The Man Song.

One of the funniest Bob and Tom Show songs.

Wasting money in Armenia.

That governments can be corrupt, inefficient and wasteful is not a secret to anyone except for the most optimistic people. Even democracies like Switzerland and other lesser ones in the West are not insured from such ills. In my town in the US millions of dollars get wasted on pet projects that are mismanaged - be it Republicans or the Democrats who initiate these projects.

One area ripe for corruption is the intergovernmental landing. You have the IMF and the World Bank that lend money to developing nations to implement projects that are meant to improve the economies of these nations. It all sounds great on paper but the reality is quite different. A lot of the money is spent on Western 'consultants', and whatever is left over, goes into the pockets of government officials through shady deals with local contractors.

Armenia is not immune to this either. With foreign debt over 1 billion dollars and growing, one would expect to see some infrastructure improvements. After all, the country is tiny and doesn't take much to improve a piece of land inhabited with 2.5-3 million people. But it hasn't happened. There have been some reports about wasted loans, and the complacency of government officials, including the dashnaks (who, incidentally, trumpet their anti-corruption policies any chance they get).

Garbis at Notes From Hairenik has a nice recap of the revelations.

There has finally been an allegation printed in online media outlets about overly bureaucratic international organizations working in some capacity in Armenia being involved in corruption. The first break in the news of the scandal appeared on Onnik’s blog over a week ago. And Hetq Online is apparently the only the online news source that published an article in Armenian about the issue this week—it may appear in English soon.

Onnik at Oneworld Multimedia updates the story developments more frequently.

Stupid blog of the day.

This is why people think that the conservatives are idiots.

News agencies all worked up about the latest Georgia/Russia incident.

BBC, CNN, NPR and other news sources are extremely excited about the Georgian accusation that a Russian plane fired a missile into Georgia. Russia has denied it; I don't really know what happened so i can't comment on the event itself.

I constantly get amazed on how much attention is given to any minor issue that arises between Georgia and Russia. Admittedly, the Western media likes to bash Russia whenever they get a chance. But when it comes to Georgia, they do it with more vigor. No other third world tiny nation garners as much media attention as Georgia. I still cannot decide whether such unhealthy passion is good for the region, and especially Armenia, or not.

The "Bird's Nest" in Beijing.

The National Stadium in Beijing on a smoggy day.

More about food.

Mark Mardell from BBC has a blog entry about food. Incidentally, he complains about the tasteless foods in EU and praises the meals he has had in Turkey and Italy.

Lucky for him, he doesn't live in the US. I believe the US has the most tasteless foods in the world. The apples may not taste like cardboard but they lack the intensity of flavor you can get elsewhere. Maybe it's the fertilizers used to grow it and the wax on the skin to give it shine and preserve it. Or the chickens don't taste as good as say Armenia even though the commercially available chicken there are produced in large farms using the same techniques. Maybe it's the 15% brine they put in meat in the US that is the difference.

With all the paranoia about the Chinese food I can say that their food tastes far better than what we get in the US. I am not alone in saying that. I admit nostalgically going to American chains while in Beijing when getting tired of local food but after each visit there was a tremendous sense of disappointment. You pay ten times as much money for a far inferior taste and service.

That darn Turkish cuisine.

For the last two days I am traumatized. I avoid spending money on any Turkey related products or services. But a couple of days ago I went to a Turkish restaurant. In our town there are only a handful of places where you can get normal (read Middle Eastern) food and one of them is a Turkish owned one.

It resembled the Simpsons scene where Homer eats Pinchy - he is sad and yet enjoys the food.

I couldn't resist.

Here is a photo of a sign taken in Beijing airport.

It's an area designated for nursing mothers.

Back in the USA.

After a couple of weeks in China I am back in the US. There are definitely a few things that are better in the US than in China such as blue skies, insects and birds in cities, no Internet censorship. And there are a few things that are better in China than in the US such as friendlier policemen and border guards, better food and booze, higher level of service everywhere. I thought I hated air travel but apparently I only hated travelling on US owned airlines. Flying with Chinese carriers is pleasure.

Tried a variety of strange foods such as fermented eggs, duck brain, pork stomach, shark fin (tried only once to see how it was - tastes like chicken - will never do it again) and lots of other foods. Didn't have a chance to try dog meat although I was told that the Korean restaurants serve it. Maybe next time.

Chinese internet censorship.

The Chinese censorship of the Internet is real and is ugly. You cannot access BBC even though it is available on cable. You can't access certain CNN news items about China. You cannot access Blogspot or Livejournal either.

So how was I able to post this message?

VPN. If you are lucky to have a VPN connection to somewhere outside China, you VPN out and use the Internet from that outside address. Since the traffic coming to your location inside China is through an encrypted VPN tunnel, it apparently goes through the censorship filters. Unfortunately the vast majority of people do not have such capabilities. So the government wins.