Ruby Tuesday (The Rolling Stones)

Ruby Tuesday (The Rolling Stones)

Spent a good half-weekend with my girlfriend in Frankfurt, the second half sucked because I got food-poisining from some oysters I ate, wasting my time on Sunday solely with lying in bed and hanging over the toilet. Good times all around.
Quite the busy post today, have a lot of interesting stuff to catch up to (and a class which already started 15 minutes ago, but since I haven't managed to read the book we were supposed to have finished by today, I might as well be a little late). Gonna start out with the intellectual stuff and then cross over to BBall after that...

I'm assuming all of you have heard of Bin Laden's new message. Here is what the NY Times has to say about it. What I personally wonder about are two things.
One, why is no one in American politics (and that include the Democrats and Kerry at the last elections) making a bigger deal out of the fact that the current administration is failing miserably in catching the guy responsible (according to the official US-position at least) for the single worst terrorist attack ever? What was it that Bush said shortly afterwards? We will get him dead or alive or some crap. It's been four years. Two countries have been invaded, the US has spent billions on this so-called War on Terror (if there ever was a misnomer this would be it, but anyway) and they can't even get Bin Laden? Fuck, Germany caught Baader, Meinhof and Esslin rather easily. Every video this guy sends out is a mocking to the American effort or rather its effectiveness in this fight. Seriously.
Two, and yeah, I nearly forgot about this, because number one quite enrages me (does that sound British or do I just imagine that?), shouldn't people (OK, I am lagging behind in my newspaper reading again, having been sick and in Frankfurt, so maybe everybody is doing this already) completely focus on the fact that Bin Laden has offered a truce to the US? I mean, I don't think you should take him up on it or anything (this being based upon principal thoughts regarding the state which I will not detail upon right now...), but what the fuck? Bin Laden wants to make a deal? With whom? The devil? What results is he expecting, the complete drawback of heathen troops (and civilians?) from islamic countries? Basically I have two attempted explanations for this. Number one, Bin Laden and his followers have been hit hard by US-actions against them (whether of military or financial nature) and simply need a break. Number two, he is losing support in the Islam world because the people dying in most attacks nowadays are not heathens or even American soldiers or something but rather civilian muslims, whether it be in Iraq, Afghanistan or Saudi-Arabia. A Pan-Arabian Islamic government? Honestly this leaves me rather dumb-struck. It is kind of like Hitler calling for negotiations with Israel (and yes, I know Israel did not exist then, but you get my point) or McCarthy asking for a truce with Stalin (on a less harsh level than the former comparison so to speak).

The new Bolivian President has been sworn in. Am not going to focus on this for too long. But analogue to China having been 'lost' under Eisenhower (or was it Truman?) what's up with South America going completely left after Bush has taken office. Chavez, Lula, that new Chilean woman (can't think of the name right now), Argentina, now Bolivia, definitly seems to be a back lash to American policies in 'their' own hemisphere. The good thing about most of these guys (with the notable exception of Chavez) seems to be that they busy themselves with sensible left-wing politics (coupled with radical left-wing propaganda, but then whose agenda isn't radical) and do not pursue autocratic options or communist measures that make good PR but do not offer any results for the people.

Last on the politics agenda is a Tocqueville article from the NY Times which is very interesting. Haven't read that book initially, but large excerpts. Definitly seems worth a read though, the same applies to that new book which is mentioned in the article.

Regarding BBall I wanted to inform y'all of two developments, when Kobe chimed in and even though I do not like him, I guess I cannot ignore him... Going for 81 of course is incredible and does deserve some follow up. Just a couple of notes on that. Is is harder or easier for a perimeter player to score as much? I would believe in the harder aspect since that position involves a lot more movement on both ends. John Carrol argues that it might be easier because as a front court player the ball needs to be fed to you, while Kobe can pick up outside somewhere. Another random thought, Kobe didn't really have to defend anyone against Toronto did he? Who plays SG for the Raptors? Morris Peterson? Dan Dickau could probably check him, so this fact kind of counters my believe in the difficulty of scoring in these heights for guards at least for this game. But in general this just leaves me speechless.

I actually had even more for today, but I seriously need to get to class now, plus this is long enough as it is. I'll do the rest either tonigh (we might finally get Internet at our place tonight) or tomorrow.