Funniest stuff I’ve seen since Arrested Development:

God, Inc. Episode 1 (3:38)

God, Inc. Episode 2 (6:31)

Salaam-e-Ishq music is excellent. The film looks like a take off of Love Actually.

In the RT on Tuesday, looking over my shoulder to the left of me was a girl reading a book. It was called “Shortcuts to God.”

What stuck out for me was a sentence, “No longer will I choose to let my rational mind and my physical senses determine what is real for me.” (p.78)

That’s messed up. What else are you going to use? Your soul? Good luck.

The irony is that not only am I the fucking king of Spain but I also eat humble pie at the same time.

Someone out there has one (or more) video(s) of me dancing to that song. Working for the City has its moments, as well as shitty wages and treatment — “you don’t get me, I’m part of the union,”* my ass.

* “Part of the Union” by the Strawbs, inspiring union song, if you actually believe that unions are worth their salt in your country.

I don’t want to work away
Doing just what they all say
“Work hard, boy, you’ll find
“One day you’ll have a job like mine”

‘Cause I know, for sure
Nobody should be that poor
Say yes, sink low
Because you happen to say so, say so, you say so

I don’t want to work away
Doing just what they all say
“Work hard, boy, you’ll find
“One day you’ll have a job like mine, job like mine, a job like mine”

“Be wise, look ahead
“Use your eyes,” he said
“Be straight, think right”

But I might die tonight

– Cat Stevens, “But I Might Die Tonight”

Some days it’s like some bastard nailed a ticket for the bus tour down to fucking Hell to the front of my brain. For every wild everything-depends-on-it first-week-of-being-madly-in-love kiss on a streetcorner, for every beautiful woman stopping to feel the sun on her face and every child dancing in clean rain, there’s a kid living in its own shit in a dumpster somewhere while Daddy sells his ass for milk money, tanks breaking down unwanted houses just to stop homeless people squatting there….

– Warren Ellis, as Spider Jerusalem in Transmetropolitan #26

And the very fear that makes you wanna die
Is just the same as what keeps you alive
It’s way more trouble than some suicide is worth.

Won’t it be dull when we rid ourselves of all these demons haunting us
To keep us company?
Won’t it be odd to be happy like we always thought we’re supposed to feel
But never seem to be?

– Barenaked Ladies, “War on Drugs”

fact: Hizbullah does not hide among civilians.

>The “hiding among civilians” myth

Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths — the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far — on “terrorists” who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.

But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters — as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers — avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators — as so many Palestinian militants have been.

For their part, the Israelis seem to think that if they keep pounding civilians, they’ll get some fighters, too. […] But other attacks seem gratuitous, fishing expeditions, or simply intended to punish anything and anyone even vaguely connected to Hezbollah. […] In the south, where Shiites dominate, just about everyone supports Hezbollah. […]

The Israelis are consistent: They bomb everyone and everything remotely associated with Hezbollah, including noncombatants. In effect, that means punishing Lebanon. The nation is 40 percent Shiite, and of that 40 percent, tens of thousands are employed by Hezbollah’s social services, political operations, schools, and other nonmilitary functions. The “terrorist” organization Hezbollah is Lebanon’s second-biggest employer. […]

Although Israel targets apartments and offices because they are considered “Hezbollah” installations, the group has a clear policy of keeping its fighters away from civilians as much as possible. […] “You can be a member of Hezbollah your entire life and never see a military wing fighter with a weapon,” a Lebanese military intelligence official, now retired, once told me. […]

So the analysts talking on cable news about Hezbollah “hiding within the civilian population” clearly have spent little time if any in the south Lebanon war zone and don’t know what they’re talking about. Hezbollah doesn’t trust the civilian population and has worked very hard to evacuate as much of it as possible from the battlefield.[…]

fact: Israel deliberately and indiscriminately targets civilians.

>Israelis withdraw from Hizbollah border stronghold

A field researcher from the American based Human Rights Watch (HRW), Lucy Mair, sent pictures to military experts at the organisation’s New York office of munitions being transported to Israel’s northern border and fired into Lebanon from howitzers. She was shocked to discover they were cluster munitions. […]

‘The overwhelming impression is that time and time and again civilians are attacked and only civilian infrastructure is targeted. In cases of civilian casualties our investigators have studied, they have not been able to find the presence of Hizbollah rockets or launchers – only civilian targets,’ she said.

fact: Hizbullah’s actions were not unprovoked or unreasonable

>Lebanon wants return of Shebaa Farms

[Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora] said: “Hezbollah has expressed many times that it has the following objectives: liberating Lebanese occupied land, getting maps of all landmines planted in southern Lebanon during the Israeli occupation, and securing the release of our detainees who are held in Israeli jails.”

Just the facts.

Kant says shooting the ball violates the categorical imperative.
Hegel says just play offside.

Outside Bahen at about 6:30 on Monday.

Edit (7/31/07):
Posted this nearly a year ago, now I realize it’s from the Monty Python sketch, The Philosopher’s Football Match. The correct quotation is:

Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx claiming it was offside.

On peppers being fruits:

s.dot says:
isn’t it that anything with a seed is a fruit?
noaman says:
yeah but
noaman says:
it’s not like you know
noaman says:
you’re not like
noaman says:
yeah that’s a fruit when you go to the store
noaman says:
you’re like, that’s a vegetable
noaman says:
then someone’s like, no, bitch, that’s a fruit
noaman says:
and you’re like, shit!
s.dot says:
you have issues

nomes says:
why don’t you join the comic book geeks club on facebook
nomes says:
DO IT
nomes says:
DO IT
yaser says:
how does that help me
nomes says:
oh true
nomes says:
you also LOOK like a geek
yaser says:
yes
nomes says:
i don’t have to worry about that
yaser says:
right

nomes says:
damn, i never knew supporting israel was in the bible
nomes says:
he has me sold
nomes says:
now i’m going to do all i can to support it

(refer to yaser’s post here)