Glad the neighborhood wasn't too jacked up for Lebanon to pay its first visit to Eff You

If you were thinking that things are a little too hectic in the Middle East these days for someone in Lebanon to drop by Eff You, then you would be wrong. Civil war in Syria on one side, Israel duking it out with Hamas on the other side. Sounds bad, right? Well, when the going gets tough, the tough go to Eff You for a quick visit. Got our first visitor from Lebanon yesterday.

Lebanon is a major Middle East crossroads and for many years benefitted from that. It was a part of the Ottoman Empire for about 600 years, becoming a French mandate after World War I. The country gained independence in 1943, and for a long time, things were good:

Before the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), the country experienced a period of relative calm and renowned prosperity, driven by tourism, agriculture, commerce, and banking.[10] Because of its financial power and diversity, Lebanon was known in its heyday as "the Switzerland of the East".[11] It attracted so many tourists that the capital, Beirut, was referred to as "the Paris of the Middle East".[12] At the end of the war, there were extensive efforts to revive the economy and rebuild national infrastructure.[13]

That civil war sucked, and Lebanon has had trouble ever since. Despite periods of stability, Lebanon keeps getting torn by warfare, frequently involving outside forces.

Anyway, by all accounts it is a beautiful country and, because someone in Lebanon came to Eff You, the Wolves family is now obligated to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Lebanon in times of trouble, so don't mess with my peeps. Lebanon, welcome to Eff You Nation.  Come again soon.

Malaysia visited my blog and neither one of us got a stupid tee-shirt

Seems wrong, somehow, but, tee-shirt or not, welcome to Eff You nation, Malaysia! Malaysia is a southeast Asian nation located on the Malay Peninsula (mostly). It was first inhabited about 40,000 years ago, apparently, but the Portuguese came in 1511, only to be tossed by the Dutch in 1641. The British snaked their way in in 1786 and were running things by 1824. Singapore, which used to sorta be part of Malaysia, being at the tip of the Malay Peninsula and all, became British in 1819 and has been separate from Malaysia ever since.

The country has about 28 million residents, mostly Muslims. The economy has been gangbusters for freaking forever, based largely on natural resources and tourism, but with the industrial sector dominating since the 1980s.

Kuala Lumpur, the capital, is a pretty modern major city, with shit like this:

That's the Petronas Towers, which holds the headquarters of the national oil company Petronas. Apparently, they are the tallest twin-towers in the world.

So welcome, Malaysia. Glad to have you.

Who loves you, baby? Tunisia, that's who

I got Tunisia. Were I a rapper, I probably would trot out rhymes including sqeeze ya, please ya, freeze ya, and get down on ya knees huh. Or something like that. As it is, I am trying to welcome Eff You's first visitor from Tunisia, and all this talk of hip hop is not doing much to ease ma way along. I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.

Anyway, Tunisia is a North African country that can claim credit as the birthplace of the 2011 "Arab Spring," for better or worse. Tunisia also was where German Gen. Erwin Rommel made his last stand in Africa during World War II following Operation Torch, the American landing in Morrocco. The ruins of the ancient city of Carthage are in Tunisia.

Anyway, welcome, Tunisia, in a big Eff You way.

I got me a Norwegian!

It would appear that Eff You Nation finally has added Norway to the family. We finally got a visitor from Norway, which seems long-overdue to me, as Sweden is in the top 5 of visitors to the site, and Denmark and Latvia, near neighbors, are in the top 10. Of course, Finland -- a neighbor of Norway -- still stubbornly refuses to visit. Who can figure out those Scandis? 

Anyway, here's a little dope on Norway from Wikipedia:

Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres (148,747 sq mi) and a population of about 5 million.[10] It is the 2nd least densely populated country in Europe. The country shares a long eastern border withSweden (1,619 km or 1,006 mi long), which is the longest uninterrupted border within both Scandinavia & Europe at large. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, and the Skagerrak Strait to the south, with Denmark on the other side. It shares maritime borders with Russia by the Barents Sea; Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland by the Norwegian Sea; and Sweden, Denmark, and the United Kingdom by the North Sea. Norway's extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea, is laced with fjords, a renowned part of its landscape. The capital city Oslo is the largest in the nation, with a population of nearly 1 million.

OK. Norway, welcome to the Eff You family. Bring some friends next time.

Goooooooooooooooooooooooooood morning, Vietnam!

OK, so it's a dated reverence to a so-so Robin Williams movie, but we have our first visitor from Vietnam. I assume this visitor is not aware that my father was the fire support coordinator at Khe Sahn for a time during the siege and thus is responsible for atomizing an unknown number of North Vietnamese soldiers who were at the time hell-bent on atomizing him. But hey, let bye-gones be bye-gones. Welcome, our new Vietnamese friend. In a somewhat-related vein, I give you the New York Dolls: