Harpers has a list of books written by Dictators for wonderful last minute gift ideas. Topping off the list is North Korea’s own Kim Jung Ill with his 1973 book “On the Art of Cinema“. Second up is Muammar Qadaffi’s Green Book which I could not find on Amazon but is available in its entirety online. My favorite however is Saddam Hussein’s riveting allegorical love story between a princess and a king (Don’t believe me? It was turned into a musical by the Iraqi National Theatre). Called “Zabiba and the King“, the American edition of the book includes a classy mugshot of the author himself on the cover. Hope this has inspired you, have a Merry Christmas
Technorati Tags: books, dictator, iraq, northkorea
As a rule of thumb, I believe all world leaders and self-described freedom fighters need to be versed in Enlightenment philosophy. That way they will hopefully understand the concept of a social contract and take it to heart. With this idea in mind, groups such as Hamas (who promised to rule Palestine but have failed horribly) would not say such silly things as, “We will not give up our Jihadist movement until the full liberation of Beit al-Muqqadas [Jerusalem]” (BBC).
See, the thing about Israel is that most of the people are perfectly happy being governed by their current state. Who wouldn’t be? They’ve got a stable economy, the financial and political support of the world’s largest superpower, and nuclear weapons. As an added bonus, they get all of this on the land that was originally given to them by god.
Who then, is to be liberated in a situation like this? The people living in Israel seem content save for the fact that a lot of people around them that are trying to kill them. I don’t think you could count much as a liberation.
And, if Hamas does reach their goal of liberating Jerusalem, who would live there? Or, even better, what would happen to all of the people that live their now and everything they’ve built? (These are not rhetorical questions) Not to say I support Israel in much but the Palestinians need to set realistic and peaceful goals if the global community is ever going to take them seriously.
Technorati Tags: palestine, israel
According to a BBC Article, Scientists have figured out what is behind eye color on a genetic level. It turns out that there is no eye color “gene” but rather, eye color is strongly influenced by “single nucleotide polymorphisms” (SNPs), which are small mutations in a DNA squence. The SNPs’ slight variations can influence color of an eye but are not the determining factor.
Technorati Tags: genetics, science
If you don’t read RSS and have visited my site in the last couple hours, you might notice the design has changed a bunch. This is because I am trying out new designs. Sort of something to motivate me to blog more. Any suggestions?
On reddit today is a link to the Google search of beer whose title is wondering why there are no ads that appear on it. Wondering why this was, I looked up Google Adwords’ Editorial Guidelines which state:
As a business, Google must make decisions about where we draw the line in regards to the advertising we accept. We, therefore, may not accept ads or keywords containing or relating to certain products or services.
Beer would be one of these, apparently. Also on the list are alcohol, guns and tobacco (as well as any products relating to these). Interestingly enough, the term weapons does have ads.
Technorati Tags: google, reddit
About a month and a half ago, the hot water hose in my kitchen sink burst and hot water flooded the bottom story of my house. Luckily, my older brother was home and he saved the day by turning it off and drying up the standing water. Nothing was damaged, except for our free floating wood floors. Water had gotten under 80% of it and so it needed to be replaced.
Three weeks later, we finally got our floors replaced, the walls repainted, and the baseboards put in. We spent the next few weeks trying to move everything that was moved out of the downstairs back in and finally returned to “living normal”. One day, a few weeks ago, I was looking at the bookshelf we have downstairs and saw a book in it labeled “Bathroom Guestbook”.
Thumbing through the pages, I found out that my family had originally started this guestbook in 1986, after somebody had given it to them as a wedding gift. There were entries from my uncles while they were still in school, my aunt (and her husband before they were married) and my dad’s best friend from high school. There were people that came over once a year and they would always write in the book.
The funny thing about the book is that it has little check boxes for what you used the restroom for and relieving yourself is not one of them. People would joke in the book that they came into the bathroom to shave or take a shower but I seriously doubt anybody actually did that (we didn’t have a shower in that bathroom).
Anyways, after I was done looking through it, I realized what had to be done– the bathroom guestbook had to be reinstated. There would be no place, I thought, better than our freshly remodeled downstairs bathroom. I got the okay from my mother and retrieved a pen and now the 20 year old “Bathroom Guestbook” has now been returned to it’s rightful place on the throne.
Cross posted to Newsvine.
The other day, I entered a discussion with my math teacher (who happens to have a philosophy degree) on the subject of global warming. It is his position that global warming has been blown out of proportion and is not extremely different than the climate changes that have happened throughout the world’s history. What is going on right now is, in fact, smaller than what has happened before. I saw what he was doing, he even explained it. He was trying to get us to research a topic and come to our own conclusions.
My evangelical friends, however, took it a different way. I have recently branched off of the average Creation debates I have with these friends and have ventured into the touchy subject of global warming or, so the Christianists have redubbed it, climate change. A few weeks ago I asked a one friend whether he believed global warming was happening or not and he replied that he didn’t because “God wouldn’t allow that to happen to the earth before Jesus comes” (That might not be exaclty right but that is what I got out of it). Global Warming and the return of Jesus is a topic for another time but my position now is: “Why does it matter?”
Regardless of whether global warming is happening or not, we should be taking measures to cut down our contribution to the degredation of this planet and its precious resources. Like it or not, we are stuck here for at least the next couple decades, why not make the world a more livable place while we’re here? American’s are too stubborn and large corporations enjoy profits too much. This is the way it was with sweatshops in the late 1990s, until somebody protested the mistreatment of workers. More recently, those who protested the treatment of the environment are labelled as hippies or tree-huggers. Luckily however, green has started to become cool. Corporations are realizing that environmentalists are a lucrative market and major grocery stores have started providing more organic foods.
This is just a small step in the right direction but small steps lead to big changes in the long run. The United States has a tendency to let problems just grow and grow until one day everything explodes in their face but this will not be so with global warming. If the earth is indeed getting warmer, then the signs will be more subtle and, by the time we realize what is happening, it will most likely be too late.
