If I were a summonable monster, how would you summon me? (Include items to lure monster-me and method for said fell ritual.)

It is 6pm. In 3 hours i will be leaving to meet up with friends and head out to a James Bong (typo, hehe i mean James Bond) themed NYE party. Being a last minute costume, my leather gloves and long black jacket makes me look like a serial killer (and I am considering carrying around a toolbox to complete the costume - mental note for next Halloween). Nevertheless. I have a couple of hours till I need to leave the house so I figured to take this opportunity to make one last post before the year, and the decade is over.

NYE. A global day of reflection. All this thought and all it is going to bring us is some recycled resolutions like "this year i'll lose wait, i'll eat better, i'll quit smoking". In some ways it is sad that an entire species thinking existentially all at once on the same day at the same time and all it is gonna get us is a little thinner, and maybe some nicotine fits for the first week or two till the smokers kindly go back to smoking.

Well, I'm not being fair. I'm sure all or most people come up with thoughtful aspirations for 2010 for themselves. Like, 2009 brought us many great things e.g. Tila Tequila. I wish, though, that we, humanity, could make a couple of resolutions for 2010 as a collective species.

Like maybe this year we can all go without war? (but then some dumbass canadian white man will say "but you can't have diplomacy with religious extremists..")
or maybe this year we'll stop exploiting poor people...("but communism makes people lazy") or at least cut down our exploitation by like... 10%, or at least, we can stop having so many international conferences about poor people and use the money it costs to hold these conferences for actually doing something about poverty. something besides a concert.

well i could go on but i would much rather be celebrating NYE with the world instead of dealing with all its problems that I know little about anyway. Sorry, less-privileged peoples. You get nothing from me, or 2010. But you might have better luck when we get to the 2050's and u can travel to your own planet to build your own society. You might even get lucky enough and find your own species to exploit. If we don't get to them first.

Frosty the snowman
is a fairy tale, they say,
He was made of snow
but the children Know
how he came to life one day.

adbusters does Israel, let me know what u think.
https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/86/israeli-brand.html

job hunting tips for the canadian consultant: your qualifications are only assessed by how often you use these words:
- engaged/engaging (usually to get "buy-in")
- stakeholder
- consolidate
- solution (and derivatives there of, e.g. solutionise, solutioning..)
- expectations (managing or exceeding)
- business need
- transformation
- delivery (of things that don't actually physically move.. like "training delivery", "solution delivery"..think meta-physical)

if you're not a consultant but have to work with one, this check list could also be used as a drinking game.

how fucked up is this photo?

in the director's message in the annual report of a feminist NGO in gaza:

"We will continue to struggle for our collective right to live in dignity and with selfdetermination. We are not passive recipients of charity. The international community sends humanitarian assistance as an ethical and moral responsibility for their role in perpetuating the Israeli-led atrocities against the Palestinian nation. It is the trade-off for not having the political will to exert their political and economic influence to hold Israel accountable for every violation of international law that Israel has committed since its establishment."
http://www.wclac.org/english/reports/report2008e.pdf

right on.

Feeling the hate in Tel Aviv

obama is a muslimi and he doesn't love jewish

a bunch of american israelis in jerusalem hating on obama, one of them even says "white power".
oh and my favourite
some woman: "obama sucks. he's definately a muslim. we don't even know where he was born we didn't see a birth certificate. he's a terrorist for sure. and i'm a political scienstist so i know my shit..."
interviwer: "who's benjanmin natanyahu?"
woman: "who? i dunno. is he the prime minister? i dunno. who's benjamin yahoo?"



they're pretty cocky for a peoples who think everyone wants them "driven into the sea".

I was reading an article from the Middle East Report and saw this advertisement:



I don't know what to say.

This tank model is the latest among other efforts by Israel to "rebrand" itself from its negative associations with war crimes to a place of high culture, beaches and hot women. In Canada, we have had the pleasure to experience this campaign in a few other ways including....
- Our liquor store now sells Israeli wine from the Israeli Occupied territories. yay.
- Our museum now displaying the Dead Sea Scrolls which israel stole when it took East Jerusalem in 67. yay.

Thank you Canada, for your continued role in colonialism and destruction.

