Youtube wanted!

Finally, i am back in Istanbul and ready to give my thesis. I kinda missed Istanbul, the crowds, the noise and the vivid life here although i must say i miss the life in Berlin. Meanwhile, i had to stop writing in my blog because i felt that i had to devote my time to thesis and here i am back again with a topic that i have discussed it before: banning the access to youtube in Turkey. It is really frustrating because i got so used to youtube. it is not just video and movies, it is about everything that one has questions about or for learning new things. As i learned from my friends, the access is banned for the second time since May due to the insulting videos about Ataturk. It is true that Ataturk is a great and respected figure here in Turkey and generally it is harsh when somebody insults ur heroes or symbols. But, i dont think banning the access to youtube is a valid solution. In the end, there are so many advantages and benefits from youtube which cant reach the normal users because of banning. In case there is an insulting video, youtube can put a limit of votes on the part of the users who think that it is insulting and once it reaches that limit, the insulting video can be banned or omited.

There are three other countries, apart from Turkey banning the access to youtube and they are Thailand, China and Pakistan. China has forbidden it because youtube broadcasts the protests of the tibetian monks and people. Pakistan on the other side has forbidden it because there are videos which insult islamic elements and especially the danish cartoons insulting the prophet Muhammed. In Thailand, the main reason was that there were some videos 'promoting air of disgrace amongst Thailand royalty and government officials'. Well, i am sure that every country could find something 'offending or insulting' in their perspective but banning youtube to cover the reality is not the solution. One cant cover the sun with the sieve.

EVs: Killing two birds with one stone!

Recently, everyone has been worried about the increases of oil prices and wondering why this happen and how much it is going to increase. The crude oil prices are determined like any normal commodity by the demand and the supply of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) and non-OPEC actors. According to the recent public polls, people point the finger, as the main causes of the increase of oil prices to oil company producers, OPEC, President Bush, environmentalists, and speculators. Since there is an increase in demand from developing countries in Asia, the companies that have a certain amount of oil to supply increase the price. The OPEC countries on the other side can limit the production and in this case diplomatic pressure is needed. But, OPEC has not been the biggest influence on the price since 1974 when it caused the world oil crisis. Environmentalists on the other side don’t allow the drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge which could produce 600.000 barrels per day. When one takes these causes individually, in reality one can see that their effects on the prices are at the margins but when taken in total everything makes sense. It is believed that the prices will reach $150 by July 4th and this will have its own consequences. Prices of transportation will go up comprising airplanes, or local transport and life will became expensive for all of us.

In a situation where oil will become unaffordable is logical to find other means of energy. One option to normal cars is also electric vehicle. An EV is a vehicle with one or more electric motors for propulsion. The energy used to put the vehicle in motion is taken from different sources such as chemical energy, nuclear energy, from on-board rechargeable energy storage system or from solar and wind energy. There are many different types of EVs and I am not going in details but i would like to list some of the advantages. They don't create pollution such as oil waste, fumes, gas and coolant. It is more efficient and no energy is wasted when the car is waiting in traffic. They are silent and they have an infinite life span. It looks like we should start thinking about these cars now in case we want to save our pocket and our environment.

If you want to learn more about EVs, check Mike’s website www.demand4ev.com

Myanmar..where the price of life is so high!

Myanmar or known before with the name Burma is a southeast Asian country with about 50 million inhabitants. Since 1962, it has been under military rule after a coup d'etat from General Ne Win and since 1988 there is a junta (military led government) leading the country. News related to Myanmar covered the front pages when the cyclone Nargis hit this country with a result of 130.000 dead and missing people, thousands of injured ones and devastated villages and rice-growing areas. This disaster became more tragic once the junta did not allow international aid in form of food, medicine and other supplies to its people. United Nations says that there is an outburst of malaria and there are around 1 million people without shelter. Associated Press said that the military regime showed a part of the foreign aid as provided by the junta itself by showing the general handling aid to people himself. Even though the junta allowed the netrance of some foreign relief after a meeting with heads of state of ASEAN group member of which is also Myanmar, headed by Singapore. The problem now is that part of the food and medicine is going to be 'missing' or sold in the black market instead of being handled to the victims of cyclone Nargis.

