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June 30, 2005

Yay Spain!

Spain legalises same-sex marriage!

Gay Spain / Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

In the space of two days both Canada and Spain have joined the Netherlands and Belgium to demonstrate what a truly just and open society does for its citizens.

June 29, 2005

Just Desserts Café or: Eat The Rich, Part Three

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Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land. [ ... ] The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

Courtesy of Freestar Media

June 28, 2005

Yay Canada!

Several Views, One People

Whether you're in favor of the disengagement or against it, there's no reason for folks to cross boundaries into the vicious areas where their rhetoric and behavior tend to roam. Regardless of whether we agree on the subject of biblical claims to Eretz Yisrael, the value of settlements, the security risk posed by the withdrawl, or any other issue pertaining to the disengagement, we are still one people.

Courtesy of Jewschool
Love Your Brother as Yourself / Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Love your brother as yourself

June 25, 2005

Very Funny

God of Lego / Image Hosted by ImageShack.usCourtesy of the creator of a the hilariously enlightening Lego Bible (via Asshole Roommate):
A new H-Net/Fritz media poll reveals that 96% of Americans who believe in God also believe that God has a beard. Of those people, 89% believe that God's beard is white, 2% believe God grew his beard (and therefore at some time did not have a beard), while 94% believe that God has always had a beard and has never been clean-shaven. 10% of Americans do not believe in God.

Very Cool

Kutubu Oil Fields / Image Hosted by ImageShack.usAfter describing how Chevron has gone out of its way to ensure the minimum environmental impact possible in the Kutubu Oil Fields of New Guinea by stringent regulation and partnership with environmental agencies and local government, Jared Diamond, in the book Collapse discovers another side effect of this environmental consideration:Kutubu Oil Fields / Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
... I discovered to my astonishment that these species are much more numerous inside the Chevron area than anywhere else that I have visited on the island of New Guinea except for a few uninhabited areas. The only place I have seen tree kangaroos in the wild in Papua New Guinea, in my 40 years there, is within a few miles of the Chevron camps; elsewhere, they are the first mammal to become shot by hunters, and those few surviving learn to be active onlt at night, but I saw them active during the day in the Kutubu area ... That's because there is an absolute prohibition against Chevron employees and contractors hunting any animal or fishing by any means in the project area, and because the forest is [still] intact.

I never would have thought of an old field as a nature preserve.

Very Pretty

Yann Perreau / Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Quebec singer, Yann Perreau

June 24, 2005

Very Pretty

Bikram Saluja / Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Model-turned-Bollywood star, Bikram Saluja

In the Year 2056

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MECCA - The 14 democratic member nations of the Middle Eastern Union unanimously voted to declare war on the U.S. Monday, calling the North American country a "dangerous rogue state that must be contained."
Courtesy of The Onion, June 22, 2056 edition

Eat the Rich, Part Deux

Big Baby / Image Hosted by ImageShack.usOprah Winfrey gets all in a huff because she’s not allowed to crash a private function at a perfume store after hours so she can shop. Apparently, it's race-related and has nothing to do with the fact that she's a spoilt, self-satisfied baby.

Hermes said a private PR event was being prepared so it was unable to accommodate the star at the time. [...] Her position is "I will shop where people appreciate my business, and I don't believe that any longer includes Hermes."
Courtesy of the BBC

All Philosophicalistical and Totally Deep

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usHere is an update of the kind of things I used to write in my notebooks as a bored teenager, pretending to listen to the teacher. I was, like, all counter-culture n'stuff and I wore black and my bangs, like, covered half my face. I'm very pleased to see I still have it in me:

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My office is a wasteland of broken promises to myself and listless dreams that will never fly. The blank, sterile walls render me bereft of imagination, shorn of creativity. Oh how I loathe and abhor Friday morning, cruel mistress of torture and affliction. Pity me as I sink into a mire of pixelated, networked oblivion. I am swallowed alive by rampaging file-o-faxes and excreted out by empty toner cartridges. I swoon on my rolling chair and lapse into delusions of nothingness.

If I were one of those irritating people who had music on their site, invading the audio space of those of us who listen to music on our computers, this would be accompanied by some happy clappy Souxsie and the Banshees or something equally dismal and puerile. I am so glad adolescence of over a decade behind me.

June 22, 2005

Artistic Mustard

The excitement of having an office of my very own has worn off and I now find myself doing normal officy things. I make personal calls, surf the web, chat on MSN, look for other jobs, take pictures with my phone camera and send them to friends.

Yesterday afternoon, while avoiding a particularly tedious report for the funders of my programme that doesn't have to be submitted until next month and since I'm done anyways except for verifying the stats why should I worry about it now, I discovered that all I need to do to take pictures of high artistic integrity of myself with my phone cam is to move it slightly as I press the button. Observe:

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usNote the stunning, almost three-dimensional effect created by this genius little manoeuvre. Admire the emotions evoked in the panoply of images and colours, a veritable cornucopia of feeling and sensation: "Is he happy? Is he sad? Is he slightly peckish and in need of a chocolate bar?"

