"Like the fluttering of a butterfly..."

a reminder

2010-05-07T02:07:00.002+03:00

as long as i live and breath, there will always be someone to hate zionism, wahhbism, and other similar entities.

i will hate them, and loath them, and celebrate every pain they face. i will curse these ideologies silently every damn day. i will grit me teeth, in the face of every slice they inflict, and it will add to my rage.

i hate them. i despise them.

and i will make them pay in whatever way i can.

On Violence:

2010-03-23T17:57:00.003+03:00

“Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid.”

- Bob Dylan

hello from the land of the dead

2010-03-21T00:17:00.002+03:00

it is most poignant that when a blog is "dead", the markings of said death manifests itself through the growth of comments...comments, of course, from non-human machines that vomits ads for porn, money, or some kinda scam...like vultures, they nimble on what's left of the blog-body.

i'll swat them away, i will.

So we got rid of the voyeurs...

2010-03-19T05:16:00.002+03:00

There was once a story I've read, or heard, or something in which there was this really wise professor who had a class room that was notoriously popular because you got to really learn a lot. Apparently, he knew his stuff and everyone wanted a piece.

Now when the first class started, the professor was no where to be seen. At first the students grumbled but they waited. Time passed. Some left. Time passed some more. Most left.

But there were a few still there, ever persistent.

When the last five minutes of the allocated time of the class were almost up, and the handful of students'patience are at the cusp of collapse, a person got up from where the students were sitting and walked to the front of the room. The person turned, and said, "Let us begin..."

This blog was started during a period of immaturity and stumbled through growing pains. It still is not there, and perhaps, will never be. C'est la vie, non?

Gorillaz: Cloud of Unknowing

On the cloud of unknowing
My world seems open
Every satellite up here is watching
But I was here from the very start
Trying to find a way to your heart

All the days are forgetting
They've gone out with the tide
Lost at sea somewhere, waiting
Like setting suns at the rodeo
Trying to find someone you'll never know

Oh, sinking love
On the cloud of unknowing
Every satellite up here is wanting
Waiting to see what the morning brings
May bring sunshine on its wings

The power of capitalism:

2009-12-02T16:47:00.001+03:00

"Ben and Jerry's has a brand of ice cream called: "Cherry Guevara", whose label states: "The revolutionary struggle of the cherries was squashed as they were trapped between two layers of chocolate. May their memory live on in your mouth." As you finish the ice cream you're left with a wooden stick with the words "We will bite to the end!""

Old Afghan Poster against USSR

2009-11-22T17:28:00.003+03:00

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

2009-11-18T00:11:00.001+03:00

Enjoy

Slum Life lessons from a video game

2009-11-11T15:57:00.001+03:00

Real Life Weirdness

2009-11-10T16:06:00.001+03:00

"How many of the kooky military research projects featured in The Men Who Stare at Goats really happened? Reality is more complicated than the movie (or the book), reports David Hambling at Wired's Danger Room blog. But reality may also be weirder. Hambling's post examines, Snopes-style, the truth or bogosity of such purported American military projects as:

• Psychic Spies
• Drug experimentation
• Killing animals with telepathy
• Sound weapons

Manual created by Lt. Col. Jim Channon. He "dove deep into the New Age movement, and came back to the military with a most alternative view of warfare -- one in which troops would carry flowers and symbolic animals into battle."

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/09/the-real-life-men-wh.html

Bring Down the Wall.

2009-11-09T16:15:00.000+03:00

20 years to the fall of the Berlin wall: Demonstrators toppled 8 meters tall concrete wall in Ni’ilin

Three protest marches were held today in the West Bank to mark the 20th anniversary to the fall of the Berlin wall, which has been declared an international day of action against Israel’s barrier. In Ni’lin, the 300 demonstrators managed to topple a part of the eight meters tall concrete wall that cuts through the village’s land. Following the direct action, the army fired scores of live rounds at the demonstrators.

http://palsolidarity.org/2009/11/9226

Apartheid Alien

2009-11-07T18:15:00.002+03:00

Surviving Zombie Apoca

2009-11-07T18:13:00.002+03:00

The Zombie Survival Guide: published in 2003, is a tongue-in-cheek survival manual dealing with the potentiality of a zombie attack. Its author, Max Brooks, lays out detailed plans for the average citizen to survive zombie uprisings of varying intensity and reach.

(from wikipedia)

The book is divided into six separate chapters, a fictional list of attacks throughout history and an appendix.

The first chapter is entitled "The Undead: Myths and Realities". It lays down the specific ground rules that are referenced repeatedly in the book. The first of these describes "Solanum", the fictional virus that creates a zombie, along with details on how it is spread (such as through an open wound, when coming in contact with infected blood or saliva), and treatment of the infected (suicide or amputation of the bitten/scratched limb). The middle of this chapter explains the abilities and behavioral patterns of the Undead and the differences between "voodoo" zombies and zombies created by "Solanum". The end of the chapter discusses the levels of zombie outbreaks and how severe of a threat each is to humankind.

The second chapter, "Weapons and Combat Techniques", discusses the weapons at the average reader's disposal and weighs them against the various threats that may be faced during confrontations with the undead. The M1 carbine and a machete, as portrayed on the cover of the book, receive the strongest recommendation.

The third chapter, "On the Defense", focuses on how to turn residential or public buildings into a base. It discusses the pros and cons for each different type of building, what supplies to gather, where to find a new shelter and maintain a new one should it ever be over-run.

The fourth chapter, "On the Run", discusses the rules and necessities of traveling through zombie-infested territory. It also discusses types of terrain and the pros and cons of different types of transportation.

While all previous chapters emphasize avoiding zombies at all costs, chapter five, "On the Attack", however specifically deals with engaging ghouls to ensure their destruction. It discusses the strategies and tools to eradicate zombies from an area.

The sixth chapter, "Living in an Undead World" looks at survival during a doomsday scenario that would see zombies becoming the dominant species on Earth. Advice in this section is adapted from previous sections by referring to a more serious Class-4 outbreak (previous chapters discussed a less widespread Class-3 outbreak). Brooks explains the separate chapter is only useful in the case of a nearly-impossible outbreak, and primarily focuses on creating a new civilization as far away from current civilizations as possible.

The guide concludes with a fictional list of documented zombie encounters throughout history. The oldest entry is 60,000 BC, in Katanga, Central Africa, although the author expresses doubt to its validity. Instead, he presents evidence from 3,000 BC in Hieraconpolis, Egypt as the first verifiable instance of a zombie outbreak. The most recent entry is 2002, in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Appendix takes the form of a sample "Outbreak Journal", with the author noting a covered-up zombie outbreak being seen on the local news and the preparation steps he takes in the event that the outbreak worsens. The following pages are blank entries, for the reader to use as a basis for their own journal; their inclusion furthers the overall feel that the book is a survival guide to a life-threatening possibility.

invasion by other universes?

2009-11-07T17:21:00.000+03:00

"Relaxing on an idyllic beach on Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean, Anthony Aguirre vividly describes the worst natural disaster he can imagine. It is, in fact, probably the worst natural disaster that anyone could imagine. An asteroid impact would be small potatoes compared with this kind of event: a catastrophic encounter with an entire other universe.

As an alien cosmos came crashing into ours, its outer boundary would look like a wall racing forward at nearly the speed of light; behind that wall would lie a set of physical laws totally different from ours that would wreck everything they touched in our universe. “If we could see things in ultraslow motion, we’d see a big mirror in the sky rushing toward us because light would be reflected by the wall,” says Aguirre, a youthful physicist at the University of California at Santa Cruz. “After that we wouldn’t see anything—because we’d all be dead.”

There is a sober purpose behind this apocalyptic glee. Aguirre is one of a growing cadre of cosmologists who theorize that our universe is just one of many in a “multiverse” of universes. In their effort to grasp the implications of this idea, they have been calculating the odds that universes could interact with their neighbors or even smash into each other. While investigating what kind of gruesome end might result, they have stumbled upon a few surprises. There are tantalizing hints that our universe has already survived such a collision—and bears the scars to prove it."

Film of the Moment

2009-11-06T05:22:00.001+03:00

a 2005 short film produced and written by a number of friends

SHARQ (east)

War in the Post-Obama World

2009-11-03T12:42:00.000+03:00

blog of the hour

2009-10-25T12:38:00.000+03:00

http://coveredblog.blogspot.com/

Turn thy other cheek? (or burn thy other cheek)

2009-10-21T15:30:00.001+03:00

From http://www.loonwatch.com/:

Churches involved in Torture, Murder of Thousands of African Children Denounced as Witches

"The idea of witchcraft is hardly new, but it has taken on new life recently partly because of a rapid growth in evangelical Christianity. Campaigners against the practice say around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria's 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) (SUNDAY ALAMBA, AP / August 18, 2009)This Aug. 18, 2009 photo shows children accused of witchcraft waiting for food at the Children's Rights and Rehabilitation Network in Eket, Nigeria.

In a grisly article, the LA Times reports via the AP that thousands of African children have been tortured and murdered in the name of Christianity because they were thought to be witches. The burning and murdering of “witches” is something that was thought to have died out in the 17th century with the Salem Witch Trials but it is all too real in some places around the world, especially in Africa where Evangelicalism has been on the rise.

Rest assured Robert Spencer won’t be reporting on this any time soon, nor will the mainstream media say (rightly so) “Christianity” is to blame for this because it is not; human beings are the cause. This highlights a double standard, the continuing saga of “what if they were Muslim?” If we replaced the word Christian here with Muslim and the word Churches with Mosques, we know very well that this would be plastered all over the internet in a second. The anti-Muslim blogosphere would be erupting in delirium and pundits would be pontificating on how Islam is the cause, Islam is barbaric, Islam is irreconcilable to modernity and must be stopped, etc."

Churches Involved in Torture, Murder of Thousands of African Children

by, Katharine Hourfeld

EKET, Nigeria (AP) — The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall.

His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him — Mount Zion Lighthouse.

A month later, he died.

Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of “witch children” reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.

Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

“It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity,” said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria.

For their part, the families are often extremely poor, and sometimes even relieved to have one less mouth to feed. Poverty, conflict and poor education lay the foundation for accusations, which are then triggered by the death of a relative, the loss of a job or the denunciation of a pastor on the make, said Martin Dawes, a spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund.

“When communities come under pressure, they look for scapegoats,” he said. “It plays into traditional beliefs that someone is responsible for a negative change … and children are defenseless.”

____

The idea of witchcraft is hardly new, but it has taken on new life recently partly because of a rapid growth in evangelical Christianity. Campaigners against the practice say around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria’s 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered. In the past month alone, three Nigerian children accused of witchcraft were killed and another three were set on fire.

Nigeria is one of the heartlands of abuse, but hardly the only one: the United Nations Children’s Fund says tens of thousands of children have been targeted throughout Africa.

Church signs sprout around every twist of the road snaking through the jungle between Uyo, the capital of the southern Akwa Ibom state where Nwanaokwo lay, and Eket, home to many more rejected “witch children.” Churches outnumber schools, clinics and banks put together. Many promise to solve parishioner’s material worries as well as spiritual ones — eight out of ten Nigerians struggle by on less than $2 a day.

“Poverty must catch fire,” insists the Born 2 Rule Crusade on one of Uyo’s main streets.

“Where little shots become big shots in a short time,” promises the Winner’s Chapel down the road.

“Pray your way to riches,” advises Embassy of Christ a few blocks away.

It’s hard for churches to carve out a congregation with so much competition. So some pastors establish their credentials by accusing children of witchcraft.

Nwanaokwo said he knew the pastor who accused him only as Pastor King. Mount Zion Lighthouse in Nigeria at first confirmed that a Pastor King worked for them, then denied that they knew any such person.

Bishop A.D. Ayakndue, the head of the church in Nigeria, said pastors were encouraged to pray about witchcraft, but not to abuse children.

“We pray over that problem (of witchcraft) very powerfully,” he said. “But we can never hurt a child.”

The Nigerian church is a branch of a Californian church by the same name. But the California church says it lost touch with its Nigerian offshoots several years ago.

“I had no idea,” said church elder Carrie King by phone from Tracy, Calif. “I knew people believed in witchcraft over there but we believe in the power of prayer, not physically harming people.”

The Mount Zion Lighthouse — also named by three other families as the accuser of their children — is part of the powerful Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria. The Fellowship’s president, Ayo Oritsejafor, said the Fellowship was the fastest-growing religious group in Nigeria, with more than 30 million members.

“We have grown so much in the past few years we cannot keep an eye on everybody,” he explained.

But Foxcroft, the head of Stepping Stones, said if the organization was able to collect membership fees, it could also police its members better. He had already written to the organization twice to alert it to the abuse, he said. He suggested the fellowship ask members to sign forms denouncing abuse or hold meetings to educate pastors about the new child rights law in the state of Akwa Ibom, which makes it illegal to denounce children as witches. Similar laws and education were needed in other states, he said.

Sam Itauma of the Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation Network said it is the most vulnerable children — the orphaned, sick, disabled or poor — who are most often denounced. In Nwanaokwo’s case, his poor father and dead mother made him an easy target.

“Even churches who didn’t use to ‘find’ child witches are being forced into it by the competition,” said Itauma. “They are seen as spiritually powerful because they can detect witchcraft and the parents may even pay them money for an exorcism.”

That’s what Margaret Eyekang did when her 8-year-old daughter Abigail was accused by a “prophet” from the Apostolic Church, because the girl liked to sleep outside on hot nights — interpreted as meaning she might be flying off to join a coven. A series of exorcisms cost Eyekang eight months’ wages, or US$270. The payments bankrupted her.

Neighbors also attacked her daughter.

“They beat her with sticks and asked me why I was bringing them a witch child,” she said. A relative offered Eyekang floor space but Abigail was not welcome and had to sleep in the streets.

Members of two other families said pastors from the Apostolic Church had accused their children of witchcraft, but asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

The Nigeria Apostolic Church refused repeated requests made by phone, e-mail and in person for comment.

___

At first glance, there’s nothing unusual about the laughing, grubby kids playing hopscotch or reading from a tattered Dick and Jane book by the graffiti-scrawled cinderblock house. But this is where children like Abigail end up after being labeled witches by churches and abandoned or tortured by their families.

There’s a scar above Jane’s shy smile: her mother tried to saw off the top of her skull after a pastor denounced her and repeated exorcisms costing a total of $60 didn’t cure her of witchcraft. Mary, 15, is just beginning to think about boys and how they will look at the scar tissue on her face caused when her mother doused her in caustic soda. Twelve-year-old Rachel dreamed of being a banker but instead was chained up by her pastor, starved and beaten with sticks repeatedly; her uncle paid him $60 for the exorcism.

Israel’s cousin tried to bury him alive, Nwaekwa’s father drove a nail through her head, and sweet-tempered Jerry — all knees, elbows and toothy grin — was beaten by his pastor, starved, made to eat cement and then set on fire by his father as his pastor’s wife cheered it on.

The children at the home run by Itauma’s organization have been mutilated as casually as the praying mantises they play with. Home officials asked for the children’s last names not to be used to protect them from retaliation.

The home was founded in 2003 with seven children; it now has 120 to 200 at any given time as children are reconciled with their families and new victims arrive.

Helen Ukpabio is one of the few evangelists publicly linked to the denunciation of child witches. She heads the enormous Liberty Gospel church in Calabar, where Nwanaokwo used to live. Ukpabio makes and distributes popular books and DVDs on witchcraft; in one film, a group of child witches pull out a man’s eyeballs. In another book, she advises that 60 percent of the inability to bear children is caused by witchcraft.

In an interview with the AP, Ukpabio is accompanied by her lawyer, church officials and personal film crew.

“Witchcraft is real,” Ukpabio insisted, before denouncing the physical abuse of children. Ukpabio says she performs non-abusive exorcisms for free and was not aware of or responsible for any misinterpretation of her materials.

“I don’t know about that,” she declared.

However, she then acknowledged that she had seen a pastor from the Apostolic Church break a girl’s jaw during an exorcism. Ukpabio said she prayed over her that night and cast out the demon. She did not respond to questions on whether she took the girl to hospital or complained about the injury to church authorities.

After activists publicly identified Liberty Gospel as denouncing “child witches,” armed police arrived at Itauma’s home accompanied by a church lawyer. Three children were injured in the fracas. Itauma asked that other churches identified by children not be named to protect their victims.

“We cannot afford to make enemies of all the churches around here,” he said. “But we know the vast majority of them are involved in the abuse even if their headquarters aren’t aware.”

Just mentioning the name of a church is enough to frighten a group of bubbly children at the home.

