General Thoughts

Great list, must have taken that funky ghetto hijabi girl (with an interesting story, and probably confused identity) ages to put together. Although it would have been better with some links included but I trust her anyways.

Smallville’s Lana Lang is the HOTTEST, followed by Lisa Ray at number 15! (if you’ve been too busy living on Mars, Lana Lang is number 25 in the list in case you’re wondering). Nicole of the Pussycat Dolls is too damn slutty. Meanwhile, Halle Berry is getting too old.

There are all kinds of awesome, delicious mixes on that list including Ethiopian Irish. I bet at least 20% of those people grew up with some big identity crisis issues.

And hey, did you know Heroe’s Nathan Petrelli is half Iranian, half German? Boycott the freaking show! Say NO to evil Iranians, all of them, starting with beloved Ahmadmidgetnejad!

The finals, are finally here people! It’s too bad and sad the Netherlands is already out (ops, I’m “supposed” to hate them and boycott them right?). It’s nice that Italy got eliminated however. I’m super glad. They already had their moment in the last World Cup. They should be satisfied with that.

I really wanted to Turkey to reach the finals and win. Imagine, Turkey the EU wanna-be winning the Euro Cup. Now that would have been hilarious. Hard-core Europeans would have probably gotten so pissed off.

Speaking of Turkey, I was talking to my friend in Berlin last night and I asked her who the Turks living in Germany (and who are mostly German citizens) were supporting during the Germany Vs Turkey match.

To my slight surprise, she said they were all pretty much openly supporting Turkey.

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.” - Howard Aiken.

I’ve held a very simple position on this matter. Give the man a fair trial, and if he’s found guilty, lock him up behind bars for as long as possible. If he is found innocent, release him as soon as possible. That’s it. Full stop. Is that too much to ask?

For more than six years Sami was imprisoned in Guantanamo without any due process. None whatsoever. Six years, and I think it’s an utter shame. Today, he finally heads back home to his family.

Zachary Katznelson, Sami’s American lawyer has called the whole spectacle ‘un-American’ and I believe he’s right.

The Supreme Court has said that every prisoner in Guantánamo has the right to challenge his imprisonment in court. If that right is taken away, these prisoners will languish in prison for years – innocent or not. If a prisoner is abused, he will have no recourse. That goes against everything a democracy should stand for. It is un-American,” Zachary Katznelson, Senior Counsel at Reprieve stated.

On top of that, the US Supreme Court has deemed the military trials unconstitutional.

South Park is super hilarious. The show just keeps getting better and better, poking fun in a very blunt way at everyone and anyone - Catholics, environmentalists, Al Gore, Muslims, Paris Hilton, Jews, gays, Africans and even Michael Jackson. I especially almost died with laughter when I watched that episode which caused a big stir about people who annoy you: N _ ggers.

Yeah, the blank is an ‘a’, not an ‘i’ just in case you might be confused. If you thought it was an ‘i’, you owe Jesse Jackson a major apology!

Have you seen the episode with Baher Hakeem, the new Muslim kid in school who got suspected of being a terrorist only later to have it emerge that instead of him, Russians were planning a terrorist attack during a Hillary Clinton campaign rally by hiding an explosive nuclear device in her you know… ehm?

Wonderfully blunt and funny!

The amount of political incorrectness the show’s creator’s get away with is staggering. Indeed, South Park’s satire is very daring.

If you don’t watch the show, you might want to check it out. Although I wouldn’t recommend a South Park DVD as a Christmas present for your six year old child or nephew, unless of course you want all kinds of profanities uttered in your face.

By the time we finally departed I was already pissed off and so were the two hot Swedish chicks sitting right beside me. We waited for a whole freaking hour and got no apologies whatsoever. Okay fine, at least the driver kept the engine and air conditioning running as we sat still in the bus the whole time but so what? I was still mad.

Thing is, the girls and I were angry for two completely different reasons. While I was irritated about having to arrive at my destination late, the girls weren’t. In fact, they didn’t seem to mind at all. Guess what they rambled about?

“How can he put all that smoke in the air? He should have turned off the engine. Doesn’t he know anything about global warming?”

I burst out laughing.

Needless to say, they weren’t amused, so we talked. Long story short, they were fully on board the “man-made global warming is going to destroy us” bandwagon. It was also evident to them that I wasn’t.

