Dan

Domino, Just being a bit unbiased here (and NOT looking for an argument), so I will ask this: What awards has Ararat received? I'm sorry, but I don't really know. Could you please share that info? Thanks. And ummm, if Ararat got Canadian awards, does it necessarily mean that it's an artistic movie? It might be the best movie in Canada, but not necessarily good. I, for one, am unaware of any Canadian movie that was released lately. But I might be wrong - I'm not a movie fanatic, so I might not be up to date with everything.

I have a joke, here: At a recent computer expo, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon." In response to Bill's comments/General Motors issued a press release stating the following: "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would be driving cars with the following characteristics: 1.For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice 2.Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car. 3.Occasionally, your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would accept this, restart, and drive on. 4.Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart; in which case you would have to reinstall the engine. 5.Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought 'Car95' or 'CarNT.' Then you would have to buy more seats. 6.Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was more reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads. 7.The oil, water, temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single 'general car fault' warning light. 8.New seats would force everyone to have the same butt size. 9.The airbag system would say 'Are you sure?' before going off. 10.Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna. 11.GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50 percent or more. 12.Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car. 13.You'd press the 'Start' button to shut off the engine.

What is it that you found obscene? Care to enlighten us? I'm just curious to hear your opinion. And I agree that it could've been MUCH better than it was. I was expecting much much more from Egoyan. I was a bit disappointed, I must admit, when it comes to the artistic interpretation of the movie.

Man, why do I miss out on all the sports games???? They never show anything here unless it's in Canada or there's a Canadian team playing - of course, there's the cable, but I don't have the sports channel on the cable. So I get to miss all the fun stuff. Real Madrid SUCKS, by the way. They're TOO arrogant. I hate arrogant teams. Man. Unt is cool, except for that dude Beckham (is he with them still?!) who was better at fighting than soccer. Lakers are cool. I've been a Lakers fan starting from back when Jordan played with the Chicago Bulls at the height of their popularity.

Mine is 130 pounds. And he drinks 2 large buckets of water in 10 minutes, and pees continuously afterwards for 5 minutes. Well, mine didn't pee THAT much and THAT frequently when he was a puppy. It was bearable. He's a yellow Lab, by the way, and his name is Champ. He understands Armenian words, and he even gives a paw-shake (dogs' handshake). And man he sheds hair 'round the clock. I have a pic, will post it soon.

Yea, I thought so too. I have more funny stuff. I was suffering from insomnia last night, and was up till like 5 am, so I thought I'd surf the web for some funny pics to post on here.

Man, where do you guys get those links from?! That utility - cool stuff, Sip.

Charles Aznavour - They Fell

Cool cool. Thanks for the article. Now if only there were Armenians in NHL, that would be soooooooo cool!

:eek:

You mean black men in hockey?! Never seen them. Hmmmm, now THAT's interesting.

LOL no, it's the white man's way of feeling "still powerful" and "still going strong." Basketball is for blacks what Hockey is for whites. Or that's the way analogy goes. Wow, I've never even seen a black man in hockey. At least I can see white men in basketball.

Well, Harut, since Armenians are pretty good at Wrestling, I thought they might take on Hockey as well. I mean, in the entire league, not just one player even?!

I have a question: Are there any Armenian hockey players in NHL?

Nice. What breed? I have a Labrador Retriever. Oh yea, I know what ya mean. I've always wanted to get a Beagle, a German Shepperd, a Jack Russel Terrier, and a Daschund, but my mom HATES dogs cos they shed a lot of hair. So no other dogs until I get my own place.

Wow, that reminds me of the Leafs (especially in game 7 vs. Flyers). They had LITTLE offense, NO defense, and NOT physical at all - or if they were physical, they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. They had GREAT goaltending: Belfour made a lot of saves. If the Leafs had say Lalime for a goalie, they would've been defeated 16-1, not 6-1. Not surprisingly, I had predicted that the game would end 6-1. I just knew the Leafs were gonna golf during that game, as they often do in important games.