“Please stop the pastors who hurt us,” said Jerry quietly, touching the scars on his face. “I believe in God and God knows I am not a witch.”

long live metal.

2009-10-19T13:32:00.000+03:00

Watching the time go and feeling belief grow
Rise above the obstacles
People beseech me but theyll never teach me
Things that I already know (I know)

Dreams that have shattered may not have mattered
Take another point of view
Doubts will arise though like chasing a rainbow
I can tell a thing or two (thats true)

Youve got to believe in yourself or no one
Will believe in you
Imagination like a bird on the wing
Flying, free for you to use (o.k. baby)

I cant believe they stop and stare
And point their fingers doubting me
Their disbelief suppresses them
But theyre not blind its just that they wont see

Im a believer, I aint no deceiver
Mountains move before my eyes
Destiny planned out I dont need no handout
Speculation of the wise

bad orgasm

2009-10-18T17:50:00.001+03:00

"Operation Midnight Climax was an operation initially established by Sidney Gottlieb and placed under the direction of Narcotics Bureau officer George Hunter White under the alias of Morgan Hall for the CIA as a sub-project of Project MKULTRA, the CIA mind-control research program that began in the 1950s.

The project consisted of a web of CIA-run safehouses in San Francisco, Marin, and New York. It was established in order to study the effects of LSD on unconsenting individuals. Prostitutes on the CIA payroll were instructed to lure clients back to the safehouses, where they were surreptitiously plied with a wide range of substances, including LSD, and monitored behind one-way glass. Several significant operational techniques were developed in this theater, including extensive research into sexual blackmail, surveillance technology, and the possible use of mind-altering drugs in field operations.

The safehouses were dramatically scaled back in 1962, following a report by CIA Inspector General John Earman that strongly recommended closing the facility. The San Francisco safehouses were closed in 1965, and the New York City safehouse soon followed in 1966.

The file destruction undertaken at the order of CIA Director Richard Helms and former MKULTRA chief Sidney Gottlieb in 1972 makes a full investigation of claims impossible. However, many records did survive the purge. News of the story began to leak following a landmark story by New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh on illegal CIA domestic surveillance. This report triggered Senate Subcommittee hearings which investigated MKULTRA, and brought Operation Midnight Climax to light.

In 2009 Strange Science LLC released a HD video series entitled "Operation Midnight Climax," based on the CIA experiments of the same name. It starred Meredith Salenger, Todd Cahoon, and Quinton Flynn."

wikipedia

notions and time

2009-10-18T17:41:00.001+03:00

"hen it will be time to test one of the most bizarre and revolutionary theories in science. I’m not talking about extra dimensions of space-time, dark matter or even black holes that eat the Earth. No, I’m talking about the notion that the troubled collider is being sabotaged by its own future. A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan, put this idea forward in a series of papers with titles like “Test of Effect From Future in Large Hadron Collider: a Proposal” and “Search for Future Influence From LHC,” posted on the physics Web site arXiv.org in the last year and a half.

According to the so-called Standard Model that rules almost all physics, the Higgs is responsible for imbuing other elementary particles with mass.

“It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck,” Dr. Nielsen said in an e-mail message. In an unpublished essay, Dr. Nielson said of the theory, “Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God.” It is their guess, he went on, “that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.” "

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/science/space/13lhc.html?_r=2

Education Rock

2009-10-05T18:11:00.001+03:00

IMO

2009-10-05T15:43:00.001+03:00

The Big Betrayal

Recently, the Armed Resistance, through Hamas, scored a major political victory with the release of 20 Palestinian women out of thousands held in Israeli prisons; one of the recently freed had a 20 month old baby with her that was born within the prison (and therefore had the title of the youngest political prisoner in the world). Arguments have been bolstered for the benefits of armed resistance in reaching substantial progress for justice and rights due to such victories and have been heightened by the betrayal of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, in regards to shelving the Goldstone Report within the UN Human Rights Commission. The Goldstone Report came out of a UN Fact Finding Mission, composed of highly creditable academics and international lawyers that reaffirmed the conclusion that many Palestinian, Israeli, and International organizations have found: The war on Palestinians in Gaza in December 2008 through January 2009 resulted in major human rights violations, war crimes, and sheer barbarity by the Israeli forces towards the innocent population.

The Goldstone Report was a potent weapon against occupation and the Zionist aggression on the Palestinian people; an aggression that continues till this day with the growth of colonies (linguistically sanitized by the term “settlements”), the existence and growth of the Apartheid Wall (a network of walls, fences, and armed guards that dive deeply into the West Bank, the crisscrossing web of Jews-only roads, and various security zones in the area), and the aggressive hegemony of the Zionist state (through the existence of its military capability, like its massive nuclear arsenal).

The Goldstone Report was a weapon more powerful than any military tool, evoking universal justice and human rights that truly shook the Israelis confidence in its ability to conduct war with impunity and continual domination of the region. The Israelis (and in extension, the Americans) were truly afraid of this moving further into the hands of the International Criminal Court and its repercussions, and threw everything against it; from smear campaigns against Goldstone himself (a credible international lawyer, with a history involving persecution of crimes in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia, and, ironically, a Zionist who has strong family ties to the Zionist state), to the usual calls of “Anti-Semitism,” to even, absurdly, stating that this report was a threat to the major powers’ wars against “terrorism” (translation: this is a threat to your ability to bomb a population for your interests without punishment).

It seemed the support for the Goldstone Report was increasingly rapidly enhancing the ability of various human rights organizations globally to argue for the boycott of the Zionist state and hounding Israeli politicians and military figures wherever they maybe with legal tactics. But then the Palestinian Authority threw it all away.

Reports came out during the voting day and immediately after, that the Palestinian representative sought to shelve the report for 6 months, thereby collapsing the support by Arab, African, and Asian nations within the council. Reports came out trying to uncover the details of how this happened, with information pointing towards immense American pressures on Palestinian officials, Israeli threats to commercial interests in regards to the telecommunication project within the West Bank (tied to Mahmoud Abbas’s son and Wataniya Telecom), and absolute folly of the Palestinian Authority’s ability to represent the will of its people.

Justifications desperately poured out by these officials, stating that this was for the benefit of the peace process (as if the colonies would disappear, the siege of Gaza would end, and the Israelis would allow the rights of the Palestinians to be reached); that this was a “mistake” (as if this was a small matter, a small error. This is not a mistake. This is treason.); that this would be allowed to create more support for the UN report (as if 6 months was enough to change the mind of the Americans and the European nations who have protected the Israeli acts of aggression historically); and that it is only 6 months (which, as many human rights organizations retorted with the slogan “Justice deferred is Justice denied).

What has resulted is absolute rage against the Palestinian Authority by communities everywhere, and of every creed. It further establishes the role of the Palestinian Authority, through Fatah, as being more “Zionist than the Zionists,” betraying the blood of the innocents that have been shed during the Israeli onslaught. It further brings the point of why Mahmoud Abbas is still representing the Palestinians, when his term as President has expired since January 2009 (a point that the Americans and Europeans gloss over, because democracy in the end is a tool used to enforce interests rather than an actual ideal, in regards to the people of the West Asian region). It further points out that Obama and his Administration are truly all talk (flowery talk, when thinking about the Cairo Speech, backpedaling on every promise made at that speech) and have no consideration or decency in protecting the rights of the innocent in the face of Israeli tyranny.

What is immensely frustrating is that the justification in shelving the Goldstone report was placed under the protection of the “peace process.” What is this “peace process” that ignores legality, and crimes occurring in the past, present, and no doubt, the future? It seems that the whole point of this “peace process” is an end onto itself, rather than achieving anything at all.

It is seriously time to reconsider our tactics as supporters of Palestinian rights. It is time that we not only heighten our offensive, in all its forms, against the Israelis, but also the Palestinian Authority who are an extension of the Zionist regime. It is time for us to scoff at the American (and some Europeans) who have failed us too many times, and we have forgiven them too many times as well. Enough.

As for action, one can only advise those Palestinian and non-Palestinian alike to take a small step in expressing their disgust at this major betrayal by the Palestinian Authority and its embarrassing representative in Geneva. Email them at: palestine@un.int. Let them hear your voice. Let them be aware that betrayal will not be accepted anymore. I end this with a quote from a Palestinian Christian woman who was outraged at what happened, and says everything that is felt by many everywhere today:
“I am Palestinian from the West Bank and I am a Christian and I am beyond ashamed that you barbarians represent me and my people in Dafaa and Gaza in the United Nations and to the world. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, you are agents of Israel, you do not represent me, my family or any other Palestinian in the OPT or in the Diaspora. I will never forget and I will never forgive.”

Pretty Posters 2.0

2009-10-04T12:57:00.003+03:00

Pretty Posters

2009-10-04T12:55:00.002+03:00

Debate!

2009-10-01T19:16:00.000+03:00

Comic Book Comedy

2009-09-30T16:37:00.002+03:00

A snapshot of History.

2009-09-30T16:23:00.001+03:00

odd.
weird.
strange...

Wooooooooo arms deals!

2009-09-30T15:44:00.001+03:00

Saudis call on Russia to halt sale of missiles
By Charles Clover in Moscow and Andrew England in Abu,Dhabi

Published: September 30 2009 03:00 | Last updated: September 30 2009 03:00

Saudi Arabia is seeking a Russian pledge to halt the sale of a consignment of advanced surface-to-air missiles to Iran, as part of a Saudi agreement for a larger purchase of Russian weapons, according to diplomats with knowledge of the talks.

The proposed Saudi arms purchase would total at least $2bn (€1.4bn, £1.3bn) and possibly as much as $7bn It would include the most advanced air defence system produced in Russia, the S-400. The system is analogous to the US Patriot missile defence system.

Russia has been under pressure from the US and several Middle Eastern states, including Saudi Arabia and Israel, not to sell an earlier version of the same system, the S-300, to Tehran. The deal was first publicised by Iran in 2007. When Barack Obama, US president, visited Moscow in July, he reportedly sought assurances from Russian officials not to go through with the sale.

Owning the system would give Iran an advanced air defence capability and a big deterrent against an attack designed to knock out its nuclear facilities, which western governments believe are being used to try to make a bomb.

Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, which specialises in the arms industry, said the Saudi purchase appeared to be an incentive to kill the Iran sale.

"The US pressure is the stick, and a huge Saudi arms package is the carrot" for Russia not to deliver the system, he said. Press reports put the proposed value of the sale at $2bn, though Mr Pukhov said it could be worth up to $7bn.

The value of the contract with Iran, which has reportedly bought five battalions of the S-300 system, would be about $750m to $1bn.

"We all know the Saudis buy weapons as a bribe to the great power to support them," said Mr Pukhov.

He said that if Russia halted the sale to Iran, it would harm Russia's reputation on the international arms market.

Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, the Moscow journal, said that in return for the US decision to scrap planned missile defence installations earlier this month, Russia was likely to reciprocate on this issue and others.

"It is very likely that Russia gave informal assurance to the US that they would not complete the contract of the S-300s," he said.

A western observer in Saudi Arabia said Iran's ambitions would provide a strategic reason for the Saudis to buy the S-400 system. Such a purchase would keep Riyadh ahead of Syria and Iran, which have both been trying to buy the S-300.

"It gives them a chance to tilt the strategic defence balance in their direction," he said. "The Iranian angle is being thrust at the Russians" as part of the negotiations, he said. "If they could do anything to slow up the Iranian procurement, they would."

The observer added that by doing a deal with Russia, the kingdom would also be sending a message to western arms manufacturers that it had alternatives when considering defence procurement.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ecf356a-ad58-11de-9caf-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

ALIVE!

2009-09-30T13:09:00.001+03:00

This blog is still alive!!!! DAMN IT!!!!

"The Shoe Thrower"

2009-09-19T15:17:00.000+03:00

Why I threw the shoe

I am no hero. I just acted as an Iraqi who witnessed the pain and bloodshed of too many innocents
* Muntazer al-Zaidi
*
o Muntazer al-Zaidi
o guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 September 2009 19.30 BST
o Article history

I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.

Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.

Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents.

I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.

As soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies, while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the blood that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.

The opportunity came, and I took it.

I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.

I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.

If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.

I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country.

Muntazer al-Zaidi is an Iraqi reporter who was freed this week after serving nine months in prison for throwing his shoe at former US president George Bush at a press conference. This edited statement was translated by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Sahar Issa www.mcclatchydc.com

blog of the day

2009-09-08T16:04:00.000+03:00

http://hiphopisntdead.blogspot.com/

Arcade in Congo

2009-09-08T01:26:00.001+03:00

from the ever entertaining boingboing.net

Hitler and Lenin: playing Chess

2009-09-07T15:10:00.000+03:00

The image is said to have been created in Vienna by Hitler's art teacher, Emma Lowenstramm, and is signed on the reverse by the two dictators.

Hitler was a jobbing artist in the city in 1909 and Lenin was in exile and the house where they allegedly played the game belonged to a prominent Jewish family.

the arms trade

2009-09-07T14:42:00.000+03:00

Saudis eyeing more than Russian choppers
by Staff Writers

Baghdad (UPI) Sep 2, 2009

As Russia closes in on a $2 billion deal to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, reports reveal Riyadh's shopping list could include more than combat helicopters.
"All technical and financial issues have been practically coordinated," an undisclosed source privy to the negotiations told the Moscow-based Interfax news agency.

The source did not elaborate or refer to the military equipment Saudi Arabia is eyeing from Russia.

Still, the major deal with Rosoboronexport State Corp., Russia's state-owned arms export monopoly, is said to include up to 30 Mi-35 attack helicopters and up to 120 Mi-171B, the export take of the popular Mi-17 Hip multipurpose helicopter.

Defense analysts say the deal also consists of some 150 T-90s main battle tanks and about 250 BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles. Russia's state-of-the-art S-400 triumph missile system was also on the Riyadh's charts.

"It took Saudi specialists and experts quite a while to study the opportunities of the Russian arms before they decided to buy them for their nation's armed forces," Pravda reported from Moscow.

With Saudi Arabia spearheading the Middle East arms race, the country's defense spending is forecast to increase next year to $44 billion.

The lucrative arms deal breaks the United States' decades-long stronghold on Saudi Arabia's arms purchases. Meantime, Russia is bent on tapping into new arms markets.

Its arms industry is one of the most successful sectors of the country's economy despite widespread budget cuts in the wake of the global economic recession.

Defense experts say Russia's S-400 missile system is unrivaled in the West, having outflanked the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot.

The system — considered also by Turkey, Egypt and Iran — features twice the target range of the Patriot, capable of intercepting and knocking down airborne targets at distances of up to 250 miles, according to the Defense Professionals Web site.

It was not immediately known how many S-400 systems had been ordered from Russia, although the Interfax agency said Saudi Arabia was interested in purchasing "several dozen." Defense experts believe that the system is also capable of thwarting cruise and ballistic missile attacks as well as those waged by most stealth aircraft.

Each S-400 system includes at least eight launchers, 32 missiles and a mobile command post.

However successful, the estimated $2 billion weapons deal would make Russia's T-90 the highest selling combat vehicle, "showing again that the days of U.S. and European domination over new production are long gone in the international market for main battle tanks," Defense Professionals reported.

It said the BMP-3 infantry combat vehicle was also on Saudi Arabia's Russian arms shopping list.

Although first built in 1987, the BMP-3 — nicknamed Troika — has gained fresh prominence in the market with nations seeking a state-of-the-art system in combination with heavy armor and protection, Defense Professionals said on its Web site.

Saudi Arabia's neighbors Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have already integrated the BMP-3 into their armed forces.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Saudis_eyeing_more_than_Russian_choppers_999.html

the tales of vitrual protest

2009-09-06T16:45:00.001+03:00

"Many years ago, the online game Hot-blooded Legend had been the classic game that touched an entire generation of games. As all types of new games rushed onto the market, the Legend players gradually dispersed. Today, these players returned with great hopes for the new game. But when the found out that the new games was over-commercialized and not the "original flavor" as advertised, they felt cheated and used the method of blocking the gates and passages of the various "cities" to protest.

"Chu Yu" is the nickname for a netizen. Eight years ago, this second-year university student registered the user name "Chu Yu" in the Hot-blooded Legend game. For the next three years, he fought on in this virtual world. For his first year, he cut classes for one year as he played a knight, slaughtered monsters, got promoted, attacked cities and traveled around. In April 2003, he won a green necklace. While his fellow students were attending ancient Chinese classics class, he was screaming and yelling in the Internet cafe and almost smashing his keyboard. In September, he met the female Taoist "Xiao Xiao." One late night during the game, they rode horses to the seaside to gaze at the blue water. He told her that they will go to Beijing to watch the Olympics. Then he took her into the city and bought her a purple Taoist robe. "

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20090905_1.htm

Irony.

