Erm...

Headline on today's NYTimes:

Failed Suicide Bomber Sentenced To Death In Jordan

The death penalty's (supposed) ability to deter future offenders is one of the main arguments of death penalty advocates. Somehow, I don't think it's going to have the same effect in this case...

That will be all.

Awesome Day in Laos

Which is my favorite Southeast Asian country, hands down.

I slept in until two pm (whoops), and then decided to head out to see some temples. A novice monk came to talk to me at the first one I visited, which was on a mountainside near the city. He had really good English, which was amazing, because he'd apparently never left the city, let alone studied abroad.

Cooler yet, it turned out he was studying Japanese, so I spent the next three hours giving him a Japanese lesson in the pagoda on top of this mountain, with a nice view of the Mekong river below us. I mean, seriously, does life get much better than that?

Then I headed back down the mountain in time to visit Vat Xieng Thong, which used to be the royal temple when Luang Prabang was still the capital city of the Kingdom of Laos. Its grounds were amazing and included this awesome statue of a reclining Buddha and the funerary boat of the former kings.

After that I wandered into another temple next door in time to catch the monks doing their evening chants.

And now I'm off to pay and head out onto the street in order to attempt a photo of the two monks who just walked in here to use the Internet.

That will be all.