Burma has always been critiziced for supressing its people and for human rights abuses by Crisis Watch and Amnesty International; the International Labor Organization announced that it will seek to prosecute members of junta for crimes against humanity at the International Court of Justice. A the same time, according to World Health Organization there was a humanitarian crisis in Burma even before the cyclon, many children are malnourished but after the cyclone this crisis has worsened. Burmese people use rice a lot and the devastated Irrawaddy delta was the source of rice production. For sure the future will be hard for the Burmese but many organizations are trying to provide enough food and water to prevent a possible outburst of famine.

For me it is very painful that the leader of a country which is facing a natural disaster keeps its people away from the emergency relief by saying that they are capable of handling the aftermath of the cyclone and that they are not ready to accept large-scale foreign assistance. This reminds me of the communist era in Albania when our dictator would say 'we better eat grass than accept aid from the imperialists'. Our dictator did not want to get something from an 'enemy' country and be obliged to give something back in return or face the risk of an influence or intervention from that country. This is the same case in Burma. The junta in fact is leading an authoritarian type of government by supressing human liberties and rights accompanied with political oppression. Apparently, they are afraid that US or any other country will 'invade' them for their oil resources or will 'intervene' and change their government. It is not fair that for the sake of some people sitting in the same chair, millions of others should suffer. Coercion may lead to fake respect but inhumanity will lead for sure to their destruction.

Who will be the President of US?

Due to the high temperatures and the master thesis, we are 'obliged' to work in the WG and escape from there to the city center on saturdays or sundays. Our only fun in the house apart from cooking and watching movies in our laptops is also our television which despite having 200 channels, offers us only CNN International (english), TV5 (french) and RAI 1 (italian). So in order for all of us to listen to a common language and keep up with the news, we all watch CNN. But recently, apart from China earthquake and Myanmar relief news, there is a lot of news on the American Presidential elections. For me it is very interesting to watch them (when they are not recycled) because the US has a different and complex electing system. There should be two candidates, one from the Republican and the other from the Democrat party competing for the presidential elections which are due to November 4, 2008. The candidate for the Republicans is John McCain while the candidate for the Democrats is 'almost' Barack Obama after achieving 2,025 delegates from the primary elections which is an election process at state or local level during which voters do not vote directly for the candidate but for the delegates to each party's national convention. Clinton who was enjoying popular vote but lost in the primaries is preparing now to exit the election campaign. Obama will be officially candidate in August in the Democratic national convention while McCain in September in Republican national convention.

What is really striking for me is the fact that when some of Clinton's supporters are asked if they are going to vote for Obama now that Clinton lost most of them say 'no' because either from the fact that Obama is black or because Clinton did not win. Both of these reasons are not really logical to me. In the end they are both Democrats and have the same visions, promises and projects once one would become a president; they are not republicans and for sure they would behave differently from Bush regarding Iraq. Secondly, the fact that Obama is black does not really stop him from being a good president governing for the people of US. In the end, he was successful enough to finish good universities such as Columbia and Harward and successful enough to have a good family. Normally, i would not expect that critizicms such as 'he is black' and 'she is a woman' would be possible in US because even though i would not like to generalize, US gives the idea of the 'free land where all your dreams come true and diversity is not a problem'; in fact it is the best tool Americans are successfully using to be so developed.

Now that there is a possibility that Democrat supporters may vote for McCain, Clinton stopped her campaign and started to support Obama by sending a message to the people that even though she didn't win, it is better to have a democrat rather than a republican in the White House. McCain on the other side is a former Naval aviator who has fought in the Vietnam war and got hardly rescued after being injured and tortured. For many people, he is a hero and personally i don't have any preference on Democrats or Republicans but when i heard him in the news saying that 'we will not surrender in Iraq' i got really scared. Even though middle and high classes don't like Democrats because of putting high taxes on them, i don't think they will like the fact of paying for a never ending war in Iraq once they choose McCain as president. If this happens, i hope that McCain will not have nostalgy for the Vietnam war and be well-known for the Second Vietnam War. Lets see in November!