2009-09-06T16:04:00.000+03:00

How Holocaust survivor Yevgeny Bistrizky ended up on Israel’s streets

Tucked away in the closets of Yevgeny Bistrizky’s new flat is a worn and dirty blanket — for nearly eight months it was the only bedding that the 71-year-old Holocaust survivor possessed.

Until two weeks ago Mr Bistrizky was homeless on the streets of Tel Aviv, living in a dog park, using several benches as a makeshift bed and relying on residents for food.

He slept there despite his dislike of dogs. One of his only memories of the Holocaust was watching dogs feed on the bodies near the killing fields of Babi Yar, where 33,771 Jews were shot in September 1941. Their bodies were thrown in a gorge outside Kiev in one of the largest massacres of the Holocaust.

Mr Bistrizky said: “I never thought that I would again be with nothing. I kept hoping that things would get better but I didn’t know what to do.”

How a Holocaust survivor could find himself homeless in Israel is a question that has gone unanswered since Mr Bistrizky’s story was published several weeks ago in a Hebrew daily newspaper.

More than 50,000 Holocaust survivors live below the poverty line in Israel. Mr Bistrizky’s is the only known case of a survivor who became homeless.

The Latet organisation, which provides aid to the needy, discovered him after concerned residents contacted the group. They were astonished to learn that he had been living in the dog park for eight months, cleaning himself with a garden hose inside the rubbish room of a building, and hoping that the faeces-littered park would deter people from trying to attack him in his sleep.

Latet was unable to find him a suitable flat and contacted a newspaper to publish his story. Since then it has received hundreds of calls from people offering food, clothing and rooms in their homes.

One company offered a flat in a building for the elderly. The room is sparse but clean. The only homely touch is two Ukrainian calendars with photographs of kittens above his single bed.

Mr Bistrizky said: “Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll wake up and it will all be gone. That I’ll be back on the park bench and this will all be a dream”.

Small but wiry, he moves gingerly around the room. His blue eyes light up as he points out the items people have donated: a microwave, stereo, gas burner and refrigerator.

His hands linger over the objects, stopping at an armchair that he placed by the window. In the afternoon a breeze wafts in: “It’s my favourite thing, my favourite time — this wind,” he says, using the Hebrew word for breeze with a brief, but proud smile. “I am so happy, so thankful to be given all this.”

Mr Bistrizky moved to Israel with his family in 1993. He worked in a factory until three years ago when, at the age of 69, he was dismissed.

Financial difficulties led to him losing his flat and eventually his wife. For the better part of a year Mr Bistrizky lived in an abandoned building with no water or electricity.

On the day that he was discovered and evicted, nearly all his belongings were stolen. He wandered the streets but was scared of the hardened homeless who were sleeping on the grass of parks in Tel Aviv. Eventually he settled at the dog park.

Because his marital status was unclear, social workers told him that he was ineligible for a subsidised flat. As he spoke only broken Hebrew, they asked him to come back with a translator or with working papers.

“It is unbelievable that this could happen,” Liron Yochai, the manager of Latet, said. “I still can’t believe that Holocaust survivors are needy in Israel. If it were not for them, we wouldn’t have this country. Because of what they went through we were allowed to build this country. It was their hands, their money.”

Latet provides food and services for 1,500 survivors but is aware of 50,000 more living below the poverty line in Israel.

In 2007 the Israeli Government approved a 1 billion shekel (£162 million) plan to assist Holocaust survivors. Most organisations said that it was too little and that hundreds of millions of dollars were being held in the coffers of organisations meant to distribute the funds.

Mr Yochai said: “They say they are saving this money but I don’t know for what. In 15 years there will not be any Holocaust survivors left. We have to give them what we can now.”

Mr Bistrizky, who works as a caretaker in a small supermarket in the evenings and receives a monthly ¤270 pension from Germany, said that he could not ask for more. Next week, for the first time, he will meet a fellow survivor of the Babi Yar massacre at a dinner for the Jewish New Year, which is organised by Latet.

There were days when he used to think that the world was made up of people who meant him harm. He was nervous to talk to anyone and was scared of being hurt.

He said: “Now I think — and I keep trying to think — that most people are good. Look at everything they’ve done for me. I used to feel very alone, now I feel good. It’s so good I am almost scared.”

Entry of Alexander

2009-09-05T15:56:00.002+03:00

Jews in Arabic Pop culture

2009-09-04T12:42:00.000+03:00

Arabic television lauds a Jewish Egyptian diva
By Sami Moubayed

DAMASCUS - For the first time on Arabic television, a dramatic production airing this Ramadan, the holy Muslim month, depicts the life of Egyptian Jews during the 1920s and 1930s, showing them in favorable light as ordinary citizens, no different from Egyptian Muslims and Christians.

The series is as controversial as the life of its heroine, Egyptian diva Layla Murad - a Jewish singer and actress who rocketed to fame in the inter-war years before her life was marred with controversy after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Currently showing on 14 Arabic channels, Ana Albi Dalili (My Heart is my Guide), is among the most widely watched works among 60 productions made by Egyptian and Syrian artists in 2009. Apart from covering the life of Layla, the work goes to great lengths to promote tolerance and co-existence, shattering long-held stereotypes against Arab Jews, showing how integrated and proactive they were within Egyptian society. The film is directed by Syrian Mohammad Zuhair and stars Syrian actress Safa Sultan.

Layla Murad, with a powerful legacy of 27 black and white classics in Egyptian cinema and 1,200 songs, was one of the most popular, talented and beautiful Arab artists of the 20th century. She compared in fame only to the Egyptian Um Kalthoum and the Syrian diva Asmahan - together, they were the three women who competed for supremacy on Arab charts in the 1930s.

Born to a Moroccan Jewish father named Ibrahim Zaki Murad in February 1918, Layla's mother was a Polish Jew named Gamila. Her father was a respected singer in the 1920s and with her brother, Munir, a composer and celebrity in his own right, encouraged her to sing at the age of 15. Her first recorded song was in 1932, composed by the veteran Dawoud Hosni, the same year that talkies first came to Egyptian cinema.

Murad was handpicked by Mohammad Abdul Wahab, the giant of 20th-century Arabic music, to co-star with him in the 1938 classic, Yahya al-Hobb (Long Live Love). She received a staggering 250 Egyptian pounds, making her one of the best-paid artists in Cairo.

In addition to Abdul Wahab, she worked with famous composer Mohammad Fawzi, who was the romantic lead man in many of her future works, and with other giants like Mohammad Qassabji, Riyad al-Sunbati and Sheikh Zakariya Ahmad - three names who graced the songs of Um Kalthoum, placing the two ladies in direct competition.

The radio and cinema boom of the 1940s aided her career. Matters took an unpleasant turn in 1948, when Israel was created, prompting many of her audience to become suspicious of her Jewish origins. Vicious rumors spread throughout Egypt and the Arab world - probably started by her competitors - saying that Murad had visited Tel Aviv and donated 50,000 Egyptian pounds to the newly created Israeli Defense Forces.

The Damascus bureau of the popular Egyptian daily al-Ahram originally reported that rumor. Murad categorically challenged the rumors, but with little luck. The damage had already been done. Syrian Radio, previously one of the most powerful promoters of her works, boycotted her songs and she was banned from entering Syria in the early 1950s.

Murad converted to Islam after marrying Egyptian director Anwar Wajdi, and often told reporters, "I am now an Egyptian Muslim!" President Gamal Abdul Nasser intervened on her behalf when Syria and Egypt merged into the United Arab Republic in 1958, lifting the ban on Syrian Radio. An official communique was released by Egyptian authorities clearing her name from all charges, including that which accused her of having visited Israel in 1948.

Rumors, however, rocked her life in the 10 years after 1948. Some said she died in a car accident in Paris. Others said she was married in secret to King Farouk I. Nothing, however, compared with the stories of her connections to Zionism, resulting in Murad's retirement from music and descent into complete obscurity until her death at the age of 77 in 1995.

The Zionist connection badly affected her health, both physically and psychologically, sending her into spells of severe depression. At one point, she was humiliatingly requested to show all her financial records to the authorities to prove that she had never made any illegal donations to Israel.

She did not give a single press interview after leaving show business, refusing to comment on any of the upheavals in the Arab-Israeli conflict, ranging from the war of 1967, when Egypt's Sinai Peninsula was occupied by Israel, to the October War of 1973, and finally, the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement of 1978. Her own explanation for seclusion was that she was aging and wanted her fans to remember her only as they saw her on the silver screen - young, bold and beautiful.

The one-time "Lady of Egyptian Cinema" - out of business and fame for more than 40 years - faced a severe financial crisis towards the end of her life before dying in complete bankruptcy. Her last appearance on screen was in the 1953 movie, Sayidet al-Kitar (Lady of the Train).

The new series, which carries the name of one of her most memorable songs Ana Albi Dalili, has raised more than a stir in Arab media since it began airing in late August. One scene shows Layla's father Zaki Murad (played by the Egyptian star Izzat Abu al-Ouf) at a cafe with friends who clearly, from their names, are all Muslims.

Collectively they decide, both Muslims and Jew, to take part in an anti-British demonstration, in 1919. Majdi Saber, the scriptwriter, clearly tries to demonstrate that Egyptian Jews suffered no discrimination in the Arab world prior to the creation of Israel in 1948. Another scene shows a Jew raising funds for Jewish immigrants fleeing from Europe during World War II and lobbying with Egyptian Jews to emigrate to Palestine to increase its Jewish population.

Layla's father Zaki naturally refuses, patriotically holding on to his Arab origins. The Jew then tries convincing him to "purchase" a different nationality, in case tension arises between Egyptian Jews and Muslims. Once again, Zaki refuses. Zaki's home in the film is free from any Jewish symbols or Hebrew script.

The film also revives a colorful assortment of Jewish figures whose names were deliberately tarnished after the Egyptian revolution of 1952 because of their Jewish background. Justice is done, for example, to Yusuf Qattawi Pasha (played by Abdul Rahman Abu Zahra), head of the Sephardi Jewish community in Egypt in 1924-1942. After studying engineering in France, he returned to Egypt to work for the Ministry of Public Works, then became director of the Egyptian Sugar Company, which cultivated and developed sugar on 40,000 acres of desert land in the Aswan province. He is shown as a fine Egyptian patriot who helps build the Egyptian economy.

Layla's 1945 conversion to Islam is set to appear in the 17th episode of the series. The series shows that she converted out of conviction, after marrying Anwar Wejdi, and not out of political intimidation due to rising tension between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. We are yet to see how her life is portrayed once it is scarred by rumors after 1948.

Works like these are important in the Arab world because they shed light on the life of leading figures who, for political reasons, were grossly maltreated during the second half of the 20th century and have been forgotten by a young generation of Arab audiences. Those young people are, however, avid TV watchers during the annual feast of special programs every Ramadan.

Earlier, a similar work had been made about King Farouk of Egypt, who for 40 years after the revolution of 1952 was depicted as a British agent, a drunk and sex-driven reckless man who cared only for his personal indulgences rather than the welfare of Egypt. The series showed a very different image of the man; a true patriot, a shy youth who did not drink, and who was obsessed in wanting to rid his country of the British.

Another work aired last year about the diva Asmahan, who died early in 1944 amid rumors that she had been a double agent - a spy for both the Nazis and British during World War II. Her record was also cleared when the series showed that she had collaborated with the British - without receiving any money from them - with the sole purpose of ridding her country of the French.

For years, touching on these sensitive topics was taboo, frowned on by censors and the families of those characters involved. Now that the die has been cast with Farouk, Asmahan and Layla Murad, other works are in the making covering the life of equally powerful figures such as the Syrian crooner Farid al-Atrash, ex-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and former Syrian president Shukri al-Quwatli.

Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria.

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales)

The Virtues of Violence

2009-09-03T16:37:00.001+03:00

http://errwhateverz.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/the-virtues-of-violence/

I’m going to be blunt, as blunt as a hammer to the face.
We need violence.

Violence is an inherent component of life, utilized by every organism that resides within life. Violence comes in many forms; it is physical, emotional, intellectual, abstractual. It is scientific and mathematical in its application, especially when defined as a physical force against an objects self or another, thereby making one’s self or another act. Violence is a form of power, and pain is but a sliver of how violence can be threatened. It is a tool of manipulation, and we silly silly things that we are, believe that we can contain or repress this tool. Heh. Violence against violence, no? How ambitious we are, how arrogant, in thinking that we can seriously stop violence…we might as well attempt to flap our hands and fly to the moon, whilst whistling, perfectly, three different tones of the most complicated symphony ever composed by man…all in the span of a few seconds.

Violence is here to stay, and don’t let the lawyers, the human rights advocates, the military, the politicians, and the people with their hearts on their sleeves fool you. We will never eliminate violence; we use the excuse of eliminating violence in order to create more violence. The mantra of bombing them for peace, waging war for security, burning their villages to save them, and all that bloody stuff, comes slicing to the mind.

And we try to be so intelligent and skillful in our slyness, by trying to contain violence, making it “good”, “moral”, “just”. Oh yes, the concept of the legal war in international humanitarian law, the sarcastic title for the fucking laws of war, where we try to categorize and define certain ways to kill each other. You can conventionally bomb the hell out of a nation by plane (you can sometimes use the illegal stuff that burns and melts a human being, if your powerful enough to get away with it, of course), but using a car bomb is a “savage”… Interestingly enough, the car bomb has been dubbed “the poor man’s air force” so maybe the democratization of violence to the “poor” probably freaks the balls off the well-confined, unscathed richer folks, who cry foul when it suits them best, and spout out legal nonsense, with its twist and turns, to be free of responsibility…talk about the inequality even in violence, eh?

But I digress. Violence is a mover and shaker (literally) of the world. Through destruction creation comes rises from the ashes …mind you, creation probably gets destroyed later but that is just a small sticky point.

We are animals after all, social or political or add-your-own adjective-here animals, but animals nonetheless, and when push comes to shove, we will accept a lot of disgusting and terrible things arising from the spirit of violence if it fits our interests. We would slit the throats of orphaned blind children if an elegant yacht sprouted out from the flowing wound. Or more passionately, we would ground a society to dust for an idea; secular or religious, economic or political. Through violence, suffrage, emancipation, and revolutions have been won and lost. All the agreements, the constitutions, and the institutions are the glue that holds together a fragile state, until the hammer falls again.

Therefore, I don’t shy away from it, nor am I going to be absurd enough and talk about how we can get along with our enemies. I say kill them all, kill them twice, and even thrice for all I care. As long as it’s my side that’s winning right? That’s what echoes inside your repulsive dark side after all. Kill the conservatives, the hippies, the mullahs, the Nazis, the rabbis, the liberals, the communist, the technocrats, the peasants, the rich, and the prophets, right?
Ahem. I got vigorously carried away there.

Anyways, yes. We need violence. It is an inherent part of who we are as human beings and I, personally, am all for violence. I’m for violence because paradoxically, I do believe that but confronting it, by accepting it, by not shying away from the blood, the gore, and the sheer “inhumanity” (which is unwarranted, because such actions are all too human, made or should I say choked, by human hands), we can learn something more in the muck and grit. Once we wipe away our inflated ego, then can we actually understand the beauty of cooperation, and perhaps, we won’t need the darker forms of violence. Idealistic, probably. Hypocritical, totally.

Why do i believe in violence? Because to achieve true peace, enlightened discourse, or a higher standard of morality, or whatever, we have to under stand our flaws, our blemishes, and our scars, as the old Zen sentiment goes: To humble us in our arrogance and our asinine proclamations of being “civilized” or being “developed” or reaching our end of history. Nothing really ever ends.

However, until that is reached, pass me the napalm; I’m going to burn a few folks, on the road to nirvana.

The Triumph of Death

2009-09-03T16:36:00.001+03:00

i hate hipsters

2009-09-02T16:17:00.003+03:00

I saw a music video recently on MTV arabia, i began to hyperventilate and nearly spasmed into violent rage.

i hate them more than zionists.
yes...much much more.

Discovering our own Self Determination

2009-09-02T15:23:00.000+03:00

We, Arabs, living in the West Asian region, have excelled in applying a critical mentality or resisting physically against an outside force. Our history does justify our paranoia of the outside world; living in such a vital geo-strategic area attracts many misguided ambitions of conquest, occupation, and colonization from the West and the East, after all, and certainly can leave those living in the region a bit anxious of the next group that comes along. If we dare dive deeper into the depths of our history, the list of those who sought control of this region is quite long and it has truly been a long time since the Arabs have been in charge of their self determination or, in more simplistic terms, their destiny On a dreary note, some may strongly argue that Arabs are still not in charge of their self determination presently, and with the way things are moving, they will not be for the near future. I, on the other hand, am a bit more optimistic.

