Paris Syndrome....

Paris syndrome principally strikes Japanese holiday travelers and is very, very different from Hong Kong syndrome....

Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations...including two women who believed their hotel room was being bugged and there was a plot against them....Previous cases include a man convinced he was the French "Sun King", Louis XIV, and a woman who believed she was being attacked with microwaves, the paper cited Japanese embassy official Yoshikatsu Aoyagi as saying.

"Fragile travelers can lose their bearings. When the idea they have of the country meets the reality of what they discover it can provoke a crisis,"

The absurdity of this is astonishing, particularly since the Japanese fellow mentioned above cannot possibly be the French "Sun King", Louis XIV, because I am! The poor Japanese, expecting the best for their holidays, and receiving the worst. I have always seen the French as nothing more than white trailer park trash with good food. But of course it has no become something different, since France is now populated with white trailer park trash with good food AND frothing at the mouth homicidal Muslim youth looking to burn cars and beat up people.

So, Japanese tourists can come back to Hong Kong where their eyes will water due to the noxious air here instead of having their mouths water from the great French food.

A Devious Plot Or Just Common Sense...

In 2004, Arizona voters approved Proposition 200, a measure designed to prevent illegal immigrants from voting. It required people to produce proof of citizenship, such as a passport, to register to vote, and picture ID, such as a driver's license, or two pieces of a nonphoto ID, in order to cast a ballot.

This law has been tossed around in the courts since then. SCOTUS has just allowed the law to stand. So the question is, does it disenfranchise voters, in particular, those that are poor and may not have proof of citizenship or does this just make good old common sense given that there are probably around 10 million illegal immigrants in the US these days?

The SCOTUS decision, while not opining on the validity of the law itself, did not disallow it in the context of the court processes to date. But most heartening to me, it weighed the idea that disenfranchised voters, those without sufficient ID to vote being a legitimate problem with another legitimate problem that all voters are disenfranchised and may be discouraged to vote if elections are subject to or potentially fraudulent when there is a belief that there could be a significant number of illegitimate voters.

Maybach 62....

At US$550,000 and over 20 feet long, it pulls 550 horsepower and go 0-60 in around 5 seconds. Mercedes answer to a Rolls Royce.

A Bit Of A Shock....

My father-in-law suffered a stroke Friday night and my parents arrived here in Hong Kong on Saturday. So it has been very hectic as of late.

The F-I-L was doing ok yesterday, but is a little bit worse today. He is 78 and this will probably take a severe toll on him if he survives. All we can do is pray.

The Biased Broadcasting Network, Also-Know-As the BBC...

The BBC admitted what most of us knew all along, and that is that it is populated by limp-wristed lefty liberals and that the news, like a festering infected wound leaks 'biased bloviating chatter' [also BBC] that is then labeled news and crammed down the throats of millions of viewers worldwide...

the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC's 'diversity tsar', wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

Ack. I find listening to the BBC broadcasters tiring and cancelled the service several months ago...

BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

Sounds alot like The New York Times and much of the American media machine. I just do not trust them to present balanced and fair reporting.

Additionally, I have noticed the Anti-American bias, but since everyone is anti-American these days, its difficult to distinguish the genuine from the disingenuous...

Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'.

Taxes.....

Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other...[A]n economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough jobs or enough profits...It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now.

Who said this? Answer here.

300 Million On Tuesday....

The US population is expected to surpass the 300 million mark on Tuesday, October 17th...

The U.S. Census Bureau says it expects the nation's population to reach 300 million on Tuesday, 39 years after the 200 million mark was reached and 91 years after the county's population hit 100 million.

The 300 millionth person will enter a country that's much different than it was in 1967, when Life magazine designated the birth of Robert "Bobby" Ken Woo Jr. as a population milestone, naming him the nation's 200-millionth resident.

A chinese American was the nation's 200 millionth citizen, how appropriate. Long live the USA!

Newsflash.....

Mark Foley's lawyer announced just moments ago that his client's homosexuality is the result of an alien abduction during his college days.

And...

Foley's lawyer has also revealed that the disgraced congressman was drunk when he engaged in online sex chats with gay teens.

And...

Mark Foley's lawyer suggested yesterday that a Roman Catholic priest who molested him as a child may be responsible for his homosexual proclivities.

And...

Republicans Giving Sexual Deviancy a Bad Name

Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) is a closet homosexual who used his position of power to lure impressionable young boys into obscene online chats. Yet in spite of all that, it turns out he is actually a bad person. His crime? Violating the sacred trust between members of Congress and their pages.

Read about it here, here, here and here.

And of course, no commentary about Foley is complete without a mention of the recently deceased former Massachusetts Representative Studds, the first openly gay member of Congress...

