida members should be shot in the head!!! As harsh as that sounds…

Mr. Reese

Charley Reese's latest article is simply amazing. I completely agree with everything he says in it. When I read Mr. Reese's articles (well most of them), I truly get upset. Why? I get upset because there are Americans like Mr. Reese who know exactly what is happening to their country, but not only major media do not cover these people, but the majority of Americans are too busy with the many dump reality TV shows, the live news coverage of Michael Jackson going from airport to his home, the stupid Hollywood stories, or ... . And when election time comes, they would easily and so pathetically be fooled by politicians such as George Bush who tells them to either vote for him or be killed by the bad guys! This indeed is sad. Very sad.

Using Pictures…Exciting!

I just figured out how to put pictures in my blog. That I think just made my day! I thought you need to own a URL so you get some space on a server and you put your pictures there. I guess that is one way of doing it. But I just looked at Eyeranian’s blog source code and I realized the pictures he used are linked to sources on other websites. So basically you could search for pictures you want, by perhaps searching in Google’s image search and then link to the source of the picture in your posts. Not so hard at all! (I just hope this is legal and it is not a copyright issue. Is it?)
So from now on, I will use pictures in my blog. Hopefully my blog would not be as boring as it is now.

Writing Well is Hard

As I have mentioned before, I am in the middle of applying for bunch of graduate schools here in California. Therefore I needed to write an statement of purpuse. I am not done with it yet. I have given it to my brothers and sister in law and my current boss to read it and perhaps suggest some changes here and there. Well my oldest brother simply said it ain't good! "It doesn't have a good flow" he said. "Flow" seems to be the most important issue in writings. Going from one sentence to the next, or from one paragraph to another has to be right. It has to feel right. The read should not have to read sentences more than once to understand the writer. I realized sometimes, well many times, I think I am clear in what I try to say. I think I got the "flow" going on in my writings. But I am wrong. Just because I understand clearly what I am saying doesn't mean others do. Just becasue I, as the writer, feel the "flow" doesn't mean the readers also do. It reminded of the first few presentations I gave at my current work. I thought the material I presented was clear. I thought anyone could understand them easily. I was completely wrong! But I learned. I made sure the material is indeed clear, and understandable. Then people were happy with my presentations. So, from now on whenever I write something, I read it myself. And I read it again. Hopefully this way, I get the "flow" going on.