I do think that we, the Arabs of the West Asian region, have the ability to grab hold of our self-determination: we have the intelligence, the passion, and the ability. What we lack, however, is the ability in turning that critical eye outward and applying what it sees it to ourselves constructively. We, for a long time, have played the role of the victim perfectly, justifiable in many cases, from the Romans to the Zionists, and we have been dominated, divided, and driven by higher forces to ends that do not match our own, and, more often than naught, costs us much. Due to that trauma, we simply do not take well to criticism; in fact, we are highly confrontational when any form of criticism is applied to us internally or externally (the latter usually is filled with orientalist and racist undertones and thereby weakens attempts to apply constructive criticism by the former).

In order to surpass the various obstacles in our collective path, the ability to apply and absorb criticism in a positive way is an absolute necessity. We must be harsher in analyzing our own flaws and failures than those from the outside and we must be unyielding in our ability to lend an ear to the voices coming from the inside.
We point to the injustices of the outside world, specifically by European and North American societies, in Latin America, Asia and Africa, while turning a blind eye on injustices by our own and even going as far as silencing any statements against or by our own.

Zionist colonization of Palestine since 1948 is an utter crime and no compromise should be accepted, but to be able to argue that stance and maintain a high moral bar, we must apply the same no-compromising stance to the Moroccan colonization and domination of the Western Sahara region since 1975. If we are to talk about the torture, rape, and destruction of Iraq by American and British forces, we must apply the same rhetoric and action in regards to Sudan’s torture, rape and destruction of Darfur. This does not mean that there is an equality of magnitude in the inhumanity of these examples, the numbers alone of the dead in Iraq far surpasses anything coming from Darfur (some recent estimates point towards more than a million dead in Iraq compared to Darfur’s dead of nearly 300,000; it should be noted that such comparisons are meaningless and all human life has value), nevertheless the important position is that they are both immoral and illegal acts.

We must be vigilant against crimes committed in the name of “resistance” or in the name of Islam, or some other excuse because it is no different from the justifications of “western crime” under the pretext of “freedom” or “civilizing mission” or some other ideological abstract. We must be harsher on our own, because of the fact that they are our brothers and sisters, and their failures are our failures, as well as when an Arab or a Muslim commits a crime, collaboration, or anything similar, it unhinges our ability to be resistant to crimes committed against us. Anyone who has had the experience of debating and discussing, for example, the rights of the Palestinians in Europe or North America knows well the gift for pro-Zionist groups in using Arab crime against blunting the establishing of an awareness of the rights for the Palestinians within the minds of the communities there. This is but a miniscule example of the larger political games underway.

If Arab leaders and society want to be taken seriously on issues of “western double standards” or “western crimes” within international law and relations, then they must regain the higher moral and legal ground by untangling their own double standards from their midst. By applying such mentalities and having the patience to look at our own scars and blemishes can we really be able to have control of our own self-determination. Until that is overcome, we will only be on the sidelines as pawns for the use of other forces in the larger political game, and our ability to voice our outrage will gradually be muted.

Sly Thai.

2009-09-02T15:22:00.000+03:00

"The proliferation of poorly trained and lightly controlled civilian militias in southernmost Thailand has added to the controversy surrounding the government's counter-insurgency operations in the restive region. As the militias become more entrenched, the risk is rising that they will enflame already simmering communal tensions between Thai Buddhist and Malay Muslim communities.

The main government-supported militias operating in the south are known as Chor Ror Bor, or Village Development and Self Defense Volunteers, which are answerable to the Ministry of Interior (MOI) and operationally come under the military's Internal Security

Operations Command (ISOC). Under the Chor Ror Bor program, each village has 30 volunteers who are provided by the military three days of training and 15 shotguns.

Both Buddhists and Muslims are recruited into the Chor Ror Bor, depending on the ethnic makeup of villages. The village headman is the nominal leader of each unit, which is tasked with guarding the village and protecting government infrastructure and buildings, including state schools. Since the upsurge in violence began in early 2004, the Chor Ror Bor program has nearly doubled from 24,300 to some 47,400 armed volunteers.

Recruitment is ongoing towards the aim of providing each of the 1,580 villages in the insurgency hit provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala with a unit of 30 volunteers. More controversial are the Or Ror Bor units, or Village Protection Volunteers, which are not answerable directly to the Ministry of Interior or 4th Army Division, which is responsible for security in the south, but rather come under the Royal Aide de Camp Department, a unit of the Defense Ministry responsible for the protection of the royal family. "

Late night music

2009-09-01T03:40:00.001+03:00

"if you rescue me." from the sweet romantic comedy movie, the science of sleep. This song is a play on "after hours" by the velvet underground.

obviously the video is from a disney cartoon, so ignore it, close your eyes, and blissfully enjoy.

Sweet Equality.

2009-08-30T16:20:00.001+03:00

Climate Conflict (thanks S.H.)

2009-08-26T13:58:00.000+03:00

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/brief-history-of-climate-change-and-conflict

A brief history of climate change and conflict
By James R. Lee | 14 August 2009

Article Highlights

The interaction between climate change and conflict started as early as 35,000 years ago.

The Neanderthals, Vikings, and Mayans all benefited and suffered from a changing climate that affected resources such as water, game, and agriculture.

By analyzing historical case studies of climate and societal collapse, we can identify a set of discernible lessons for today.

In recent years, many foreign affairs experts have attempted to demonstrate the linkages between climate change and the social tensions that can lead to conflict. While critics may believe this is simply a fad in international affairs, history suggests otherwise. Over the last few millennia, climate change has been a factor in conflict and social collapse around the world. The changing climate has influenced how and where people migrate, affected group power relations, and provided new resources to societies while taking away others. Such circumstances cause large-scale alterations in lifestyles and illustrate pathways from climate change to conflict.

Because climate change can be a contentious subject, it's worth taking a moment to answer some basic questions and put forth a series of assumptions. First, what is climate change? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the most authoritative source on the subject, assesses climate change by measuring changing temperatures and precipitation. Since trends in temperature often (but don't always) drive trends in precipitation, scientists consider temperature a more robust and stable measure of climate change. But in simplest terms, climate change is the long-term change in the patterns of these two meteorological characteristics. Second, does climate change affect the world the same everywhere? In fact, climate change is a heterogeneous phenomenon and produces different outcomes in different places. The subsequent case studies demonstrate that a changing climate can have acute regional effects such as near the equator or North Pole, the "hot" and "cold" zones, respectively. In both cases, "hot" and "cold" conflicts demonstrate how rising and falling temperatures have had different impacts on human survival and prosperity.

Finally, a fact: The relationship between climate and conflict isn't as simple as cause and effect. Instead, climate change events--such as temperature shifts of a few degrees or a precipitation change of a few inches--contribute to conflict gradually over the long term. Because the climate has been changing for millennia, it's possible to look at the past for examples. Do we see cases of climate-conflict interaction when rates of climate change have diverged? In fact, it's possible to assess historical events and records in order to construct pictures of how climate affects conflict. Historical case studies, therefore, allow us to identify three paths from climate change to conflict: sustained trends, intervening variables, and the need for conflict triggers.

Consider each of the paths. The first is that conflict has the potential to emerge after a sustained period of divergent climate patterns. While people can survive aberrant, short-term climate change by exploiting existing or stored resources, this strategy has temporal limits. On this particular path the issue isn't one of surviving an especially fierce rain or harsh winter, but the cumulative effects of many fierce rains and many harsh winters. Next, climate change alone won't cause conflict but, along with other factors, will contribute to and shape it. It's one variable among many others, such as cultural, economic, or demographic factors. Last, unless a society learns to adapt to sustained climate change, its wealth will decline and its social fabric will weaken with each passing year. But even if a society faces these environmental challenges, a trigger--such as an assassination, extreme natural event, or random act of group violence--is usually required to ignite violent conflict.

We can, nevertheless, draw lessons from natural (climate) and human (conflict) interaction that may be transferable to today's global climate challenge by considering three periods in human history: the Holocene warming period, the medieval climate optimum, and the "little ice age."
About 35,000 years ago the Holocene warming period, during which the North American and Eurasian glaciers shrunk, was responsible for ending the last ice age that coincided with the flowering of human culture. This period and its aftermath shaped the climate we live in today. The glaciers receded, and humans migrated north to Eurasia in search of hunting grounds. Probably around today's Middle East region, the humans found plentiful game and encountered the Neanderthals. Over time, humans pushed into Europe and forced the Neanderthals further north into the less hospitable parts of the continent, where game wasn't as abundant and temperatures were much colder. Although the Neanderthals had survived several ice ages over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, they couldn't survive both an ice age and the humans, who enjoyed advanced weaponry and social organization. Of course, theories about the end of the Neanderthals are controversial and unresolved. However, there is no question that climate change provoked the interaction of human societies and the Neanderthals and subsequently led to conflict.

The medieval climate optimum lasted from 500 to 1000. It brought about a period of sustained progress in Europe as warmer conditions allowed for longer growing seasons in the largely agricultural societies. However, conditions elsewhere were quite different. Between 700 and 900, rainfall in China was scarce due to weak summer monsoons that failed to develop over the Pacific Ocean. Gerald Haug and other researchers have concluded PDF that famines caused by the failed monsoons resulted in peasant revolts and fueled the intrastate conflict that drastically weakened, and then led to the complete collapse of, the Tang Dynasty.

Across the globe in North America, the Mayans had settled in the lowlands around 8000 BC and began practicing large-scale farming as early as 2000 BC. By the beginning of the medieval climate optimum in AD 500, the population was nearly 14 million, making it one of the largest centers of civilization anywhere. But the thriving Mayan cities began to experience diminished long-term rainfall patterns. Dry conditions began in 760 and, after a 50-year wet period, drought again set in about 860. Another drought followed in 910. The boom-and-bust cycles of rainy and dry periods contributed to eras of both growth and decline. Technology, population sizes, and agricultural intensity overwhelmed the land. Yields declined with the dry conditions and these structural incongruities led to ongoing wars between Mayan city-states that eventually contributed to their collapse.

The warming in Central America that was disastrous for the Mayans was, on the other hand, fortunate for the Vikings. Warmer temperatures in the north meant their land was more hospitable to live on. Complex push-and-pull factors allowed the Vikings to expand their settlements from Scandinavia to Iceland, Greenland, and later Newfoundland. It was in Newfoundland that they encountered Native Americans. The Native Americans, too, perceived the warmer climate as a new opportunity and fought to control the increasingly abundant land. The Vikings and Native Americans would alternately trade and fight with each other throughout the Vikings' time in Newfoundland.

Enter the "little ice age"--a period marked by abnormally cooler temperatures. Scholars differ on the exact duration of this period; some researchers believe it started as early as 1000 in certain northern regions, whereas other historians, such as noted scholar Brian Fagan, believe it lasted from 1300 to 1850. Regardless, when the climate turned cold, the Viking colonies that had flourished in the warmth of the medieval climate optimum collapsed in Newfoundland (which they had abandoned because of ongoing conflict with the Native Americans). The western Greenland colony was the next to collapse, and around 1350, coinciding with the time of the Black Death, the eastern colony also began to decline. It survived only into the early 1500s.

During the same period, the Anasazi, a hunter-gatherer people who over centuries settled into a sedentary lifestyle, lived along the rivers of what is today the Southwest United States. With gradual improvements in technology and a beneficial climate, their population grew. But the little ice age brought a period of long-term drought, and Anasazi population growth exceeded its resource base. Timber, game, and other resources had to be imported from neighboring areas. The Anasazi had survived a long-term drought and many smaller ones in their long history. So why were they unable to cope with the little ice age drought? Like the Mayans, Anasazi city-states came into conflict as resources dwindled.

Because of its recency, scholars are able to theorize more completely about the little ice age. There were sharp extremes in temperature during the period. In fact, it had two temperature low points, one during the late 1400s and early 1500s, and another during the late 1700s and early 1800s. During the latter extreme cold period, a catastrophic geologic event occurred. In April 1815, Mount Tambora, on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, threw a massive amount of volcanic dust into the atmosphere in one of the largest volcanic explosions in modern times. The volcanic dust travelled worldwide and blocked the sun's rays, lowering temperatures, especially in the northern hemisphere. The period of extreme cold, coupled with this sudden volcanic eruption, produced the "year without summer."

The year without summer illustrates two different stories--one in Europe and another in North America. In Europe, the cold forced people to migrate. But land across the continent was relatively densely settled, so conflict often came with population movement. On top of this structural problem, the Napoleonic wars culminated shortly before, sapping the vitality and stability of the economy. People were already suffering through instability, but the cold compounded social strife. There were no "pressure valves," such as open land, for populations under temperature-induced duress. The result was social upheaval, riots, and disease.

The cold was just as bad in eastern North America and Canada, where most summer crops were lost. But unlike Europe, there was ample land for climate migrants west of the United States. The building of the Erie Canal in 1817 gradually opened up a westward route for easy migration. Thus, where in Europe people lacked the pressure valve necessary to cope with difficult times, in North America the valve not only existed but its exploitation was encouraged.

These are just a few accounts that allow us to synthesize history into a set of discernible, often regionally specific, lessons on conflict manifestations for today. The impact of climate change is obviously differential in the "hot" and "cold" wars, where trends may reward one part of the world while punishing another--for example, in terms of economic subsistence. In particular, four lessons of conflict emerge from the aforementioned cases that may have application for today's challenges:

The decline or growth in general resources, such as arable land and fresh water, can cause significant societal impacts. During extremely warm periods in the equatorial zone, marginal lands gradually lose resource assets. This is evident in the drift of the Sahara Desert southward into sub-Saharan Africa, which has occurred over many millennia and continues today. At the same time, in the polar zone, lands and their resources can become more abundant. It was because of this that the Vikings were able to survive for 500 years in Greenland before the little ice age.

Conflict can exist between societies or within them. By nature, the "hot" and "cold" war zones show divergent paths. In the polar areas, "cold" conflict emerges between states seeking to exploit the new resources that warming makes available. In the equatorial area, which includes many deserts, conflict erupts over declining resources, especially in warmer periods. Such livelihood conflicts often transcend borders and lead to migration. This is particularly evident for historic peoples such as the Mayans and the Anasazi, but also in today's conflicts in the North African Sahel and Sudan's Darfur region.

There is a full menu of climatic causes of conflict, depending on where the conflict is ("hot" and "cold" war areas), the type of climate change (temperature or precipitation), and the trends in the patterns (increasing or decreasing). In the polar zone, the change in temperature indirectly drives conflict behavior and the impact on inhabitable land is most important. In the equatorial zone, change in precipitation patterns is clearly a major driver, but temperature changes also can influence evaporation rates. Here, water is most important.

The resiliency of conflict is different in the "hot" and "cold" zones. In the polar zone, conflict is episodic; wars come and go with changes in temperature. In the equatorial zone, conflict is more gradual and continuous. "Hot" wars often stretch on as human population growth and changes in habitat tend to exacerbate changing climate conditions. Simply put, they are "cold" wars of opportunity versus "hot" wars of desperation.

Today, we see the manifestations of climate change slowly emerging in melting glaciers and drying fields. We need to imagine how changes in climate will create possibilities for conflict, using these historical lessons as guides. It's important to note that reacting to the challenges of "hot" and "cold" wars will require different strategies. The past is a good guide, but new types and modes of conflict emerging from climate change are to be expected. In that respect, finding historical examples is easier than contemplating how climate change and conflict will create new models of interaction and present new challenges in the future. After all, the idea that climate change causes conflict is not revolutionary, but evolutionary.

zombie songs

2009-08-20T16:21:00.000+03:00

from here, for more songs: http://zombaritaville.blogspot.com/

Rippin' Off Your Skin
To the tune of Blowin' In The Wind by Bob Dylan

How many lobes must a ghoul gulp down
Before he eats the whole brainpan?
How many skulls must a sniper nail
Before her rifle has jammed?
Yes, n' how many bites must I take of this guy
Before I've digested his hand?
The zombies my friend, are rippin' off your skin
The zombies are rippin' off your skin

Yes, n' how many folks must cease to exist
Before it's called a "killing spree"?
Yes, n' how many years in this mall can we subsist
'Til we're forced by bikers to flee?
Yes, n' how many towns must shamblers infest
Before they all turn to debris?
The zombies my friend, are rippin' off your skin
The zombies are rippin' off your skin

Yes, n' how many mines must a man blow up
Before the undead subside?
Yes, n' how many bites must our pilot endure
Before he's no longer alive?
Yes, n' how many hosts will this virus infect
Before the plague's spread worldwide?
The zombies my friend, are rippin' off your skin
The zombies are rippin' off your skin

Bob Dylan's hippie folk-singer version…

Pilger on Obama (thanks R.B.)