In 1983, Studds acknowledged his homosexuality after a 27-year-old man disclosed that he and Studds had had a sexual relationship a decade earlier when the man was a teenage congressional page.

The House of Representatives censured Studds, who then went home to face his constituents in a series of public meetings.

At the time, Studds called the relationship with the teenage page, which included a trip to Europe, "a very serious error in judgment." But he did not apologize and defended the relationship as a consensual relationship with a young adult. The former page later appeared publicly with Studds in support of him.

Its ok, if you don't feel sorry about it, I guess. So that is really what Foley is guilty of, he apologized and felt sorry for his behavior.

Hey, Who Can't Do This?

Looks easy to me! And for Shaky, David Hasselhof gets very excited about this!

How To Prepare Filipino Food...

Start with copious amounts of cooking oil. Add an enormous amount of salt to the oil, start to heat both to frying temperature. Add a mountain of sugar to the heating oil. Take the stuff you want to cook stick it in the hot oil and let it over cook so that everything is greasy soggy.

Take the sweet and salty greasy concoction and serve on a plate with white rice. Watch your guests eat the concoction and rest assured that none of them will live past the age of 55 due to health, particularly heart problems.

In the airport last night, there was a bunch of young fellows eating deep-fried pig skin. They offered me some so I had a small taste. It was salty and oily. How good for ones health is salty deep fried pig fat?

The Philippines has good fruit, though. So I had that every day for breakfast.

Cat Cloning Company Closing...

First of all, what knucklehead thought of this idea in the first place? A company that will clone your pet so when the furred creature goes to the great beyond, you can have the happy fuzzball back...

informing them it will close at the end of the year because of little demand for cloned cats. The company had recently reduced the price from $50,000 to $32,000.

The letters said the Sausalito company was not accepting new orders for clones because it was "unable to develop the technology to the point that cloning pets is commercially viable."

Wow, even at the discounted price of a mere $32,000 [HK$ 250,000]the price still seems to be a wee bit high. Besides when the pussy cat has kicked it is probably a gnarled old mean tempered feline that doesn't take kindly to kids pulling its tail or stroking its tumor infected sides. So then the company delivers in a fuzzy little fun ball as a replacement for the princely sum of 32k, how would one know the cat just wasn't picked out of some fresh litter somewhere? I guess there were just not enough fools that were willing to be parted with their money on this one.

This reminds me of Steven King's Pet Semetary, where the fellow buried a dead cat in some mystical ground and it came back as some snarling monstrosity. Then he buried the fresh roadkill child/son there and the kid comes back as a monster that cut Fred Gwynn's Achilles Tendon with a knife.

Philippines.....

It seems as if several things are truisms here in the Philippines:

1. Life is difficult [Blessed Sacred Heart of the Victim Virgin Mary]
2. You cannot get from point A to point B without hitting really bad traffic.
3. No-one has any money.
4. Everyone has been robbed of their cellphone/schoolfee/life savings within the past week.

Taxes: I Don't Make Enough.....

Lots of people were very concerned about the tax changes affecting American expats in the last budget to come out of Washington. I don't make enough earned income for it to make much of a difference to me but there has apparently been some clarification of the issues:

Further to our advice in May 2006 on the US tax law changes, please be informed that the IRS has just released the table of locations with high housing costs and provided an adjusted limitation on housing expenses for purposes of the foreign housing exclusion. The maximum housing expenses in Hong Kong qualified for the housing exclusion in 2006 has been adjusted up to US$114,300 (highest among all the locations) as opposed to the normal limit of US$24,720.

Accordingly, the maximum housing exclusion that a qualified taxpayer in Hong Kong may offset from income for tax year 2006 would be increased to US$101,116 as opposed to US$11,536 before the geographic adjustments. The table, however, does not provide any adjustment for housing costs in China although the housing expenses in Beijing or Shanghai have increased quite significantly in recent years.

I have no idea if this is true but it seems as if cooler heads have prevailed.

Consecrated Virgins....

This is just nuts, something from the Middle Ages. But virgins can get married to Jesus in a Catholic ceremony. Its nuts.

So this chick was having dating problems...

"Dating wasn't working. I wasn't connecting," she said. "Not that I never wanted to be married or never wanted children."

A solution to every problem! I wonder if Muslims have a similar option... like marry Muhammad or become one of the virgins to service the frothing at the mouth madman suicide bomber community.

Getting married to Jesus for virgins may be popular here in the Philippines if they ever get hold of the idea.

Mets Win, Yankees Lose...