That specific incident was my tipping point and I knew had to get deeper into this whole Al Gore induced phenomenon. I’ve never been the environmentally aware kind. Didn’t bother, didn’t care but with a growing number of people trying to get me to join the club, I tried to arrive at my own conclusions.

So, you’ve got “The Inconvenient Truth” Vs “The Great Swindle.” In other words, “Man is screwing up the climate” VS “it’s mostly just Mother Nature.” Or if you still want to rephrase it differently, “the Left” Vs “the Right.”

Now, I’m neither interested nor willing to invest time and effort delving into the many details involved . Not yet. Maybe never. What we should be focusing on are the fundamentals.

The fundamentals are easy to see if we just take a step back and zoom out. Why don’t we all just do that? The question of whether man-made global warming is myth or reality shouldn’t be focused on much because at the end of the day pollution is a fact. Deforestation is a fact. Oil spills are a fact. Given the exploding population of the planet, the immense importance of sustainable development is a fact. Claiming that ditching your huge ass SUV for a tiny Mini-Cooper instead results in fuel cost savings is a fact. Claiming that smokey buses cause climate change isn’t and receiving preachy lectures from two very self-righteous chicks about how turning off the bus’s engine helps the environment is downright annoying.

But that’s not all.

Frankly, the Al Gore type of evangelism makes me suspicious because it isn’t just about saving energy and all that stuff. Oh no. It’s also about extra taxes and increased government regulation, things I can’t happily swallow thanks to my libertarian leanings.

I’m all for solving problems if and when they exist but bigger government doesn’t really seem like a good answer to me. In this case, what would be better is methods like getting consumers to lobby corporations into becoming more socially responsible or else risk losing their market shares.

Basically, let the market forces settle it, but bigger government? Hmmm… no thanks.

Global warming or not, one thing is for sure. Going green has a good ROI. Now that I can certainly agree with. In fact, I like how Tim puts it. It’s so much better than what I had to endure from the two girls.

It looks like the Emiratis have been helping the coalition in Afghanistan for the past 5 years now. Good stuff.

I’m glad the story is getting coverage over at Red State. Not surprisingly, some Muslims are fuming over what they view as treasonous.

Sure, let’s bring back the wonderful Taliban please. They’re so much better than the evil coalition.

I hate haters, therefore I hate myself.

… according to the one and only Seth Godin, in my humble opinion, the world’s finest marketing expert and someone whose ideas have influenced my thinking considerably.

Fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to their faith before they explore it. As opposed to a curious person who explores first and then considers whether or not they want to accept the ramifications.

Flush the former down the toilet and embrace the latter.

A good observation I just came across:

… I think banning Mein Kamph is a great way to make sure Germans (or anyone) can’t learn from the mistakes of the past.

I agree. Plus, it’s really dumb anyway since I can easily download it and read it online. I’m sure Germany has internet. So, what’s the point?

And why profiling for security purposes probably isn’t a smart strategy. Confused? Okay, allow me to elaborate a tiny bit.

Some found it offensive, others were confused and didn’t know whether to be amused or angry. As for myself, I burst out laughing. Hilarious!

Just watch it. Please watch it. It’s a no-miss. You’ll get what I’m talking about after viewing it for just a little over one minute.

…

It looks like you guys might need an outlet to express your opinions on the random events happening in the world, the latest Gaza-Israel crisis. Consider this an open thread so that other posts will remain on topic.

I’ve got a long draft saved up containing what I think about it. It seems that some are waiting to read my ehm, non-conformist ideas, so I’ll publish the post in a few hours from now later today, or tomorrow. Meanwhile, I have to run for my classes.

The title of this post is a subject I’ve been researching quite heavily for my upcoming book. This kind of analysis might seem simple at first but it’s actually quite tricky. So far, I’ve managed to find some great insights after hours of reading and researching, and I’ve come up with a number of ideas, but your perspectives may contain things I might have missed so please don’t hesitate to share them.

The involved complexity lies in this: to varying extents, our minds themselves are the products of the very ideological systems we seek to analyze and evolve.

So, how does one carry out this analysis as accurately as possible? Personally, I see at as an epistemological problem, one involving social contexts.

What do you think?

“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” - Albert Einstein.