2009-08-18T16:37:00.002+03:00

short version:

long version:

quotables

2009-08-18T01:31:00.001+03:00

"Ah gentlemen, if I had been able to read and write, I'd have destroyed the human race."

- Michele Caruso, shepherd and bandit, captured at Benevento 1863

brazilian bandit-romance

2009-08-18T01:29:00.002+03:00

"God himself almost repents
Having made the human race,
For all is injustice,
Affliction and vanity,
And man, however pious,
Cannot but regard as cruel
The supreme Majesty."

serene

2009-08-17T16:32:00.002+03:00

don't fuck with Egyptian sailors

2009-08-17T16:17:00.000+03:00

"The crews of two Egyptian fishing vessels that overpowered pirates off the Somali coast have sailed into Red Sea waters on their way home along with eight of their former captors, an Egyptian official said Saturday.

The 34 fishermen, who were held for captive for four months, captured eight of the Somali pirates and were bringing them to Egypt, said Egypt's deputy foreign minister for consular affairs, Ahmed Rizq.

The owner of one of the vessels, Mohammad Nasr, said the crews turned down the Egyptian government's offer to fly them back Friday from Yemen, where they arrived after subduing their captors. Nasr said the fishermen wanted to sail back to demonstrate their courage and pride.

He said the pirates are locked in a room on board the boats and there are plans for them to be tried in Egyptian courts.

Nasr, who has been in telephone contact with his crew throughout the ordeal, said pirates seized the boats four months ago on their way to fish near Yemen.

A pirate who said he escaped Friday's attack told the AP that the crew fought them with machetes, tools and some of the pirates' own guns, killing two of the marauders.

According to a Yemeni businessman who hired the boats, Ahmed Samara and Momtaz 1, the fishermen on both vessels coordinated their attack and some of the pirates even cooperated with them, making it easier for the other gunmen to be overpowered."

an unholy alliance

2009-08-16T18:10:00.000+03:00

mathematically modeling a zombie outbreak

2009-08-16T17:51:00.001+03:00

"Mathematicians at the University of Ottawa, Philip Munz, Ioan Hudea, Joe Imad and Robert J. Smith, have published "When Zombies Attack! Mathematical Modelling of a Zombie Outbreak!" It's a serious look at the mathematical epidemiology of zombiism, published in "Infectious Disease Modelling Research Progress."

"Zombies are a popular figure in pop culture/entertainment and they are usually portrayed as being brought about through an outbreak or epidemic. Consequently, we model a zombie attack, using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We introduce a basic model for zombie infection, determine equilibria and their stability, and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions. We then refine the model to introduce a latent period of zombification, whereby humans are infected, but not infectious, before becoming undead. We then modify the model to include the effects of possible quarantine or a cure. Finally, we examine the impact of regular, impulsive reductions in the number of zombies and derive conditions under which eradication can occur. We show that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario: the collapse of society as zombies overtake us all."

http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/Zombies.pdf

1960

2009-08-13T12:38:00.000+03:00

In cyrpus...

2009-08-13T12:05:00.004+03:00

So my work sent me to Cyprus to cover a bunch of Kuwaiti football kids (20-yr olds), great and wild boys, and whilst at a venue and watching people (which i like to do often, it's interesting watching how humans act, move, look, etc...) i keep on seeing people pausing and taking pictures...

and people do this alot, whether at a club, a restaurant, a beach, whatever "event" they had to capture the moment by taking pictures...

when you really think about it, its very silly...ok ok i understand its a form of holding on to a nice memory to look back later and associate things together, and it helps not to forget people and places, fine.

but the sheer number of pictures that people take during an event...its like they are living life through their pictures rather than living their life as it happens.

i don't usually take pictures and i usually try not to be in em, i dunno i just feel that i am trying to retain events mentally rather than physically.

and well i want to live in the movement rather than pausing, turning, and posing (unrealistically) and smiling, as i wait for the person to press the button (which they usually take a while, so people start getting uncomfortable posing like statues to look awesome, and grumble for making them lose that kick ass smile...).

it's fucking weird. seriously.

it's a sort of addiction. since if one forgets a camera, its like the night isn't truly and wholly complete...which is utter nonsense.

Blessing or a Curse?

2009-08-13T11:44:00.000+03:00

From the BBC: "Thousands of people are flocking to a remote and mountainous village in Nepal to see a malformed baby which many are now worshipping as a God.
Suffering from a rare abnormality, baby Risab has a headless "parasitic twin" attached to his abdomen and was born with four arms and four legs.
His impoverished parents say all they want is for Risab to have a "normal body".
They are worried that some see the baby not as a blessing but a curse - the reason why monsoon rains are late."

the odd one out.

2009-08-13T11:41:00.000+03:00

"Planets orbit stars in the same direction that the stars rotate. They all do. Except one.
A newfound planet orbits the wrong way, backward compared to the rotation of its host star. Its discoverers think a near-collision may have created the retrograde orbit, as it is called.
The star and its planet, WASP-17, are about 1,000 light-years away. The setup was found by the UK's Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) project in collaboration with Geneva Observatory. The discovery was announced today but has not yet been published in a journal.
"I would have to say this is one of the strangest planets we know about," said Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at MIT who was not involved in the discovery. "

Priceless Moment

2009-08-08T10:31:00.000+03:00

prison numbers

2009-08-05T14:00:00.001+03:00

true courage

2009-08-04T18:46:00.000+03:00

"

Sudanese police have used tear gas to disperse protesters outside a court in Khartoum, the capital, after the trial of a Sudanese journalist on indecency charges was adjourned for a second time.

Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who was arrested over her allegedly inappropriate trousers, said that the court wanted to clarify whether she, as a former United Nations worker, had legal immunity.

"They want to check with the UN whether I have immunity from prosecution," she told Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

"I don't know why they are doing this because I have already resigned from the United Nations. I think they just want to delay the case."

Al-Hussein, who was working as a press officer for the UN when she was arrested, has tried to waive the immunity to be able to challenge the law regulating women's clothing."

comic analysis: Miracle Man Part 1 of 2

2009-08-04T16:36:00.002+03:00

"Early in the lifespan of WHEN WORDS COLLIDE, I wrote a column called "Sixteen Steps Toward a Superhero Canon" in which I outlined the four major eras of superhero comic book history by selecting four representative issues from each period. It's as informative and arbitrary as any other comic book canon, but I stand by what I wrote back then. And it's important to remember that column this week, because the San Diego Comic-Con turned everyone's gaze toward a book featured on that list. A little comic known as "Miracleman."

"Miracleman," known originally as "Marvelman" when it was serialized in "Warrior Magazine," is, of course, the subject of the biggest comic book announcement to come out of San Diego this year. Miracleman will be back, it seems, under his proper Marvelman name and under the Marvel Comics banner.

But I'm not here to talk about the tangled legal history of the character, or to talk about what Marvel may or may not do with the property.

I'm here to talk about why "Marvelman" is such a big deal, beyond its forbidden-fruit status. I want to look closely at how "Marvelman" birthed the Modern Age of comics, and what Alan Moore and Garry Leach's revisionist superhero work did to the comic book landscape. "Marvelman" changed everything, forever.

To begin, let's quickly establish the context. If we were to oversimplify, and that's what we're going to do right now, we might say that the four major eras of superhero comic books can be divided into the Golden Age (the innocent, optimistic, militaristic, simplistic comics of the 1930s-1950s), the Silver Age (the innocent, hyperbolic, dynamic, scientific comics of the 1960s), the Bronze Age (the somewhat innocent, more realistic, caustic, and derivative comics of the 1970s and early 1980s), and the Modern Age (the bombastic, supposedly realistic, ironic, character-focused comics of the mid 1980s through today).

Perhaps a new era is dawning in the early 21st century or perhaps not, and maybe those four eras above are delineated far too simplistically, but there's little doubt that something drastically changed in the early 1980s. Something happened to superhero comics that was as drastic, if not more so, then the Julie Schwartz-helmed relaunch of the Flash in "Showcase" #4. And though the mid-1980s triple-threat of "Watchmen," "Dark Knight Returns," and "Maus" catapulted the ethos of modern comics to a much wider audience, it was a British black and white magazine -- an anthology -- that really kicked off the Modern Age.

Marvelman reborn in "Warrior"

"Warrior" #1, published in the winter of 1982, featured strips that you've probably never heard of: "The Spiral Path," "The Legend of Prester John," "Father Shandor, Demon Stalker," "Laser Eraser & Pressbutton." But it also featured the first installment of "V for Vendetta" and, more importantly, the first chapter of Alan Moore and Garry Leach's "Marvelman."

"V for Vendetta" is an impressive story, but as good as it is -- and it's good enough to warrant a big-budget movie adaptation and an upcoming Absolute Edition, so people seem to like it -- it didn't change the face of comics.

"Marvelman" did."

alien apartheid

2009-08-03T17:31:00.000+03:00

Neill Blomkamp's 'District 9' wins over fanboys and Peter Jackson
SCIENCE FICTION

The science fiction film is about aliens who get stranded in South Africa.
By Chris Lee >>>
August 2, 2009

In the docu-style, sci-fi thriller "District 9," which arrives in theaters Aug. 14, hundreds of thousands of aliens become stranded in South Africa after their massive spaceship comes to a standstill above downtown Johannesburg. ¶ Unable to fix the craft, this massive population of tentacle-waving, exoskeleton-sheathed aliens eventually outstays its welcome; they become reviled by humans for burdening the country's welfare system even though all they really want to do is go home. Corralled into District 9 -- a rubbish-strewn refugee camp that calls to mind Mumbai's septic squalor, captured to striking effect in "Slumdog Millionaire" -- they are segregated from the general populace by barbed wire. There, the film's sentient yet excitable aliens are denied such basic necessities as running water and are denigrated by native earthlings as "prawns" for their resemblance to Sasquatch-sized shellfish. ¶ Given the film's real-life setting amid Soweto's teeming townships and its segregationist signage -- "For humans only! Non-humans banned!" read placards in the movie -- it's impossible not to correlate the aliens' predicament with recent South African history. And that's no accident. Call "District 9" the world's first autobiographical alien apartheid movie. ¶ Writer-director Neill Blomkamp grew up in Johannesburg during an era of white minority rule; later, memories of the apartheid government's social divisiveness and authoritarian control became "the most powerful influence" in shaping his creative vision.

"It all had a huge impact on me: the white government and the paramilitary police -- the oppressive, iron-fisted military environment," Blomkamp said over breakfast recently in a Santa Monica hotel. He appeared boyish, fresh-faced in jeans and a button-down shirt, his hair spiky with product, while exuding a preternatural sense of focus. "Blacks, for the most part, were kept separate from whites. And where there was overlap, there were very clearly delineated hierarchies of where people were allowed to go."

He continued: "Those ideas wound up in every pixel in 'District 9.' "

Amnesty International is full of S.H.I.T

2009-08-02T18:04:00.001+03:00

Entertaining Apartheid Israel Deserves No Amnesty!
Open Letter to Amnesty International

August 01, 2009 By Authors Many

Authors Many's ZSpace Page

Join ZSpace

July 30, 2009 -- In May, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) called on singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen to heed the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel and avoid complicity with Israel's violations of international law by cancelling his planned September concert in Israel, particularly in view of Israel's war crimes in Gaza earlier this year. Sadly, according to a July 28 article in the Jerusalem Post, Amnesty International USA has agreed to cooperate with Cohen in dealing with Israel on the basis of business as usual. Amnesty International USA will serve as sponsor of a new fund that will whitewash the money raised at Cohen's concert in Israel by using it to finance programs for "peace." Being one of the world's strongest proponents of human rights and international law, you shall thus be subverting a non-violent, effective effort by Palestinian and international civil society to end Israel's violations of international law and human rights principles. We call on you to be true to your values and immediately withdraw support for Leonard Cohen's ill-conceived concert in Israel.

The Jerusalem Post report indicates that Cohen and his PR staff, having been criticized for trying to normalize Israel's occupation and apartheid, are trying to whitewash the concert in Israel by using Amnesty International USA's good name. According to the article, "All of the net proceeds from Leonard Cohen's September 24 concert at Ramat Gan Stadium will be earmarked for a newly established fund to benefit Israeli and Palestinian organizations that are working toward conciliation," and the fund will be "sponsored by Amnesty." Curt Goering, the senior deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA, told the Post, "We saw this as an exciting opportunity with potential to recognize, support and pay tribute to the Israelis and Palestinians who have been working for peace and human rights amid a difficult environment and insurmountable odds. I see our participation as complementary to what we do, even though this initiative is different from Amnesty's ongoing work."

WHY WE ARE CALLING ON AMNESTY TO WITHDRAW FROM THE PROJECT

By supporting Cohen's concert in Israel, Amnesty International is actively undermining a particularly successful effort by Palestinian and international civil society to end Israel's occupation and other violations of international law and human rights principles. We find this position by Amnesty particularly frustrating and puzzling given your call for an arms embargo against Israel following its atrocities in Gaza earlier this year, which your organization described as constituting war crimes.

Accepting funds from the proceeds of Cohen's concert in Israel is the equivalent of Amnesty accepting funds from a concert in Sun City in apartheid South Africa. Profits earned through violations of human rights and international law are tainted and should not be accepted by any morally consistent human rights organization, particularly when this money is intended to be used to whitewash the very violations behind those profits.

Furthermore, your Israeli partners in this venture actively hinder efforts to achieve a just peace. The Peres Center for Peace, with its multi-million dollar annual budget and fifteen million dollar building, is listed incongruously by the Jerusalem Post as both a beneficiary of the fund and a member of the new fund's Board of Trustees. The Peres Center has been denounced by leading Palestinian civil society organizations for promoting joint Palestinian-Israeli projects that are "neither effective in bringing about reconciliation, nor desirable" and that enhance "Israeli institutional reputation and legitimacy, without restoring justice to Palestinians, in the face of continued Israeli Government violations of international law and fundamental Palestinian human rights, including breaches of the Geneva Conventions." A columnist in Israel's Haaretz Daily called the Peres Center patronizing and colonial, explaining that "Efforts are being made to train the Palestinian population to accept its inferiority and prepare it to survive under the arbitrary constraints imposed by Israel, to guarantee the ethnic superiority of the Jews."

Your other indirect partner in this project, according to the Jerusalem Post, is Israel Discount Bank, a key sponsor of the Cohen concert. Who Profits, a project of Israel's Coalition of Women for Peace, reports that Israel Discount Bank has branches in the settlements of Beitar Illit and Maale Adumim, has financed construction in the settlements of Har Homa, Beitar llit and Maale Adumim, and is a major shareholder in a factory in a settlement. Amnesty hardly needs any reminder that all Israeli colonial settlements built on occupied Palestinian territory are not only illegal under international law but are considered war crimes in the Fourth Geneva Convention. Your intention to indirectly partner with a bank that profits from the occupation and to oversee a fund that uses some of that legally and morally stained money contradicts Amnesty's founding principles and commitment to human rights.

The latest attempt by the Cohen team to find an alternative Palestinian fig leaf has also failed. The only Palestinian organization falsely reported in the Jerusalem Post article as being a partner in this project, the Palestinian Happy Child Center, has confirmed that it is not taking part. There is no Palestinian organization participating in this whitewash.

BACKGROUND ON THE BOYCOTT

With the international community failing to take action to stop Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people, and inspired by the international boycott movement that helped bring an end to apartheid in South Africa, Palestinian civil society has launched calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, including an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. Endorsed by nearly sixty Palestinian cultural and civil society organizations and inspired by the South African anti-apartheid boycotts, PACBI calls on "the international community to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel‘s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid." These Palestinian calls have inspired a growing international boycott movement which gained added momentum following Israel's assault on Gaza last winter.