You are right, Sip. I can't imagine that either. But, we must all remind ourselves that as the times change, so does the definition of "taking over." Right now as it stands, you don't necessarily have to crush a country militarily in order to "take over." We've seen that in the case of Saudi Arabia and in an even better example, USA. Sometimes it takes a military attack to "change" regime, but the regime change in itself IS a form of take-over. Why would a country sacrifice the lives of its soldiers in a cause not related to itself or its own country, if it wouldn't have ANY gains? Perhaps as the century advances and as USA's global bullying advances and becomes more outright and unapologized for by USA and its foreign policy, then maybe the concept of "taking over" will once again change to its old definition of military attacks.. Who knows what time has in store, and what plans/projects countries are working on? Take PNAC as an example.. And one more thing, I think USA's policy of eliminating countries' power and sovereignity ONE BY ONE (by using a different excuse each time), and not in a massive attack against everyone, is a very smart way of enforcing their authority fist on the world. After all, there's still Russia, and China, as well as Japan (which is capable of building a nuclear weapon in a VERY short time), and they wouldn't like what good ol' USA is doing if USA started bombing the hell out of Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, etc. at the same time, and that would be the start of yet another World War. Another World War would DEFINITELY change the global map though. But God help us if it takes place. Dan

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LOL, well, you mean if the Canucks get the cup it will be cos the Leafs were out? Ummm, but the Leafs were really GOLFING. Yea, the Canucks won game 3!!!! So did the Sens. But man, the Flyers are playing rough. And does anyone think the officiating SUCKS? There were really stupid calls on both teams by the refs. Especially the one on Bertuzzi. I think there must be a "Bertuzzi penalty" in the rule-book or something. The headlines should go like this: Ref calls penalty on Bertuzzi for breathing. I've never seen the Habs at play. Are they good? Or do they golf often? My guess is, though, that the Flyers will win the cup. Dan

Hmmmm, I'm not sure about that one. Many people here in Canada use the word "mate" to refer to "bro", even though it's typically Australian. And yea, I meant it as that, not something else. Dan

LOL Sip... It almost looks like the Physics lab at university I used to work in. Good one, mate. Heh!

Not sure if this was posted: Country x is planning to attack country y, and country y is anticipating the attack. Country x can either attack by land or by sea. Country y can either prepare for a land defense or a sea defense. Both countries must choose either an all land or all sea strategy, they may not divide their forces. The following are the probabilities of a successful invasion according to both strategies used. If x launches an attack by sea and y prepares a defense by sea the probability of a successful invasion is 80%. If x launches an attack by sea and y prepares a defense by land the probability of a successful invasion is 100%. If x launches an attack by land and y prepares a defense by land the probability of a successful invasion is 60%. If x launches an attack by land and y prepares a defense by sea the probability of a successful invasion is 100%. What should the strategy of country x be, assuming the goal is to maximize the probability of a successful invasion? Assume the goal of country y to be to minimize the probability of a successful invasion. What is the final probability of a successful invasion assuming both utilize an optimal strategy?

I came across Robert Fisk's article on the Armenian Genocide (dated Jan. 2000), and thought I'd share some of the things he wrote in that: "Who, I wonder, chooses which holocaust we should remember and which we should not? The six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis must always have a place in our history, our memory, our fears. Never again. But alas, the Armenians who perished in the rivers of southern Turkey, who were slaughtered in their tens of thousands in the deserts of northern Syria, whose wives and daughters were gang-raped and knifed to death by the gendarmerie and their Kurdish militiamen - they have no place in our memory or our history. Turkey is our friend. Turkey might one day join the European Union. Turkey is an ally of Israel. Denial of the holocaust is in some countries a crime. I'm talking, of course, about the Jewish Holocaust - because denial of the Armenian holocaust is not only perfectly legal, it is big business. No American company selling weapons to Turkey will discuss the holocaust of 1915. Chairs of Ottoman studies are being funded by the Turkish government at American universities in which US academics - who have to prove they have used Ottoman archives to get their jobs and thus must never have condemned the 1915 slaughters - propagate the lie that the Armenians were merely victims of "civil war" and that Turks also died in the chaos of 1915. Turks did. But not on the Armenian scale. Anyone who was to write that the Jews were victims of a European civil war and that, anyway, "Germans also died" would be regarded as cracked or a neo-Nazi. Not so if you deny the Armenian holocaust. Note: my views are not necessarily those of Robert Fisk in this article. I am not posting this to start a discussion. I will not reply to any replies. Dan

