"Humor is mankind's greatest blessing." Mark Twain

Bombing in Boston, explosion in Texas, earthquake in China, one week left before PC1 in Graz… lousy week for the world.

So let’s smile a bit J

The Italian man who went to Malta

How wealthy people laugh

You’re welcome :P

Earth Day

Blogging for the second time today, what is up?!

If you’ve been on Google today, on April 22nd, you might have seen this homepage.

When I saw it, I clicked on it and discovered that today is Earth Day! This means that all around the world, more than 1 billion people are participating in this worldwide even that celebrates Earth and environmentally friendly behaviors.

If there must be an official day to think of the Earth, fair enough…

Anyway, as I said, lots of people are involved in today’s actions, as you can see on this site:

Earth Day

Cleaning beaches, planting trees, taking part in a walkathon… Showing one’s concern can take various forms.

And you can do it too:

« Start doing something to lower your carbon footprint, and take a photo of yourself being part of the solution and upload it to The Face of Climate Change Wall. »

Here’s a bonus: this video is four years old and at the time, world leaders were attending the summit for climate change in Copenhagen. I think you will like it.

Time for Climate Change

So? Did you like it?

Level: Asian

Hello folks!

You know how sometimes on the Internet, some Youtube comments rank (as a joke) Asian people skills just below or just above Chuck Norris?

Well, this morning I just discovered another cool example:

You may have heard of the earthquake in China. Everybody was of course panic-stricken, everybody but a Chinese journalist, who followed her journalistic instinct to report about the event. 

Ah yes, I almost forgot, it was her wedding day.

Wanna see a picture?

Awesome, isn't it?!

Chuck Norris, you'd better watch out!

The Great Revelation in France

In the past few days, you may have heard of the situation in France, especially concerning the Finance Minister Jérôme Cahuzac. For those who haven’t, Cahuzac confessed two weeks ago, that he owned a bank account in Switzerland. In December, the online newspaper Mediapart accused him of having this account, but he denied repeatedly, in front of journalists but also in front of the President, the Prime Minister, and the National Assembly. Until Cahuzac’s confession, a big proportion of the French press called Mediapart’s journalists liars. Cahuzac’s case is huge because as the Finance Minister, he held conferences about the fight against the tax evasion, and he is himself a crook. That beats everything!

Jérôme Cahuzac

Euronews

The French President François Hollande wasn’t very popular in the opinion polls even before, but that event, which could be an affair of state, will certainly not help him winning back the trust of the French citizens.

So, he asked all his ministers to declare their inheritance, so that there will be more “transparency” in the government. That is the Great Revelation (and not Revolution!). Some think that this is good (it has already been done in other European countries) but some other think that it is just insane curiosity.

What I think is that this won’t solve any problem. A minister may well declare his or her possessions but that doesn’t prevent him or her from hiding something he or she is not so proud of.

The whole process has now lead to a childish game, consisting of finding out which minister is the richest, which is the poorest. Of course, some of them have colossal fortunes that could help the country in these hard times, but some other just own a decent amount of money. Some analysts said (rightly, I think) that being successful and enjoying the reward of one’s hard work is frowned upon in France. How can somebody find the motivation to create a business, if he or she will some day be called a lousy rich person? I’m not being partial here; this is just common sense. Hard work has to be rewarded.

Since these events, I have even greater respect towards Mediapart, and his creator Edwy Plenel. Before the truth had its day, Mediapart had little support from its fellow journalists and now, these same people are selling tons of newspaper about the affair. Isn’t that a bit too easy?

Thank you Mr. Plenel, good to know that there still are some reliable journalists out there.

Edwy Plenel

PS: if more interested in the topic, I might have some extra information :)