Is there a perfect woman/man?

The American Psychology Society has published recently a test on the perfect woman that was found in the archives and was created from Doctor George W. Crane in 1939. The doctor had asked 600 women and their husbands about the good and bad traits of eachother and he came up with a husband's scale and a wife's scale listing 50 merits and 50 demerits for each of them individually. You can find the charts in this site: http://flickr.com/photos/tiabla/sets/72157605047200616/detail/. He formed two columns, one with the complaints and the other with the good qualities. And a man after suming up the points for the units under the demerits and under merits column, he subtracts the first sum from the second one. If the result is above 76 points then the man has made a good choice. Although the times have changed and the relations between men and women also, there are still some of the qualtities and complaints that exist in the couples. Despite the fact that this test is very old, i can still hear nowadays the same merits and demerits. The wife is good for cleaning and cooking but she always is unwilling when it comes to sex. Well this is not general because there are also women who have the opposite traits but i believe that when you live in a couple then things become more complex, you have more responsibilities and try to earn more to get a better life. Once there is respect, tolerance, mutual understanding and 'average' sex, no test is needed to show if u made the good choice or not. It is sufficient that you are happy!

the test on the perfect woman
A- Demerits (there are 50)

1. she waits until her husband has slept and then she goes to sleep
2. she doesn't like children
3. she doesn't know how to sew a button or darn the socks
4. in the house she uses ugly clothes
5. she always uses red nail polish
6. she is always late in meetings
7. she goes to bed with face cream and curlers on the hair
8. she goes to bed with cold feet and warms them up in the feet of the man
9. she always gives unworthy advice to the man while he is driving and criticizes him
10. she flirts with other men in the parties or restaurants
11. she is jealous and doubtful for everything

B- Merits (there are 50 of them)

1. she is a good houswife and knows how to handle the unexpected guests
2. she serves the meals in time
3. she does interesting conversations
4. she knows to play at least the piano or the violin or any other musical instrument
5. she puts the children to sleep at the same time
6. she asks for the opinion of the husband before buying big things
7. she is not nervous at least before she goes to sleep
8. she has good sense of humour and is vivid
9. she has faith in god and takes kids to the church
10. in sundays she leaves the husband have a rest
11. the house is always clean

Eating internationally!

Last night we had a party in our WG (in german means shared apartment) because our friend Anna from Philiphines was heading today to Asia to complete her missions there. She cooked for us Philiphino food such as lumpea (a philiphino borek), salad and dessert. Brian also helped her preparing some japanese curry soup and Anna's chinese friend prepared some chinese 'meatballs'. They were all delicious especially when accompanied with red wine. I have been very lucky because since i have been in this program, i have tried asian food in different occasions. Once, Mike cooked some philiphino food with chicken, onion, garlic, vinegar and soja sauce. It was very delicious and i am going to cook it for my parents. Besides i have been out with Brian and Mike to eat sushi the first time and the second to have some chinese soup. Another day, i was with turkish girls in a thai restaurant. In fact, i wasn't used to eat asian food, the first and the last time i tried chinese food was in the States 2 years ago. So far, i like it a lot and it is very interesting.

Recently, i have fallen in love with soja sauce, i try to add it to whatever food i am cooking. And i am planning to take some bottles to Albania. I don't know if i can find any there so just in case :). Although generally u find the same ingredients in these cuisines like chicken and vegetables, i believe the way u use the spices, garlic, vinegar or other sauces make the change. And thanks to god, i like spices and sauces, they make the food so delicious. So far, i have tried chinese, japanese, italian, turkish, greek, polish and american food. I still have to try at least the indian food and i hope this will be soon! Every cuisine is very different and this is why i like it because u try different tastes. And in the end if u can't eat it for a long time, u can still go back to ur own cuisine. Although it takes some hours to cook Albanian food, it is worth spending some time on it. Hopefully, i am going home after 2 weeks and my mom will cook for me :).