Welcome to the Sars camp: 1,000 solitary, sterile, white rooms By James Palmer 28 April 2003 Amid the sound of buzz saws and hammers, a honeycomb of one-storey bedrooms to house 1,000 people has sprung up almost overnight in a field in a northern suburb of Beijing. The white, sterile rooms will soon become an enormous camp where the city's victims of Sars will be shut away. Hundreds of construction workers are assembling plastic and metal panels around the clock in the latest attempt to contain the virus that has killed 131 people in mainland China, including 56 in Beijing. The city's night clubs, karaoke bars, cinemas and internet cafes have also been forced to close as health officials announced nine new deaths from the flu-like virus, eight of them in the capital. The temporary closure of "all entertainment businesses involving mass public gatherings" was among a raft of measures brought in to try to halt the spread of the virus in the city where there have ben 1,114 cases reported. Last week, Beijing closed primary and middle schools, sending home 1.7 million pupils. Several universities have cancelled classes. Fines for spitting – originally introduced to try to improve the city's image in advance of the 2008 Olympics, but now believed to be essential – were raised by 1,000 per cent, to 50 yuan (£3.80). Beijing, at first severely criticised for its response to the spread of Sars, is now taking drastic measures to isolate it. Three hospitals in the city have been sealed off. One quarantined patient was yesterday captured on TV cameras trying to escape out of an upper storey window before being dragged back by hospital staff. The Health Ministry issued an "urgent notice" to hospitals yesterday to take the Sars threat more seriously. "The notice demands that all hospitals draw on the experience and lessons learned by Guangdong, Beijing and other areas in fighting Sars," the official Xinhua news agency said. And in an unexplained move, the registration of marriages between foreigners and Chinese were suspended. The city government's Civil Affairs Department did not say how the measure was expected to help control Sars. Public libraries were closed and the city's churches were told not to hold mass for congregations larger than 50. The parks that occupy every compass point of the city remained open, as did restaurants, shopping centres, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City – the sprawling former home of China's emperors and a major tourist attraction. But they were mostly empty because of a ban on Chinese tour groups travelling outside their home provinces. But one section of the entertainment industry reported an upturn in business. The many DVD and VCD shops around the city are doing a roaring trade as Beijing's hoards plan yet another night in front of the TV. This may their modus operandi for some time yet, as the week-long May bank holiday has been cancelled, preventing tens of millions of Chinese from travelling around the country. The government is worried that the virus could have already been carried into rural China with the apparent exodus – conjuring a nightmare scenario of mass contagion. A new Health Minister, Vice Premier Wu Yi, was installed on Saturday, and Beijing's mayor was replaced last week.

U.S. asks Congress to scrap ban on 'mini' nukes WASHINGTON — The administration of U.S. President George Bush has asked Congress to repeal its 1993 ban on developing low-yield nuclear arms, according to congressional sources. The Bush administration is seeking to include in the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill the abandonment of the ban and substantial funds for research on such "mini nukes," the sources said. At stake is a 1993 law provision introduced by two Democrats in the House of Representatives — Elizabeth Furse and John Spratt. The Furse-Spratt provision prohibits research and development that could lead to the production of nuclear weapons with an explosive yield of less than 5 kilotons. In a document presented to Congress in February with a draft of the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill, the Bush administration argued the 1993 ban needed to be repealed. The provision "has negatively affected U.S. government efforts to support the national strategy to counter weapons of mass destruction and undercuts efforts that could strengthen our ability to deter, or respond to, new or emerging threats," said the document made available for Kyodo News. One possible use for such nuclear weapons is to destroy other weapons of mass destruction buried at great depths. The Defense Department submitted the document to the armed services committees of both chambers to explain the administration's rationale for wanting to scrap the 1993 ban. The document said a revitalized nuclear arms development effort is essential to "train the next generation of nuclear weapons scientists and engineers" and to "restore a nuclear arms enterprise able to respond rapidly and decisively to changes in the international security environment." The 1993 ban also runs counter to the congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review report in 2002, which called for the exploration of nuclear weapons with greater capabilities for precision and earth penetration with reduced collateral damage, the document said. In February, the House Policy Committee of the Republican Party compiled a report urging Congress to consider repealing the 1993 ban to pave the way for developing low-yield nuclear weapons. But Democrats strongly oppose abandoning the ban. Developing low-yield nuclear weapons would lower the boundary between conventional and nuclear weapons. It might also open the way for the United States to resume nuclear tests.