In April, the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) and over 100 Israelis called on Leonard Cohen to cancel his planned September concert in Israel. Protests against Cohen's plans to play in Israel were then held at Cohen's concerts in New York, Boston, Ottawa and Belfast, among other cities. Feeling the rising heat of the protests, Cohen tried to schedule a small concert in Ramallah to "balance" his concert in Israel. However, Palestinians rejected the Ramallah concert. The Palestinian group that was supposed to host the Ramallah event cancelled its invitation to Mr. Cohen after realizing the adverse effects this would have on the boycott movement, which is widely supported by Palestinians. Reflecting the general mood in Palestinian society against any claimed symmetry between the occupying power and the people under occupation, a July 12 PACBI statement explained, "Ramallah will not receive Cohen as long as he is intent on whitewashing Israel‘s colonial apartheid regime by performing in Israel. PACBI has always rejected any attempt to ‘balance' concerts or other artistic events in Israel--conscious acts of complicity in Israel‘s violation of international law and human rights--with token events in the occupied Palestinian territory."

For all the above reasons, we strongly urge you to distance Amnesty International from this discredited project and its tainted money.

Signed:

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, The Alternative Information Center (AIC),

American Jews for a Just Peace (US), Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within (Israel), British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP), Independent Jewish Voices (Canada), International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Jews Against the Occupation-NYC, New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel (NYCBI), New York City Labor Against the War, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (UK), US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel

Cc:

-Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA

- Curt Goering, Senior Deputy Executive Director of Amnesty International USA

-Zahir Janmohamed, Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International USA

- Colm Ó Cuanacháin, Amnesty International (UK) Senior Director, Campaigns

-Claudio Cordone, Amnesty International (UK) Senior Director, Research and Regional Programs

-Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International (UK) Researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

silence

2009-08-02T16:45:00.000+03:00

"Exiled Uyghur dissident Rebiya Kadeer accused China today of trying to lay a veil of silence over the disappearance of “about 10,000 people” during the unrest in Urumqi, Xinjiang. The head of the World Uyghur Congress has also reproached the United States for its silence over the matter as well. Ms Kadeer arrived yesterday in the Japanese capital to urge the international community to provide support to her people, “massacred” by the Chinese.

“About 10,000 people disappeared in Urumqi in one night. Where have they gone? If they are dead, where are they” now, she said during a press conference through an interpreter.

In early July protests by Uyghurs in Urumqi turned into clashes with police and ethnic Han Chinese.

According to the Chinese government 197 people died as a result of the violence, mostly Han Chinese. Uyghur dissidents claim instead that thousands of people have probably died."

Quotes:

2009-08-01T17:08:00.001+03:00

"According to Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, experienced Afghan hands and coauthors of Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story (City Lights, 2009, p. 317):

“If Washington’s bureaucrats don’t remember the history of the region, the Afghans do. The British used air power to bomb these same Pashtun villages after World War I and were condemned for it. When the Soviets used MiGs and the dreaded Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships to do it during the 1980s, they were called criminals. For America to use its overwhelming firepower in the same reckless and indiscriminate manner defies the world’s sense of justice and morality while turning the Afghan people and the Islamic world even further against the United States.”

In 1932, in a series of Guernica-like atrocities, the British used poison gas in Waziristan. The disarmament convention of the same year sought a ban against the aerial bombardment of civilians, but Lloyd George, who had been British prime minister during World War I, gloated: “We insisted on reserving the right to bomb niggers” (Fitzgerald and Gould, p. 65). His view prevailed."

laughing at the situation

2009-08-01T16:57:00.001+03:00

Audience Laughs After Geithner Tells China Its Dollar Assets are Safe

with 5 comments

1 Jun 09 | Reuters

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday reassured the Chinese government that its huge holdings of dollar assets are safe and reaffirmed his faith in a strong U.S. currency.

A major goal of Geithner’s maiden visit to China as Treasury chief is to allay concerns that Washington’s bulging budget deficit and ultra-loose monetary policy will fan inflation, undermining both the dollar and U.S. bonds.

China is the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasury bonds. U.S. data shows that it held $768 billion in Treasuries as of March, but some analysts believe China’s total U.S. dollar-denominated investments could be twice as high.

“Chinese assets are very safe,” Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.

His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting skepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.

The joy of Palm Trees

2009-08-01T16:35:00.002+03:00

From the BibliOdyssey:
"The author of over 150 botanical titles, including the great flora of Brazil, Karl Friedrich Philipp von Martius also wrote the still-definitive three-volume treatise on the palm family, one of the first plant monographs. He developed his life-long fascination with palms during an expedition through Brazil [map] from 1817 to 1820, and he worked nearly 30 years to prepare this grand summation, including palms found only as fossils.

hidden histories:

2009-08-01T16:29:00.001+03:00

Massacre of Bedouin in 1918 revealed
July 27, 2009

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) -- Revelations of a massacre in a Bedouin village in Palestine in 1918 has tarnished one of Australia’s greatest military victories.

A new book revealed that Australians joined New Zealand soldiers in the massacre of dozens of Bedouin shortly after the end of World War I.

The claim was corroborated in a audio recording of an Australian soldier, Ted O'Brien, found by Australian journalist Paul Daley at the Australian War Memorial.

In his book "Beersheba," Daley recounted O’Brien’s recollection of the massacre of between 40 and 200 Bedouin residents of Surafend in 1918 in what was then Palestine. He said about 200 Australian and New Zealand troops, including some from the famed Australian Light Horse Brigades, murdered the locals.

The incident, which barely rates a mention in the official record, tarnishes one of Australia’s greatest military victories -- the charge of the Light Horse Brigades at Beersheba in 1917, a near death-defying assault on the Turks that allowed the Allies to advance north to Jerusalem and Damascus.

Last year Israeli President Shimon Peres and his Australian counterpart, Michael Jeffery, opened the Park of the Australian Soldier in Beersheba commemorating Australians who fought and died in the Middle East.

The Surafend massacre was a revenge attack for the murder of a Kiwi soldier by a Bedouin on Dec. 9, 1918. No one was charged but in 1921, Australia paid compensation to the British for the destruction of the Bedouin village.

A spokesman for the Australian War Memorial told Fairfax media on Saturday: "The Anzac legend is an uplifting one but, like all legends, there are some unfortunate aspects. But this doesn't detract from acts of heroism and bravery."

Sex and North Korea (thanks M.A.)

2009-08-01T12:57:00.004+03:00

http://www.yhchang.com/CUNNILINGUS_IN_NORTH_KOREA.html

messages.

2009-08-01T12:49:00.001+03:00

"ground control to major tom..."

odd histories

2009-07-31T12:57:00.000+03:00

"Boyhood friends Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel created the Superman character in the late 1930s. They sold a 13-page story about the superhero to DC comics, which bought the story and all rights to the character for $130, which Shuster and Siegel split. The story appeared in Action Comics #1 (1938).

Superman immediately became a huge success. Issue #7 of Action Comics sold a half-million copies, and soon Action was selling a million copies a month. This irked Shuster and Siegel, but the publishers soothed their tempers by giving them the lion's share of the Superman newspaper strip syndication revenue. Thanks to this, the young men each made today's equivalent of $750,000 a year.

This went on for about seven or eight years, with the boys riding high, but then they met a sleazy lawyer, Albert "Zuggy" Zugmsith, who told them he would sue DC to get them back the rights to Superman. The trial ended in 1948, and it was a devastating loss for Shuster and Siegel. DC stopped paying them, and they were blackballed from the entire comic book industry.

Shuster had to scrape by sweeping floors and doing other odd jobs, but finally found work doing fetish illustrations for a cheaply produced sado-masochistic fetish magazine called Nights of Horror. Many of the characters in his fetish illustrations for these booklets bore a striking resemblance to Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Lex Luthor.

In 1954, the Brooklyn Thrill Killers, a gang of Jewish neo-Nazi teenagers who sported Hitler mustaches, were arrested for killing homeless men and horsewhipping girls. They told the court that they were acting out scenes from Nights of Horror. The publisher and dealer of the magazine were imprisoned, as were the members of the Brooklyn Thrill Killers. Joe Shuster was able to stay hidden from the media furor because he hadn't signed the work and no one recognized his style. Shuster went back to performing menial jobs and died poor.

This story might never had come to light if it weren't for Craig."

Cubism

2009-07-30T18:33:00.003+03:00

- Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, Picasso

Science in the region

2009-07-30T18:27:00.001+03:00

from the guardian:

The truth about Arab science

Can we look forward to a boom in Arab science or will poverty, bureaucracy and religion be insurmountable obstacles?

Khaled Diab

Hannah Clark has certainly earned, both literally and figuratively, the title of the "girl with two hearts" bestowed upon her by the media. When she was just two years old, she had the dubious distinction of becoming the first person in Britain to possess a "piggyback" heart.

For more than a decade, Hannah lived on a potent cocktail of medication designed to stop her body rejecting her second heart. But suppressing her immune system in this way made her susceptible to infections and, by the age of 12, she had developed cancer. During chemotherapy, her body began to reject the donor organ which led doctors to take the dramatic decision to remove it. Through all this, although she lost her second heart, Hannah didn't lose heart. Now, aged 16, she has fully recovered, her doctors said in a recent article in the Lancet.

This is a truly heart-warming testament to the power of modern medicine to turn tragedy into triumph. And I could not help feeling a little rush of pride that the doctor who made all this possible was an Egyptian: Magdi Yacoub, who is actually also a neighbour of sorts, as his Cairo home overlooks my family's. Dishearteningly, and almost inevitably, Yacoub, the son of a surgeon, did not find his success in Egypt but in Britain, where he built up a career as one of the world's most pioneering heart surgeons and researchers. Dubbed the "King of Hearts" by the Royal Society, this naturalised Brit did not usurp the throne but he did receive a knighthood.

And numerous other examples abound of Arab minds – such as the Nobel prize-winner Ahmed Zewail – deserting the Arab science desert and thriving elsewhere. Why is it that a region that was once the world's scientific powerhouse has now become its outhouse? In an article last year, I explored some of the reasons which included: "The dominant patronage culture in academia, the shortage of research funding, the almost complete absence of private research, the difficulty of registering and protecting intellectual property, as well as the rote-based education system."

Some experts observe that Islam's scientific heritage equips Muslims to look positively upon modern science. In fact, many Muslims believe that modern science confirms the Qur'an. "In those countries where fundamentalism has taken hold among the youth in the universities, it is striking to observe that the fundamentalist students are in a majority in the scientific institutions," says Farida Faouzia Charfi, a science professor at the University of Tunis. "[Islamists] want to govern society with ideas of the past and the technical means of modernity."

But this selective interest in science is a double-edged sword because it encourages people to disregard inconvenient scientific truths if they conflict with or contradict their faith. Attitudes aside, another important factor that is often missing from the equation is the simple question of resources. I think it's no coincidence that the start of Europe and the west's golden age and the Arab and Muslim world's gradual decline occurred at about the time when Muslims ceded their grip on global trade to Europeans who also "discovered" a resource-rich "new world" in the process.

But things are looking up, according to Nadia al-Awady, a freelance science journalist based in Cairo. Writing in Nature, she links the surge in science coverage in the Arab media with a related boom in Arab research and development activities. Since 2006, there has even been an Arab Science Journalists Association (ASJA).

"Although the science staff of media organisations in the United States and Europe face cutbacks, a survey of ASJA members in January 2009 indicated that full-time jobs for Arab science journalists have remained relatively stable over the past five years," reports al-Awady.

However, quantity does not always mean quality, as al-Awady herself freely admits. "As I sit at my desk in Cairo, it is easier for me to know what is happening in American universities halfway across the globe than to know what is happening within the walls of Egypt's National Research Centre just across the street… Another problem for science journalism stems from a more general issue. Many media platforms are government-owned and, as a result, many journalists provide uncritical coverage of government announcements."

In addition, for someone whose role is to be a chronicler of science, al-Awady holds some pretty unscientific views. Writing for Islam Online, she goes against the scientific consensus and describes homosexuality not as a natural sexual orientation but as an individual lifestyle choice or a psychological condition that can be "cured".

More tellingly and even less scientifically, she cautions her readers, in case her scientific arguments have failed to persuade them: "Islam is a way of life. It is a system of beliefs based on divine revelation… As a Muslim, one cannot choose to follow parts of Islam and disregard others."

This illustrates well how scientific truth is sacred until it contradicts the holier truth of the Qur'an. During Islam's scientific boom years, such an attitude could just about survive alongside scientific inquiry – although many of Islam's greatest scientists were sceptics, theists or agnostics.

However, in the modern world, science fact increasingly contradicts religious myth and, for the Arab world to advance, it needs not only to invest more in research, it also has to hold universal truths above religious ones.

Islamic/Arab Sci-Fi follow-up (thanks M.A.)

2009-07-30T18:22:00.002+03:00

From the guardian:

What happened to Arab science fiction?

Despite its many fantastical stories, Arab culture has produced few truly futuristic sci-fi works. Let's fill the gap

Written by Nesrine Malik

When I was a child, I was an avid fan of science fiction. The Foundation and Dune series in particular were engrossing in their depiction of a human race trying to re-establish itself after upheaval. Despite its geeky stigma, sci-fi seemed to me a genre with a philosophical belief in the tenacity of humanity and the potential of the mind. I was disappointed to find that while Arabic and Middle Eastern literature seemed replete with fantastical anthologies such as One Thousand and One Nights where mystical creatures abound, there appeared to be a dearth of truly futuristic science fiction works rooted in Arab or Muslim culture.

During Ramadan, it is customary for most Arabic TV channels to show high-budget historical dramas focusing on some revered warrior such as Khaled ibn-al-Walid (known as the Sword of God) or medieval soap operas outlining the shenanigans of those cheeky Muslim caliphs and their concubines during the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad or the Umayyad period in Andalucia. While rich in culture, history and characterisation, these works went over familiar ground and fostered an identity fixated on a charismatic past.

It is understandable that in the absence of an Arab equivalent of a Neil Armstrong or Yuri Gagarin we must look for inspiring figures from the past, but this is part of a general malaise in a culture that harks back to the Golden Age when Arabs and Muslims were in the ascendancy, commanding an empire that stretched from India to Spain. The focus is on recapturing that, and not looking forward to a new modern incarnation. Add to this a sense of fatalism and helplessness inculcated by years of social and political stagnation and you have a recipe for suspended imagination; so little has changed in the Arab world over the past few decades that one could be forgiven for thinking that nothing ever will.

Isaac Asimov once said that "true science fiction could not really exist until people understood the rationalism of science and began to use it with respect in their stories". As Khaled Diab highlighted recently in an article for Cif, there is a discernible suspicion of science in the region, particularly when it sits uncomfortably with faith. In terms of science fiction, the genre could be viewed as an extension of a "foreign" heritage with its roots in Darwinism – one at odds with a monotheist world view. Those that have managed to reconcile the two have attempted to, according to Islam Online, use science fiction as a da'wah (proselytising) tool. In one particular book the mathematical structure of the Quran and obscure religious scriptures help avert the disaster of a swelling sun, reinforcing that Islam is the "ultimate revelation".

But this deprives science fiction of its inherently subversive potential; if there is a sense of despair and censorship, what better way to counter the former and circumvent the latter than engage in flights of fancy and imagination? To vicariously revolutionise and hope via a medium of fantasy? With Arab literature so focused on classical themes, an Orwellian allegory, for instance, would tackle the present and envision a future in a more clandestine fashion than a straightforward political attack.

Sultana's Dream is an example of such critique. Written in 1905 by a Muslim feminist writer and social reformer who lived in British India, it is one of the earliest examples of feminist science fiction, and is a sort of gender-based Planet of the Apes where the roles are reversed and the men are locked away in a technologically advanced future.

An indictment of the purdah system, it was much more than simplistic utopian thinking but a philosophically mature vision of a world where, following defeat in a crushing war, men succumbed to isolation in exhaustion and disillusionment with a world dominated by brute male force. It was also an extension of the author's frustration with the limitations imposed upon her by her own society.

Another such vision is long overdue. So let's start with some forward-thinking paradigm-busting ourselves. I'll get the ball rolling:

It is the year 2084 and an impoverished Saudi Arabia has run out of oil. After a period of reversion to decentralised Bedouin tribalism, a group of women has unlocked the secret to harnessing solar power and is winning back areas of the country by negotiating for land in exchange for solar energy, running their state in hippy-like communes.

The US government attempts to strike a deal with the burgeoning female authority by offering protection and security, asking only for a pipeline of cheap energy in payment. When rejected, the US identifies embittered descendants of the Saudi ex-royal family and with their help, gives its support for a male counter-revolution in order to gain control of the new-found technology.

To be continued, below the line …

Shatner is genius.

2009-07-30T02:28:00.001+03:00

Green eggs. no ham please.

