A HMMWV, a tank, or what?

Bored, I was looking through the August 20, 2007 edition of TIME magazine. When I opened to page 29, I found this picture and this caption:

“Urban combat
A Mexican army tank patrols near a church in San Pedro, an affluent suburb of Monterrey. Once considered one of Mexico’s safest cities, Monterrey has witnessed more than 100 drug-related murders in the past year [sic]”

Again, I wonder what editors get paid to do at magazines. They obviously don't hire fact-checkers or even proof-readers for that matter. There are two mistakes in the caption:

1. There's a period missing from the second sentence.

2. That isn't a tank that we see in the picture, that's a HMMWV, the military version of the Hummer H1. And, though I am no expect, it doesn't even look like an armored HMMWV (the printed picture is a little clearly and more detail is visible) which means its skin is just a thin as any other automobile as certainly is NOT a tank.

Also interesting was the caption found online for the photograph:

“Armed
The Mexican military patrols San Pedro, a rich neighborhood in Monterrey. This unit is stationed not far from a church where a wedding ceremony for members of a wealthy family was taking place.”

Notice that the new caption has only a little resemblance for the original.

Again, I think I could be a good fact-checker. Anyone hiring?

Cool but Scary

This, I think, is a fantastic tool that can really help with publishing, say, newsletters with graphics and that sort of thing. But, at the same time, can you imagine the fraud that can be committed with this. We're already having trouble assuring acurate media coming out of Lebanon and Iraq. Let's not even begin to mention magazine covers.

What if someone wanted to use this for political or propaganda purposes. How would we know. How could we tell? HAT TIP: LGF.

Sunday Morning

Sunday, morning we went to go listen to Phil Metzger at Golgota here in Budapest. Here's a pic. We were about thirty minutes late getting there but we managed to find a seat.

For those of you who may not understand this pic. Phil is on the left. But, for everyone to understand what is being said, a translator stands to the right and translates everything he says. At first, it's rather distracting. But you get use to it and I don't even notice anymore.

Saturday Night Festival!

Last night we attended our town's festival. Even though we live in Budapest, each neighborhood is basically like its own little town (think New York's burrows). Everyone of these little towns has at least a couple of festivals a year. Well, we met up with some friends that just recently moved to the area and hit the streets. Here are some pics.

This is the main street running through out little town. Actually, it's just half of it. The other half is on the other side of the buildings to the left. It's really weird. Anyway, the booths on the left are various vendors selling the typical stuff. It's amazing that so many of the festivals have essentially the same things every time.

Here's a picture of my wife, Michelle, on the right, with our good friend and coworker, Lisa. They're sharing an oven-baked langos. It's basically some really good bread smothered with sour cream, trapista cheese (the Hungarian cheese of choice), onions, and ham. It's pretty good. Of course, we also tried lots of wines. Budafok, our neighborhood is famous for it numerous wineries. The most famous is of course, Törley, which is just down the street from our house.

Here's a picture of my favorite Hungarian dessert, kurtos kalacs. It's a sweet dough wrapped around wooden pegs, roasted, then covered with your favorite topping like cinamon or vanilla. They are simply the best. If you ever come to Hungary, make sure you get one fresh, not pre-made. They'll make you want to come back!

And, of course, there were bands everywhere. This one was playing in an empty warehouse and had the whole crowd dancing.