Year: 2006

The Israeli Strategy

“[S]hooting Palestinian civilians is not like shooting Vietnamese or Chechen civilians. The Palestinians aren’t ‘collateral damage’ in a war against well-armed communist or separatist forces. They are being shot because Israel thinks all Palestinians should vanish or die, so people with one Jewish grandparent can build subdivisions on the rubble of their homes. This is not the bloody mistake of a blundering superpower but … the deliberate strategy of a state conceived in and dedicated to an increasingly vicious ethnic nationalism.”

— What is Antisemitism? by Michael Neumann; 4 June 2002.

Israeli Realtor

[Via: Lawrence of Cyberia]
[Cartoon: Mr Fish, for Harper’s Magazine.]

Top Habit Goals on 43 Things

The guys over at 43 Things have released a list of the the top habit goals from the site’s users, including:

– Stop procrastinating: 11615 people
– Drink more water: 7309 people
– Take more pictures: 6598 people
– Save money: 5554 people
– Read more books: 5120 people
– Exercise regularly: 4023 people
– Eat healthier: 3923 people
– Wake up when my alarm clock goes off: 3759 people
– Quit Smoking: 3555 people
– Spend less time fooling around on the net and more time actually working: 3258 people

Really interesting… Being a non-smoker and therefore not having to quit smoking, the rest of the top 10 should be on my list if it’s not already there.

[Via: LifeHacker]

Update: Yahoo has dropped plans to use Mexico’s Teotihuacan archaeological site for its time capsule project after authorities fearing damage to the ancient ruins denied them permission. (Thanks to Muh’d Mansour)

Yahoo Time Capsule

Yahoo and Yahoo Telemundo are creating a digitized time capsule that will beam onto an ancient pyramid in Mexico and into space.

Yahoo began accepting submissions of photos, video, sounds files, video and text yesterday and said in a prepared statement that the purpose was to join the “past and present with the universe’s potential future by sharing today’s culture on Earth with other life that may exist light years away.”
The time capsule is meant to document the good and bad of life around the world in 2006.

Yahoo said it expects the time capsule to be the largest ever created. The company plans to project the contents onto the 216-foot Pyramid of the Sun, in what is known as the City of the Gods, at Teotihuacan, near Mexico City and beam it into space with digital laser light Oct. 25-27. The event will be Web cast live. After that, Yahoo will digitally archive and seal the capsule for opening on the company’s 25th anniversary in 2020.

Yahoo worked with artist Jonathan Harris on the time capsule.

Now is that cool or what?

[More: Yahoo Time Capsule]
[Source: InformationWeek]

Miami Vice

A couple of days ago, I watched “Miami Vice” upon the recommendation of my friend, the owner of the rental store, who said he enjoyed it a lot. The movie features Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, and is written and directed by Michael Mann.

After seeing it, this is one movie on which I agree with the movie critics who gave it a hard time. It has almost nothing to do with the 80’s series, other than the names of the series, the city and the main characters; it feels like it goes nowhere, and it’s quite boring for an action movie.

That doesn’t mean this movie isn’t well made, on the contrary, it’s got all the cinematic magic we’ve gotten used to from Michael Mann, but that alone wasn’t enough to carry this movie.

Personally, I didn’t really enjoy this movie as much as I wished to, and I would only recommend it if there was nothing else better to see from this genre left.

My score for it is: 4/10.

Still, if you’re interested, you can but the “Miam Vice (Unrated Director’s Cut)” DVD here.

Scientific Reasons For Having Sex

Some of the scientific reasons for having sex:

– Sex helps boost the immune system.
– Sex helps boost longevity.
– Sex helps ward off cancer.
– Sex results in a more youthful appearance.
– Sex helps reduce stress.
– Sex helps fight depression.
– Sex helps coping with middle age.
– Sex is good exercise.
– Sex helps in losing weight.

But who needs scientific reasons?

[Via: Houssein]

Paulo Coelho Free Online Event

Paulo CoelhoAn interesting free online event for all Paulo Coelho fans…

At 3 PM ET (7 PM GMT) on Wednesday, October 11th, Paulo Coelho will be discussing his books and answering readers’ questions online.

To participate in this free event, readers will need to register and login at 3 PM ET (7 PM GMT) on October 11th. Here’s the event’s registration page.

Throughout this web event readers can submit questions to Paulo and hear his responses. The questions will be posed to Paulo by a moderator — Beliefnet Spirituality Editor Valerie Reiss.
While Paulo is talking, participants can view a slide presentation about him and his books and submit questions via the event interface.

For more details about Paulo Coelho and his work: Paulo Coelho’s official website, HarperCollins.

Beliefnet’s feature on Paulo Coelho can be read here.

Click

I finally got to rent and watch “Click“, featuring Adam Sandler, Kate Beckingsale and Christopher Walken.

“Click” tells the story of a workaholic architect who gets hold of a universal remote that allows him to fast-forward and rewind to different parts of his life. Complications arise when the remote starts to overrule his choices wrecking havoc to his life.

I saw the trailer for this before its release and it looked really cool, then it came out and was met with mixed reviews, some positive and some not so, but me being an Adam Sandler fan, I kept looking forward to seeing the movie, and I didn’t regret it.

The movie starts off like a regular Adam Sandler movie, with the same type of comedy and humor, but then it gets a bit more serious, although it hangs on to its comedic nature, to pass a message that is a very simple yet important one, which is that family must always come first.

That message rang a big bell for me, especially now with the birth of my son and my own realization of the even bigger importance of family.

Personally, I really enjoyed this movie. It’s a light comedy with a message, and with the kind of laughs only an Adam Sandler movie can deliver. So yeah, I recommend watching it.

My score for this movie would be: 7/10.

Paper Airplanes

I don’t think there’s anyone in this world who hasn’t played around with building paper airplanes at some point in their life. It’s one of those irreplaceable, unforgettable childhood joys.

A few guys at work have been going at it this past week, coming up with new models and ideas every day.

That inspired me to do a little search online for some paper airplane models and techniques, and here are some of the links I came across:

– Paper Airplane Designs
– Best paper airplane in the world (or so he says)
– Best paper airplanes
– Amazing paper airplanes
– Joseph palmer’s paper airplanes

I think I’ll be trying a few of them out myself…

Enjoy…