2009-07-28T15:15:00.003+03:00

10 stories behind Dr. Seuss stories - CNN

1. In case you haven't read "The Lorax," it's widely recognized as Dr. Seuss' take on environmentalism and how humans are destroying nature. Loggers were so upset about the book that some groups within the industry sponsored "The Truax," a similar book -- but from the logging point of view.

Another interesting fact: the book used to contain the line, "I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie," but 14 years after the book was published, the Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Seuss creator Theodore Geisel, and told him how much the conditions had improved and implored him to take the line out. Geisel agreed and said that it wouldn't be in future editions.

2. Somehow, Geisel's books find themselves in the middle of controversy. The line "A person's a person, no matter how small," from "Horton Hears a Who!," has been used as a slogan for anti-abortion organizations. It's often questioned whether that was Seuss' intent in the first place, but when he was still alive, he threatened to sue an anti-abortion group unless they removed his words from their letterhead.

Karl ZoBell, the attorney for Dr. Seuss' interests and for his widow, Audrey Geisel, says that she doesn't like people to "hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view."

3. "If I Ran the Zoo," published in 1950, is the first recorded instance of the word "nerd."

4. "The Cat in the Hat" was written because Dr. Seuss thought the famous Dick and Jane primers were insanely boring. Because kids weren't interested in the material, they weren't exactly compelled to use it repeatedly in their efforts to learn to read. So, "The Cat in the Hat" was born.

5. Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss' editor, bet him that he couldn't write a book using 50 words or less. "The Cat in the Hat" was pretty simple, after all, and it used 225 words. Not one to back down from a challenge, Mr. Geisel started writing and came up with "Green Eggs and Ham" -- which uses exactly 50 words.

The 50 words, by the way, are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.

6. It's often alleged that "Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!" was written specifically about Richard Nixon, but the book came out only two months after the whole Watergate scandal. It's unlikely that the book could have been conceived of, written, edited and mass produced in such a short time.

Also, Seuss never admitted that the story was originally about Nixon. That's not to say he didn't understand how well the two flowed together. In 1974, he sent a copy of Marvin K. Mooney to his friend Art Buchwald at the Washington Post. In it, he crossed out "Marvin K. Mooney" and replaced it with "Richard M. Nixon," which Buchwald reprinted in its entirety.

7. "Yertle the Turtle" = Hitler? Yep. If you haven't read the story, here's a little overview: Yertle is the king of the pond, but he wants more. He demands that other turtles stack themselves up so he can sit on top of them to survey the land. Mack, the turtle at the bottom, is exhausted. He asks Yertle for a rest; Yertle ignores him and demands more turtles for a better view.

Eventually, Yertle notices the moon and is furious that anything dare be higher than himself, and is about ready to call for more turtles when Mack burps. This sudden movement topples the whole stack, sends Yertle flying into the mud, and frees the rest of the turtles from their stacking duty.

Dr. Seuss actually said Yertle was a representation of Hitler. Despite the political nature of the book, none of that was disputed at Random House -- what was disputed was Mack's burp. No one had ever let a burp loose in a children's book before, so it was a little dicey. In the end, obviously, Mack burped. Mental Floss: The Dr. Seuss quiz

8. "The Butter Battle Book" is one I had never heard of, perhaps with good reason: it was pulled from the shelves of libraries for a while because of the reference to the Cold War and the arms race.

Yooks and Zooks are societies who do everything differently. The Yooks eat their bread with the butter-side up and the Zooks eat their bread with the butter-side down. Obviously, one of them must be wrong, so they start building weapons to outdo each other: the "Tough-Tufted Prickly Snick-Berry Switch," the "Triple-Sling Jigger," the "Jigger-Rock Snatchem," the "Kick-A-Poo Kid", the "Eight-Nozzled Elephant-Toted Boom Blitz," the "Utterly Sputter" and the "Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo."

The book concludes with each side ready to drop their ultimate bombs on each other, but the reader doesn't know how it actually turns out.

9. "Oh The Places You'll Go" is the final Seuss book published before he passed away. Published in 1990, it sells about 300,000 copies every year because so many people give it to college and high school grads.

10. No Dr. Seuss post would be complete without a mention of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" Frankenstein's Monster himself, Boris Karloff, provided the voice of the Grinch and the narration for the movie. Seuss was a little wary of casting him because he thought his voice would be too scary for kids. If you're wondering why they sound a bit different, it's because the sound people went back to the Grinch's parts and removed all of the high tones in Karloff's voice. That's why the Grinch sounds so gravelly.

Tony the Tiger, AKA Thurl Ravenscroft, is the voice behind "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." He received no credit on screen, so Dr. Seuss wrote to columnists in every major U.S. newspaper to tell them exactly who had sung the song.

Ethics of the Taliban?

2009-07-27T13:55:00.000+03:00

"The Taliban in Afghanistan has issued a book laying down a code of conduct for its fighters.

Al Jazeera has obtained a copy of the book which further indicates that Mullah Omar, the movement's leader, wants to centralize its operations.

The book, with 13 chapters and 67 articles, lays out what one of the most secretive organizations in the world today, can and cannot do.

It talks of limiting suicide attacks, avoiding civilian casualties and winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the local civilian population.

James Bays, our correspondent in Afghanistan, said every fighter is being issued the pocket book entitled "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Rules for Mujahideen".

Our correspondent said the book sheds considerable light on the structure, organisation and aims of the group.

In it, Mullah Omar is quoted as saying that creating a new mujahideen group or battalion is forbidden.

"If unofficial groups or irregular battalions refuse to join the formal structure, they should be disbanded," says Omar.

So far, individual Taliban commanders have had a fair degree of autonomy, often deciding what operations to conduct and how to run the territory that they control.

Our correspondent said the regulations seem to be an attempt by Mullah Omar to bring all of the Taliban under his control.

"We have in the past had a lot of different groups in Afghanistan operating under the umbrella of the Taliban," Bays said.

"But it says in these regulations that if you find an irregular battalion that is not obeying orders then what you have to do is find that battalion and then disarm them."

Suicide bombing rules

While the Taliban have repeatedly used suicide bombings across Afghanistan, the book now says that they should be used only on high and important targets.

"A brave son of Islam should not be used for lower and useless targets. The utmost effort should be made to avoid civilian casualties," the book says.

There are now clear guidelines on how the Taliban will treat its prisoners as well.

"Whenever any official, soldier, contractor or worker of the slave government is captured, these prisoners cannot be attacked or harmed," it says.

"The decision on whether to seek a prisoner exchange or to release the prisoner with strong guarantees will be made by the provincial leader.

"Releasing prisoners in exchange for money is strictly prohibited."

The book further states that if a "military infidel" is captured, the decision on whether to kill, release or exchange the hostage is only to be made by the Imam, a reference to Mullah Omar, or deputy Imam.

Winning hearts

The book makes it clear that it is the duty of every fighter to win over the local population.

"The mujahideen have to behave well and show proper treatment to the nation, in order to bring the hearts of civilian Muslims closer to them.

"The mujahideen must avoid discrimination based on tribal roots, language or geographic background."

Our correspondent said the reference to winning over the hearts of the Afghan people is very similar to language used by Nato-led military forces in the country.

"Recently the Nato commander here issued a new tactical directive saying that civilians should not be bombed - almost the same words in these regulations to Taliban fighters," Bays said.

"Both sides [are] trying to win over the civilian population in their area."

The release of the rule book comes less than a month before Afghans head to the polls for a presidential election, which the Taliban has deemed an illegitimate system imposed by foreigners. - Aljazeera"

moving time.

2009-07-27T03:44:00.003+03:00

people have been saying this alot.

"my! time is going faster isnt it"
"wow time flies these days"

there is a scientific theory that at the end of time, the final movement, is a blackhole...a massive blackhole, the mother of all blackholes.
and blackholes, if you know your science, is the unescapable.

light, gravity are absent in a blackhole. this means that they are nullified, and as you get closer to a blackhole, the faster light and gravity is effect.

and dont forget, with light and especially gravity effected...well...time becomes effected too. time gets faster and faster. the strong gravity is, which it is stronger around the blackhole...the faster time is wrapped and moves...

so could this mean that we are approaching the blackhole

then again people thought the world on top of a turtle flowing freely in space or some quirky thought life that.

does it matter in the end?

Manichaeism of the 21st century

2009-07-27T03:08:00.003+03:00

Yes, ladies and gentlemen.

As you sit there, dressed in your fabulously crafted garments made in some pathetic sweat shop somewhere in the world where they are sometimes beaten or paid a fraction of a fraction of the monetary value of the toilet paper that you wipe your ass with, perhaps sipping on some kind of beverage that will eventually kill you (water included) you have already lost to "them".

"They", the ones that run this place, have already defined what the boundaries of reality will be, and have successfully cut out any other paradigms of reality by character assassination, or simply calling those who hold different views as mad.
While they get to define the parameters of normality and acceptable behaviour, and don't really force you to conform - that is too old school- in fact, they have educated you so well that you want to conform, you would love to conform.

love after all is more powerful than fear, and that is the new form of control now days. you love the boot that holds your head in the murky waters of the toilet that has recently been used. you love the way the soles of the boot feel as the pressure increases on the back of your head. you love the colour of the boot. and the only thing you love as much as the boot is the leg which extends from the boot. that pale, dark, hairy and smooth leg. you adore the muscles that flex from the immense power it takes to hold your head down, and you gleefully accept it all as shit fills your lungs.

and the funny thing is that if you follow that leg to its origins, the dawning horror of realization will be is that its your fucking leg. and "they", well..."they" are sitting there a few feet from you, on an elegant chair, a magnificent table, covered with lush cuisine that could feed a world, and fine fine tea, with a wicked smile and bitter sweet patronizing words of encouragement.

oh i'm right there with you, head in shit and piss as well. because the life trap's got me too.

the whole routine of life, sleep, eat, shit, work, play, repeat.
its called sleep walking, because thats what most of us are doing really. sleep walking through the fog that is life.

what is the purpose of life?
what is the idea of living? is it the amount of information you can shit out at will to impress the next guy? the amount of money you have? does that mean if i'm rich enough to pay someone to shit out info for me, am i done?

or is it the joy of prayer, where i go to God, the beg for mercy when times are tough and ignore it all when times are capable.

oh yes. "they" have got us alright.
just read the papers, listen to the pod casts, and watch it on the tube.

but see...since "they" got us, this is what we should do.

we should set fire to their insides, like the archetypical tale of the hero in the whale, make it cost them because nothing matters to "them" then what it "costs" in the end, not love, nor justice, nor valour, or mercy.
currency is their language, and the loss of currency is what they understand.
even the idiotic middle class, which i am a part of us, that buffer between the haves and haves not, boy are we in for it when shit slams the fucking fan. and we deserve it too, for looking to copy the rich, and smite the poor, the raped, or the leper.

might as well, you(we)'ve already swallowed a lot of shit.
and apparently the meek shall inherent the earth. (God, i just hope thats not sarcasm and you meant the cockroaches will get the best of us in the future.)

reading the news, its just becoming so frustrating to see how obvious the powers that be are acting, the obnoxiousness, the lies, and the sheer vulgarity of how they get away with literal murder in front of us, and cash it all in...right in fucking front of us. and this is not some dumb conspiracy theory (God thats even more retarded when someone drops that phrase in a conversation) its historical, its theoretical, and its practically to know that the world is divided, webbed, compacted between those who are in it and the the rest who aren't - with slight movements within and between the two.

this is Manichaeism of the 21st century - light and darkness. power and non-power, haves and haves not, fucked and fuckee.

its the grand game, chess in 4d. Ask yourself are you gonna be pwned? or would you rather be the one making the move?

me, i'm gonna go back into my cave, and ponder some more.
action gives me gas.

and the chinese gradually move in...

2009-07-25T15:12:00.000+03:00

China launches Arabic TV channel
The Middle East is served by a large number of
Arabic TV channels [GALLO/GETTY]

China has launched a 24-hour Arabic-language television channel aimed at addressing "distorted" views of China in the Middle East and North Africa.

The satellite channel, launched on Saturday, is expected to reach about 300 million people in 22 countries.

China Central Television (CCTV) already broadcasts foreign language channels in English, Spanish and French.

Zhang Changming, deputy president of CCTV, said that through the Arabic channel "the world can know China and China can know the rest of the world even better".

"Our principle is to be real, to be objective, to be accurate and transparent. CCTV will present the world with the real China," he said at the launch.

The channel will mainly broadcast news, but Zhang promised it would also feature entertainment and educational programmes.

'Good journalism'

Ying Chan, the director of Hong Kong University's journalism and media studies centre, told Al Jazeera that China saw the channel as a way to counter "unfair" portrayls of China in the international media.

"There's no question that the Middle East is a very strategic area and China wants its voice heard there," she said.

"They want to announce their policies more to the world, and they also felt that the international media, led by the Western media, has not been fair to China."

China exerts a great deal of control over its media and often censors the reporting of sensitive topics.

"It [CCTV] will face challenges in how much it will allow its own reporters to report news as it is, as it happened," Ying said.

"I think CCTV, in order to gain influence, has to deliver good journalism."

Investment plans

CCTV has also said it plans to open more foreign bureaus.

The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper reported that Beijing was prepared to put 45 billion yuan ($6.6bn) into the development of its media, an amount which could not be confirmed by Chinese sources.

China's Arabic language channel joins other foreign government media networks broadcasting in Arabic.

The UK's BBC launched its Arabic channel last year and the US set up al-Hurra, an Arabic-language channel based in Virginia, in 2004.

- English Aljazeera

Oppression had never been so sexy

2009-07-23T14:36:00.002+03:00

http://www.serialno3817131.com/

photo shoot of IDF women.

a friend of mine noted that he thinks that they are beautiful Israeli IDF women, as a mechanism of sexual gratification for the males in the army.

i just think they are there to annoy the hell out of us.
with their beauty and their obnoxious oppressive style, beyond physical they still are worthless unethical idiots.

?!?

2009-07-23T02:36:00.002+03:00

are we all trying to unify?

the theory of unification of the imagination as a precedent of unifying of real situation.

where do we cross the line between whats real out here and whats real in here?

what the fuck does real mean?

and how do you define time?

?!

2009-07-23T02:26:00.004+03:00

death is but another phase of life.

things never really end, as it were.

i'm formulating my metaphysical beliefs, i do acknowledge various ideas on theologies, and i do hold beliefs that cut across religious lines.

i do think that there is a purpose for things. i'm not one of those absolute fatalists, or those that view absolutely (and thats the key term here) that we are just it and this is just it and your fucked or you fuck, thats the law of the land.

sure, thats how things are played out at the moment (or for a while, since we decided to be who we are - humans).

but i think of that spark, you see. that reason behind the reason, there is this material world, with its material pursuits which are lovely and insane from wealth, to substances, to material power, basically all of this around us.
but i choose to believe in a meta-physical realm, it is an active choice...and i do get the sense that there is more to this all.

how did the spark of intelligence begin? what is imagination? why are some more intelligent than others...what is that spark and where did it come from?

who are we?
and why does it all make non-nonsense?
and how do we all win?

pacman - a different interpretation

2009-07-23T01:56:00.000+03:00

inertia

2009-07-23T01:29:00.002+03:00

excuse me but i can be paranoiac at times, and thats when things are good.
at the worst of times i can be paranoiac constantly to the point where i just wear myself down.

paranoia is not fun in general, it does keep you on your toes, but in general it's not the fun.

thinking about it, where did this paranoia comes from, substance abuse aside, and i do know how it arose. it was a social thing. see, i've got a few things going against me socially speaking that are pseudo-obstacles to the way i act and perceive life.

whilst younger, i would constant be moving around, as in geographically speaking, i would live from country to country, thereby missing out on creating really social bonds with the people around me...not that i don't create social bonds (that would be utterly tragic and terrible) but the bonds i create are few and flimsy compared to those around me who experience events together that i missed out of.