A subway series would have been nice but the Yankees decided that they were going to not even make it to the Americna League championship series and lost. The Mets won over LA but apparently do not have the services of 2 of their best pitchers for the rest fo the post-season. that will definately dampen their chances.

But I did notice one thing, that there are lot of players with hispanic sounding manes these days. Whats up with that?

Yuck...

I just put the wife and kids on a plane back to Hong Kong from this dump that they call the Philippines. Probably the worst vacation that we ever took, the family arrived just afterManila got hit by a bad hurricane. But unfortunately, this is not a place that seems to bounce back with good humor and smiling faces that other places seem to. We stayed in the 5-star Hyatt Casino in Malate for a couple of days and there the people all had these grimicing smiles. Maybe they were short staffed because of the typhoon but it just didn't work out too well.

One little note: The hotel spa had no electricity and my wife wasn't feeling so well, so she stopped in and asked if there were any massage cancellations that she would take it. They called at 6 pm and said that there was a cancellation at 6:30 and that the lady would come to the room. At 7:05 my wife called the spa and asked what was going on. They explained to her that the service elevator was slow. Well, that is one really slow service elevator since the spa was on the 5th floor and our room was on the 12th. Maybe they should had let us know by phone that the massage lady was going to be late? That would have made sense if there was a problem that they were already aware of.

Outside, nearly every person we had to deal with treated us as if we were the goose that will lay the golden egg for them. After a while, it just seemed to me that everyone we met were just greedy little pigs. There was no sense of delivering a service or something nice, just clamoring salesmanship and going through some useless motions. The ice cream lady in some shop looked downright angry when we ordered ice cream from her. She looked like the Wicked Witch of the West. I have to say that I have noticed the weakness here in the Philippines before but no to this extent.

After Manila, we went to a place called Tagaytay that is a pretty location with a volcano surrounded by a lake inside of a giant volcano. However, wherever we walked there, we were descended upon by people wanting to sell us stuff, particularly boat rides. There are probably a 100 boats and daily demand is probably for 20 or so, so of course, the cartel tries to keep the price high and pays big commissions to the clowns that harrass the tourists to get them to go. We had even one jeep driver drive us into someone's yard so that his brother could talk to us about taking a boat to Taal Island. I just hate that crap. I makes a holiday completely unenjoyable.

We met more than our fair share of dishonest and unhelpful people on this trip. Nearly every taxi and tricycle driver tried to charge us 2-3 times the actual rates. But even worse, we had the unfortuanate experience to be cheated by a terrible little inn called the Royal Taal Inn, who's guaranteed lowest prices were amoungst the highest in the area, the inn staff not in the least knowledgeable about the area and not at all helpful to us. We had no shower and no breakfast as was promised and charged to us. Electricity was only on for a few hours a day and they were unprepared for our arrival as they had to go out and buy fuel to turn on the generator so we put our bags into a dark room and changed to get soemthing to eat. Anyone that stays at this 'cheap' place is an idiot and I am an idiot for staying there. There were much nicer places for far less money than this place. Do not patronize the Royal Taal Inn, it sucks. They say its one of the best kept secrets in Asia and it well deserves to be kept a secret. Maybe they will send Saddam Hussein there before they execute him. He will be happy after that to be executed.

I have to say, that I hated this holiday here so much, that I will never bring the family back to the Philippines again. We have so many nicer places to go in Asia. The WOW Philippines tourism campaign should be more appropriately called WHY BOTHER Philippines. They just won't be able to deliver. It really is not a tourism value like Thailand or other places.

And now I am stuck down here for another week or so working on a project. On the way back from the airport after dropping the family off the cab driver asked me to pay 2 times the meter. I probably blew out one of his eardrums with my response and jumped out of his car. I just hate these fucking guys here. I cannot wait to get the hell out of this rat infested little dump.

I hate the Philippines.

Never Stay At The Royal Taal Inn At Tagaytay.....

These clowns had the audacity to charge 3,812 pesos a night for my wife, two kids and I and were never able to deliver a breakfast, the shower didn't work and only turned on the generator occassionally, so we didn't have electricity for most of the day. A crappy, but clean room, they couldn't even tell me how much it should cost to take a tri-cycle down the street to eat dinner. Not at all helpful and completely devoid of information, the place was so unpleasant that we will never, ever go back to the Philippines for a holiday. WOW Philippines, what a shithole the whole country is. Every clown walking down the street thinks that you are the goose that will lay them the golden egg and you get decended upon by unemployed men trying to sell you a boatride around every bend in the street. What an absolutley unenjoyable place to visit.

Back to the inn, they said that they have the lowest rates in the area, guaranteed, but they are full of shit. Never stay at the Royal Taal Inn. It is a rip-off.