Canada's Minister of multiculturalism wishes you a happy Empire Day!.
Well, it used to be called "Empire Day" till around 1958 they renamed it to "commonwealth day". i much prefer the old name. It told it how it really is.
oh, for more context, this is the same minister who wants to cut off all funding to the Canadian Arab Federation for their 'anti-israeli sentiment.'
My favourite part below is in bold:

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - March 9, 2009) - The Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, today made the following statement in recognition of Commonwealth Day. "On this day, Canada proudly displays the Royal Union Flag, also known as the "Union Jack," as a symbol of our membership in the Commonwealth and our allegiance to the Queen. From sunrise to sunset, the Royal Union Flag is flown alongside the national flag at airports, military bases and other federal buildings and establishments across Canada. "Commonwealth Day provides an opportunity for almost one billion people throughout the world to reflect on their common heritage and to appreciate the contributions that the Empire made to freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law around the world. "The Union Jack is a proud reminder that Canadians achieved independence fighting for the Empire and not against it. "Pluralism binds our diverse peoples together. And this pluralism has flourished here in Canada under the Union Jack and the Maple Leaf. "As Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, I am delighted to join with Canadians and people around the world in celebrating Commonwealth Day."

Thank you Empire!!!
For your contributions to freedom.

remember Schindler of Schindler's list ? Spielberg left this part out...

http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2003/emily_jacir/photos/01_jacir

I thought I'd repost this again, as its appropriate as ever.

The Secret Life of Saeed is written by Emile Habiby in 1974. It's a classic example of the Palestinian dark dry humour and the sense of irony prevalent in palestinian fiction. It's a story about Saeed who becomes a collaborator for the Mossad. He is able to tell his story because he was taken by aliens into their spaceship so he is in a safe place now. Saeed is somewhat of a "wise fool", which is characteristic in traditional arabic folk stories like those of Juha. And so the writer places this guy in the middle of Israeli politics and brings to show just how absurd the situation is. The first half of the book is kind of funny in that sense, however, the story does take some tragic turns at different points.

Saeed is from the Pessoptimist family.. he's a pessimistic optimist, he finds optimism in the strangest of things. And so he describes a very upside down view of the world around him. In the beginning as he is introducing himself he says he is quite a remarkable individual, you must have heard of him before. He has been in all the news papers:

"Didn't you read of the hundreds imprisoned by Haife police when that melon exploded in Hanatir Square, now Paris square? Afterwards every Arab they found in Lower Haifa, pedestrian or on wheels, they put in jail. The papers published the names of everyone notable who was caught, but merely gave general reference to the rest. The rest -- yes, that's me! The papers haven't ignored me. How can you claim not to have heard of me? I truley am remarkable for no paper with wide coverage, having sources, resources, advertisments, celebrity writers, and a reputation, can ignore me. Those like me are everyqhere -- towns, villages, bars, everywhere. I am "the rest". I am remarkable indeed!"

The book has a very ironic undertone throughout. As Saeed is speaking to a Mossad who is transporting him to jail because Saeed put up a flag of surrender over his house which the mossad interpreted as a "banner of revolt against the state", Saeed realises that in prison he will be treated by the guards as any other prisoner, regardless whether he has done something criminal or not.

"Were you ever imprisoned before?" "Oh no, God forbid sir, that anyone should have beaten you to this favour! I have merely noticed according to your account of prison rules of etiquette and behaviour that your prisons treat inmates with great humanitarianism and compassion -- just as you treat us on the outside. And we behave the same, too. But how do you punish Arabs who are criminals, sir?"

overall a really great book that i've been recommending when anybody ever asks me for a book they should read.

anyone else in Toronto answered the question "What would you do with 100,000$" after the seeing this stupid Nestle advertisement everyday on your commute for the past few months?

I rented "The Kite Runner" DVD last night on my way home. I was right, initially, to not want to watch it. But I was too curious to know what it's all about cause everybody else is reading the book or watching the film. Don't get me wrong, it's a good film. It's just so overrated that I was expecting too much.

I was trying to explain to Viv just last week why I try to avoid anything Middle Eastern that makes it to the mainstream. It's not that I think those books or films or etc are bad or wrong or that I have anything against them, it's just that most of them are all the same. It's like, if you've seen one film about alien invasion, you've seen 80% of all films about alien invasion. Well, the Kite-Runner is indeed your typical mainstream film about the Middle East. It includes all the usual ingredients: crazy Muslims, bearded men, barnyard animals in dirt streets, homosexual rape (always homosexuality portrayed only in the depraved antagonists), and oppressed exotic brown women whose characters lack depth.

Though I don't think it deserves as much hype as it got.. it's still a good movie, especially if you feel like watching something sad. It's just not the best film ever - that's all. The guy at the Blockbuster told me it's a good movie so don't just take my word for it. He also added there's an important lesson to be learnt from it. For me, it just re-enforced my stance against popular mainstream "foreign" films. But other lessons include the importance of standing up for what's right no matter the price.

Well, that's the obvious lesson. But I wonder if there's also a hidden post9/11 message given that the author chose to write his story to take place before the US/NATO invasion and end the story at the time of the horrible taliban rule so our lingering thoughts leaving hte film is how fucked up the Taliban is.