FOMO - feeling of missing out.

is a constant theme i personally struggle with...and believe me if it was something minuscule like a card game or something magnified like an accident or major event, i'm the one that seems to miss out by coming too late or too early (no sexual pun here.)

additionally, by constantly moving, there is a personal barrier of meeting people and connecting because of this underlying sense (read here: fear) of losing that connection, which many have been lost by the waves of time and space.

it's funny using the term lost, but it seems to fit here nicely. i lose people. or i feel that i do lose people. terrifying.
because ironically, when i was younger (and till now) the biggest fear i have is of being alone. and what is ironic is that sense of it being a self-fulfilled prophecy acting out by itself like clockwork.

plus i can be socially retarded, where i seemingly insult people without intending to and just stumble into silly shit. i have no idea how but it comes across that way in the most dumbest of possible ways- like that theorem whose name slips my mind momentarily- lets call it the Shitty Luck Dilemma.

so my paranoia nurtures off these factors, among others: being Arab in its own right creates paranoia (because everyone is out to get you even your own blood, reading a lot which leads to over-thinking (because when you read, you realize that they are really watching you), and being cautious which causes more difficult or self-doubt and double/triple questioning that twirls the situation.

plus i come from a long line of paranoid family members, except my father who is like that sturdy ocean liner in a tumbling and vengeful sea, he seems like the coolest cat. too cool in fact.

anyways, i felt that i should write something because i wanted to write something personal and i promised myself i would have more time to be, because i've been constantly surrounded by people (which adds to the factor of paranoia, because paranoia is always about other people) at home, at work, or with friends.
so these few moments of real me time is important to reflect, unwind, digest, and produce.

i hate people...but i can't help falling in love with them at the same time. those fuckers.

aw shit, i'm being too personal again
excuse me.

reply to the below post

2009-07-22T17:42:00.000+03:00

The row over a controversial advert for an Israeli mobile phone operator, which shows Israel Defense Forces soldiers playing soccer with Palestinians on both sides of the security barrier, continues.

In the Cellcom advert, IDF soldiers on patrol along the fence stop their jeep when it is hit by a soccer ball from the Palestinian side of the fence. The ball soon bounces back to the Israeli side, at which point the soldiers decide to hold an impromptu game with the Palestinians, cheered on by female soldiers.

The advert has been extensively criticized for making light of the Palestinian suffering inflicted by the West Bank barrier.

A video recently posted on YouTube has tried to reenact the game in reality, and found that the result could not be further removed from the situation on the ground: when the Palestinians kick the ball to the other side of the fence, what they get in return is a salvo of tear gas grenades. - Haaretz

no comment.

2009-07-22T17:20:00.001+03:00

a typical "hero"of israel

2009-07-22T13:04:00.000+03:00

"Since the early 1960s Simon Wiesenthal’s name has become synonymous with Nazi hunting. His standing is that of a secular saint. Nominated four times for the Nobel peace prize, the recipient of a British honorary knighthood, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the French Légion d’honneur and at least 53 other distinctions, he was often credited with some 1,100 Nazi “scalps”. He is remembered, above all, for his efforts to track down Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious war criminals.

His reputation is built on sand, however. He was a liar — and a bad one at that. From the end of the second world war to the end of his life in 2005, he would lie repeatedly about his supposed hunt for Eichmann as well as his other Nazi-hunting exploits. He would also concoct outrageous stories about his war years and make false claims about his academic career. There are so many inconsistencies between his three main memoirs and between those memoirs and contemporaneous documents, that it is impossible to establish a reliable narrative from them. Wiesenthal’s scant regard for the truth makes it possible to doubt everything he ever wrote or said."

Strange Bedfellows

2009-07-21T17:54:00.000+03:00

Kuwaiti Amb. Salem Al- Sabah, Angelina Jolie, Colin Powell and Rima Al-Sabah

NAM: Analysis

2009-07-21T14:29:00.000+03:00

"Once again, heads of state and senior officials from various developing countries around the world are converging for another Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit. This time the location is Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and representatives from over 118 countries as well as the Secretary General of UN Ban Ki-Moon are present. Like all summits held in the past twenty plus years, the same questions remain on the table: Is NAM still relevant? What role can NAM play in today's world? How can NAM solve its internal contradictions? The fact that most NAM summits nowadays are dominated by the existential question of whether or not NAM still has any role is the biggest proof of its irrelevance to struggles within the global South. Aside from Raul Castro it is difficult to find one head of state in the summit who is not quite aligned, starting with the host. In fact there are several glaring ironies in today's summit that help illuminate the sad state of NAM and the need for an alternative."

History of the US-USSR Hotline

2009-07-21T14:20:00.000+03:00

"The hotline became operative August 30, 1963. Because the link was not in constant use it had to be tested each day. This called for creative dialogue between two archenemies. Poems and stories of all sorts were exchanged. Sometimes baseball game scores from the American side or excerpts from Ivan Turgenev's "Notes of a Hunter" on the Soviet side were transmitted. However, some of the exchanges caused puzzlement on the Soviet end. One day, Andrei Gromyko asked Dean Rusk 'What does it mean when your people say, "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog?"

In the beginning, no official substantive messages were passed over its wires, but it reportedly was used the day of President Kennedy's assassination. It remained in state of readiness, as President Kennedy said when inaugurating it, "to help reduce the risk of war occurring by accident or miscalculation." The keying tapes that help prevent a fake message and assure the privacy of delicate negotiations were provided by NSA's Office of Communications Security.

All messages from the U.S. to Russia are transmitted in English, using the Latin alphabet while all messages from Moscow to Washington are transmitted in Russian, using Cyrillic characters. The translation is always done at the opposite end, to preserve the nuance of the message.

The Kremlin first used the Hotline in 1967 during the six-day Arab-Israeli war to prevent possible misunderstanding between the naval groups of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and the US 6th Fleet, which approached each other dangerously closely in the Mediterranean. "

fun fact of the day:

2009-07-20T17:08:00.001+03:00

The Secretary General of Arab Foreign Ministers Council, Dr. Mohammed Bin Ali Kuman stated, a few days ago, that 26 thousand people have been killed and 250 thousand injured in car accidents in Arab World annually, in addition to material damages of 60 billion US dollars while car accidents around the world cause the death of two million people and the injury of 50 millions and material damages of US $ 800 billion according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

He pointed out that 56,660 car accidents took place in Kuwait in 2008 causing the death of 410 people in addition to thousands of serious injuries. He went on to say that traffic accidents cost 2.5% of the national income of Gulf States and badly affect labor market as most of the victims are in their around their twenties.

safe driving out there...bwahhahahahah.

hahahahahahahah....

2009-07-20T15:59:00.001+03:00

you know zionism is really off its knocker when you ready hilarious propaganda pieces like these.

oy voy, indeed.

this is "simply the best" to quote a song...are they really that derange...well...yeah...hahahahahhahahaha oh God...i can't breath, this is so sweet. i love this piece. this is brilliant.

from the Haaretz:

Vatican teaching Hezbollah how to kill Jews, says pamphlet for IDF troops
By Ofri Ilani

The Pope and the cardinals of the Vatican help organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to wipe out Jews, according to a booklet being distributed to Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

Officials encouraging the booklet's distribution include senior officers, such as Lt. Col. Tamir Shalom, the commander of the Nahshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade.

The booklet was published by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, in cooperation with the chief rabbi of Safed, Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, and has been distributed for the past few months.

The booklet, titled "On Either Side of the Border," purports to be the testimony of "a Hezbollah officer who spied for Israel."

"The book is distributed regularly and everyone reads it and believes it," said one soldier. "It's filled with made-up details but is presented as a true story. A whole company of soldiers, adults, told me: 'Read this and you'll understand who the Arabs are.'"

The copy obtained by Haaretz included a Pesach greeting from Shalom, "in the name of the Nahshon Brigade."

The story is narrated by a man named Avi, who says he changed his name from Ibrahim after he left Hezbollah and converted to Judaism. Avi says he was once close to Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and describes Hezbollah's purported close relationships with the Vatican and European leaders.

The IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement: "The book was received as a donation and distributed in good faith to the soldiers. After we were alerted to the sensitivity of its content, distribution was immediately halted."

According to the book, Nasrallah was invited to join a delegation to tour France, Poland and Italy, including the Vatican. Nasrallah could not refuse an invitation from the Vatican, Avi explained: "We knew [the Pope] identified with Hezbollah's struggle."

The book describes the alleged visit of Hezbollah officials to Auschwitz, led by the Vatican: "We came to the camps. We saw the trains, the platforms, the piles of eyeglasses and clothes ... We came to learn ... Our escort spoke as he was taught. We quickly explained to him: Every real Arab, deep inside, is kind of a fan of the Nazis."

The booklet also describes how European politicians and journalists ostensibly work against Israel.

"Our escort introduced us to important figures who identify with our causes. Rich people, people with authority ... They allocate big budgets to all sorts of Israeli organizations that erode the standing of the IDF ... We have a special budget for encouraging politicians and journalists who serve our purposes. Every opinion piece that conforms to our position is rewarded generously."

Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, the son of former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliahu, is known for his extremist views, and was once charged with incitement to racism after calling for the expulsion of all Arab students from Safed College after a terror attack in the area.

The younger Eliahu was also behind an online video in which he described the "miracle of our matriarch Rachel," whom he claims appeared before Israeli soldiers in Gaza to warn them of booby-trapped buildings during Operation Cast Lead.

"In some of the places we went in Gaza there was a woman who warned them ... 'Did they tell you who I am,' she said, 'I am the matriarch Rachel," Eliahu says in the video. He claims his father confirmed the veracity of the story, and told him that he had prayed to Rachel: "I told her: Rachel, there's a war... Go to God, Blessed Be He, pray over the soldiers who sacrifice themselves for the People of Israel, so that they will strike and not be struck."

David Menahemov, an aide to Eliahu, claims the book is not fiction. "Avi is a real person and everything in the book is absolutely true," insists Menahemov. "It's a totally true story, I know the guy personally. He's an Arab, who even though he converted still acts like an Arab. We helped him to write and to translate it. We changed a few details to protect him and his family."

you have to admire their ambition

2009-07-20T14:44:00.000+03:00

U.A.E. police arrest 5 over $42 billion bank theft attempt

DUBAI: Dubai Police have arrested five suspects in the United Arab Emirates who tried to withdraw 154 billion dirhams (41.93 billion U.S. dollars) from the country's central bank using forged documents, the State news agency said on Sunday.
Two separate attempts to steal the money were made within a period of 39 days, said Brigadier Maktoum Al-Sharifi, Director of the Criminal Investigation Department in Abu Dhabi, the leading emirate of the U.A.E. Federation, WAM reported.
The report did not specify the nationalities of the men.
Dubai, one of the seven emirates and the Gulf's trade and tourism hub, launched an anti-corruption campaign last year, arresting some business and political figures.
The U.A.E. one of the world's top oil exporters has been hit by the global financial downturn. But Abu Dhabi, where most of the country's oil is located, has fared far better than Dubai, where the once booming property sector has slowed sharply. –Reuters

Ralph Neise

2009-07-20T14:22:00.003+03:00

bringing in the guns

2009-07-19T14:07:00.001+03:00

From the BBC:

Professional snipers have been brought in to guard a vulnerable colony of penguins in Australia.

The deployment follows the mysterious deaths of nine of the flightless birds over the last two weeks.

The mutilated bodies of the animals, known as fairy penguins, were found in a national park near Sydney harbour.

The main suspects are dogs and foxes. At 40cm tall, the world's smallest penguin species is clearly no match for such aggressive enemies.

To even up the fight, two snipers have been deployed as bodyguards.

They have started night patrols and have instructions to do what it takes to protect these tiny creatures.

They have joined a legion of volunteers, who have also been guarding the birds during the hours of darkness when they are most vulnerable to attack.

Traps have been also been set in a concerted attempt to catch Sydney's penguin killers.

International Relations/Politics and Rap

2009-07-18T14:44:00.002+03:00

Three perspectives:

Jay-Z vs the Game: Lessons for the American Primacy Debate

"Late last week, the Los Angeles rapper the Game launched a blistering attack against the legendary New York blogger rapper :>) Jay-Z. At a series of European shows, the Game led crowds in cheers of "F*** Jay-Z" and "Old Ass N*****", and at one point went into an obsenity laced (but rather wickedly funny) rampage against Jay-Z's fiance' (wife?) Beyonce. Over the weekend, he released "I'm So Wavy [Too Hardcore to be a Jay-Z]" an inconsistent but catchy attack on Jay-Z (note: all links are to songs which are almost certainly NSFW and which you might find offensive; you've been warned). When I started feeding this stuff to my friend Spencer Ackerman last week, his first take was that "the countdown to the end of the Game's career starts today." Mine, me being a professor of international relations, was to start thinking about how this could be turned into a story about the nature of hegemony and the debate over the exercise of American power. (That, and how I could waste time that I should be spending on real work.)

See, Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) is the closest thing to a hegemon which the rap world has known for a long time. He's #1 on the Forbes list of the top earning rappers. He has an unimpeachable reputation, both artistic and commercial, and has produced some of the all-time best (and best-selling) hip hop albums including standouts Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint and the Black Album. He spent several successful years as the CEO of Def Jam Records before buying out his contract a few months ago to release his new album on his own label. And he's got Beyonce. Nobody, but nobody, in the hip hop world has his combination of hard power and soft power. If there be hegemony, then this is it. Heck, when he tried to retire after the Black Album, he found himself dragged back into the game (shades of America's inward turn during the Clinton years?).

But the limits on his ability to use this power recalls the debates about U.S. primacy. Should he use this power to its fullest extent, as neo-conservatives would advise, imposing his will to reshape the world, forcing others to adapt to his values and leadership? Or should he fear a backlash against the unilateral use of power, as realists such as my colleague Steve Walt or liberals such as John Ikenberry would warn, and instead exercise self-restraint?

The changes in Jay-Z's approach over the years suggest that he recognizes the realist and liberal logic... but is sorely tempted by the neo-conservative impulse. Back when he was younger, Jay-Z was a merciless, ruthless killer in the "beefs" which define hip hop politics. He never would have gotten to the top without that. But since then he's changed his style and has instead largely chosen to stand above the fray. As Jay-Z got older and more powerful, the marginal benefits of such battles declined and the costs increased even as the number of would-be rivals escalated. Just as the U.S. attracts resentment and rhetorical anti-Americanism simply by virtue of being on top, so did Jay-Z attract a disproportionate number of attackers. "I got beefs with like a hundred children" he bragged/complained on one track. "

other theorists reflect on the topic: Debating Jay-Z's Hegemony

and the prequel of the whole topic: The Prequel, Jay-Z vs. The Game
"Marc Lynch has unleashed a blog phenomenon with a foreign policy exegesis of the Game's challenge to rap "hegemon" Jay-Z. The original post is here, and Lynch followed up with a roundup of replies here.

The question facing Jay-Z of whether and how to respond to the attack, according to Lynch, illustrates the dilemma before any hegemonic power in the face of a weaker, but potentially threatening, upstart.

Lynch uses Jay-Z's now-reconciled feud with Nas as an example of the unintended and unexpected consequences of escalation. But my immediate thought on reading the piece was to an incident from the early 90s that illustrates even more clearly the dangers of retaliation, even when the balance of forces is overwhelmingly in the great power's favor. I'm thinking of KRS-One's legendary bumrush of a PM Dawn set at the Sound Factory.

For context, at the time, KRS represented, if not hegemony, then a sort of untouchable authority that came from the "global commons" normative rule set he forcefully articulated, combined with rock-solid street cred. KRS had made a name for himself with the ultimate battle rap, South Bronx, and his first record was filled with slice-of-life vignettes from BDP's very real origins as a street-level, warzone militia. But in the aftermath of the shooting death of DJ Scott LaRock, KRS quickly pivoted from his South Bronx realist roots to espouse idealist values of non-violence and humanism.

Now, even after the shift, KRS continued to enjoy enormous respect for being a bad boy who could break necks but chose not to. In other words, there was a very clear recognition that his respect for the global governance system he advocated for was a matter of self-restraint. But there was also a certain tension to the newfound "teacher" status. The problem quickly became, to paraphrase Madeleine Albright's remark to Colin Powell, What good was BDP's rep for breaking necks if they could never use it?

As this brilliantly entertaining Kenny Parker interview demonstrates, the actual PM Dawn incident was the culmination of a series of real and perceived slights from rappers other than PM Dawn, disses that KRS had chosen to ignore. But when, following this period of self-restraint, even PM Dawn had the temerity to test, it really left KRS with no choice but to respond. The entire interview is worth a read, because it exemplifies the risk of escalation inherent in even the most initially limited response. The incident also demonstrates the wildcard element introduced by unpredictable coalition partners -- anyone familiar with BDP, by the way, won't have any trouble figuring out who started throwing knots -- and the uncontrollable factor represented by the media battlefield, which can impact the strategic outcome of the war as much if not more than the actual fighting.

For KRS, the incident had a decidedly mixed outcome. It certainly restored the credibility of his deterrent power by reminding folks that rap has real-world consequences. But by very flagrantly and visibly flouting the non-violent rule set with which he had become associated, KRS damaged the legitimacy of his preferred role of hip hop philosopher."

Banksy in Africa

2009-07-16T16:46:00.006+03:00

Japanese Rice Field Art

2009-07-16T16:41:00.003+03:00