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usStand back in wonder at the beautiful mustard-coloured hoodie I had to go out and buy yesterday to ward off the Antarctic temperatures imposed upon me by the sadistic building manager in charge of the air conditioning. Note how it covers my professional, complete-waste-of-money, officy clothing completely. What isn't shown is the little flecks of mustard dandruff that cover my professional, complete-waste-of-money, officy clothing when I remove it at the end of the day.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usIt was a toss-up at the cheap cheap store between mustard and a startling electric cherry. I guess I shouldn't complain about lack of selection when the item I choose cost less than my lunch. Plus in comparison to electric cherry, mustard seems almost subdued. And that's me all over. Subdued.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usI suppose I shouldn't complain too much. The air conditioning was broken for two very long weeks. I spent those weeks in a hallucinatory state, melting into little droplets of myself at my computer, too heat-fatigued to find the strength to crawl under my desk and wait for the Cold Season to start. I also developed a joyous case of heat rash on my torso, which, of course, makes all the boys want to talk to me. Once they see my artistic genius shots of myself, they won't be able to get enough of the real thing, I expect.

June 17, 2005

No Hope for Humanity

From The Globe and Mail
A man driven by a grudge against his former employer spearheaded an assault on an international school in northwestern Cambodia, taking dozens of children hostage and silencing a crying a 2-year-old Canadian boy by shooting him in the head, police said Friday.

June 16, 2005

Mystery

iPod mini / Image Hosted by ImageShack.usI only went into the store to look, not touch. There is a gaping hole in my memory. In I walked to the store ... and then I remember nothing until fifteen minutes later, 4GB richer, miniscule bank account smaller, I stood blinking on the street with a brand new iPod mini clutched in my hand.

Did the salesperson cast a spell on me? Was I abducted by aliens? Maybe I had a stroke. Or perhps the experience of spending so much money on small an object was so traumatic that I blocked it from my memory.

I may never know the answer ...

Get a Life, Part Deux

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usFanmail:
poopoop or whatever

your blog sucks!!! if your not going to up date every day at least have the desancy to stop blogging! some of us work hard to make our blogs good you know and im taking you off my blogroll

[ridiculous blogname withheld]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Poopoop or whatever's note: the previous mocking laughter was not directed at all of those who upadate and/or work hard to make their blogs good. Good on ya! Everyone should have a hobby that fulfills.]

June 11, 2005

Get a Life

Jackson Fan / Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Some Jackson fans are nursing a grudge against journalists for what they see as unfair coverage of the superstar.

Abusive chants have been directed at reporters in the media pen at the courthouse or outside Jackson's Neverland ranch.

Other fans have taken to sounding their car horns in unison to disrupt live broadcasts or tried to stop cameras filming.

Earlier this week, police banned those camped out in front of court from using rocks to hold down their posters, amid fears the stones could be stockpiled as weapons.

They're worse than the sciavoites. Their cause I could understand, even though I didn't agree. I don't get this mess, however. Please don't e-mail me to explain.

Bet They Weren't Even Kosher

When relatives of Vivian Shulman Lieberman went to visit her final resting place in a Houston mausoleum one year ago today, they discovered that the cedar chest containing her ashes was missing.

In its place, behind the locked, glass door of Lieberman's niche in Congregation Beth Israel's mausoleum, was a can of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips.
Via -=JeW*SCHooL=-

Since cremation is against Jewish law, could this be a sign of divine retribution?

My New Toy

Me / Image Hosted by ImageShack.usI have joined the new millennium digi-junkies and purchased a phone that takes pictures and videos with effects that are right up there with bad 80s music videos.

Here I am. Please pardon the nudity. It's hot and humid here. Is there such thing as digital air conditioning?

Very Pretty

 Olivier Martinez / Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
French actor, Olivier Martinez

June 10, 2005

Mental Ethnicity

Merchant of Venice / Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
... and I have to say that he has such a Jewish mentality ...

- overheard just now in the foodcourt while on lunch, uttered by someone who was quite clearly not Jewish

As a member of an invisible minority, I am always intrigued when I hear things like this. What is a Jewish mentality? What exactly did the person mean by it?

If they had a conversation with me without knowing I'm Jewish, would they be able to pick me out as a Jew? What about after I told them?

June 08, 2005

Free Mojtaba





Free Mojtaba




June 05, 2005

Good Advice for Bloggers


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Men are born with two eyes, but only one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.

When you have nothing to say, say nothing.

- Charles Caleb Colton

Very Pretty

Taye Diggs / Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
American actor, Taye Diggs