去埃及看金字塔

骑阿拉伯马沙漠上遛弯，咱教儿子如何保持重心和平衡时候，那阿拉伯人以为咱精骑射，所以捅了马屁股一下，那马好快，四蹄撒开猛跑。沙漠上尽是硬石块，差点要了我的命。

在金字塔墓室里，居然看到某某刻写的“xx到此一游”.那里中国游客真多，阿拉伯人对中国人十分友好。能讲汉语的埃及人真不少，而且都讲得十分地道那种。

在亚历山大一个希腊罗马古墓室里，没几个外国游客那种地方，黑灯瞎火地，突然听里边有人说：冉庄的地道如何如何...一看，里面又一拨中国客，呵呵

阿拉伯马，大金字塔

蒙古大军为什么没有报复马目鲁克征服埃及?

除了政治原因外，估计还要生态原因。你去埃及的沙漠看看，就会有亲身体会。政治原因就是旭列兀的查和台汗国和巴图的金帐汗国长期不和，所以不敢贸然倾巢出动军队进剿埃及。

生态原因就是古代蒙古大军出征，仍然是大规模游牧的方式，边生产，边战斗。那时候蒙古军人出征，一个人5匹马，30只羊。10万大军出动，那就是50万匹马，300万只羊的大规模迁徙。蒙古大军远征西亚，攻城略地，6-7百公里的距离，需要小半年。既然是游牧方式，就需要冬天进入低草场，夏天使用高地草场。

现在的中东地区以东一直到中国的广大亚洲内陆为蒙古大军及随行的牲畜群提供了充足的草原支持。但埃及这个地方，除了尼罗河沿岸的狭长农业地带，就是沙漠中的零星绿洲，没有支持蒙古大军的草场。即使短期武力征服后，长期治理，蒙古人在那里非得改变传统的游牧方式，那样就丧失了军事上的先进性，很容易被同化掉。

估计蒙古人在西亚穆斯林地区整套和治理就是这样，比如后来的铁木尔帝国及其后代征服印度建立的莫卧儿帝国。蒙古人在那些地方，伊斯兰化突厥化以后就消失在当地人里面了。

a busy day on saturday

上午去换摩托车前轮胎，周一取
邮局买车辆税，从上月开使得去附近的交通举办，草
邮局去包裹，howard zinn书，美国历史
开车去中国超市，半路返回，怕来不及做晚饭，改去附近的超市
晚饭，牛肉，萝卜，土豆，饺子，蔬菜沙拉
看法国惊险片，读英文字幕

前一天春节前聚餐，中国城醉琼楼
饭前集体打保龄球，是我第3次摸保龄球，超水平发挥

iPad

britain is a democracy?

7livejournalist wrote in independent on-line forum:

the government here does not represent us it rules us, we only get a choice of who our dictator is. all three parties will make the same decisions when in power.

uk plc is a registered company, as is parliament, all government departments, and all it's mps,. when people vote, all they vote for is who willl the new ceo of uk plc- and the company direction never changes.

as someone i know recently said - it is time for the blue team to take over from the red tiem, with most people not knowing that both are controlled by the purple team.

CP Scott Quotations

[A newspaper's] primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted.

Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come of it.

Truth like everything should be economized.

Comment is free, but facts are sacred.

Charles Prestwich Scott (26 October 1846 – 1 January 1932) was a British journalist, publisher and politician. Born in Bath, Somerset, he was the editor of the Manchester Guardian from 1872 until 1929 and its owner from 1907 until his death. He was also a Liberal Member of Parliament and pursued a progressive liberal agenda in the pages of the newspaper.

car MOT and motorcycle repair

I did not go swimming as planned and have my car MOT and bike left indicator repaired. Last night the temperature was sub-zero, i had to pour a kettle of boiling water on the door keyhole to defrost it before unlocking the door. the garage in Churchill is very good, never overcharge and usually do quick jobs. it took them 30 mins to do the MOT test and change a pair of front wipers, which costed me 75 gbp.

i paid 20 gbp to Bill down the road, he found an old indicator in a big box full of disused motorbike indicators and fixed it on my bike. now my bike front pair of indicators are in odd shapes, but they work the same.

queued in the local post office for nothing, because the hasting insurance has not post me the car insurance certificate, i could not buy a valid vehicle tax disc, although i 've got insurance and mot now.

the law is designed in such a way, only powerless individuals bear the burden and cost for the errors done by insurance or related authorities. the system is designed in such a way individuals could be screwed hard and stiff if you dare to confront the authority or readdress the wrongs themselves.

i have to phone the insurance for a certificate before i can get a valid tax disc, maybe next week. so in a cold day like today, i have to be exposed to elements on bike to go to a friend's home on the other side of london for dinner.

"You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train"

Howard Zinn: "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train", a good reminescent of shallow neutrality and pseudo-objectivity of some widely-acclaimed mainstream media corporations. The claim of being neutral and objective is as absurd as to claim to be still on the moving earth.

Howard Zinn also wrote:

From the start, my teaching was infused with my own history. I would try to be fair to other points of view, but I wanted more than 'objectivity'; I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble.

The criticism of his "bias" barely raised a hair on Mr. Zinn’s neck:

It’s not an unbiased account; so what?”, “If you look at history from the perspective of the slaughtered and mutilated, it’s a different story.”

about WWII:

“I would not deny that war had a certain moral core, but that made it easier for Americans to treat all subsequent wars with a kind of glow,” Mr. Zinn said. “Every enemy becomes Hitler.”

The title of his memoir, he noted, best described his personal philosophy:

“You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.”