Correction
Thursday, December 3, 2009
A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number.
nice one washington post!
Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, Greece
Group C: England, United States, Algeria, Slovenia
Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana
Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon
Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia
Group G: Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal
Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile
we lucked out, great draw. here’s my prediction: we will upset england in the first game, win group c and then beat ghana in the second round. after that, who knows.
group g is the group of death and brazil and the ivory coast will go through. c-ron will have a shit world cup and north korea will spring a missile-test-on-a-federal-holiday-like surprise or two.
favorites: brazil, italy, spain, argentina, ivory coast.
flops: germany, england, mexico, france, south africa
let’s face it, kindles are for delusional techie retards, first adopters, and satanists who think it’s some sort of divine mashup of the second coming of christ, an ipod touch, and an ed hardy t-shirt— grotesque, overpriced, fadish— all wrapped in one.
really, it’s not any of those things. it’s just a piece of shit for lazy douchebags who are actively participating in bankrupting the publishing industry and trying to transform society’s reading habits via a nefarious conspiratorial plot fronted by amazon ceo jeff ‘i made my fortune off of selling books and annihilating independent bookstores the country over but now i hate books themselves’ bezos and an associated motley crew of minions that may or may not include birthers, teabaggers, liverpool supporters, and/or the french.
think i’m being melodramatic? well, i’m not. kindles are terrible, terrible devices meant to destroy books. much like how militant environmentalists think books destroy trees, but more substantiated and not as patchouli-smelly or trust-funded.
books may yellow a bit. they may even, after decades and decades, lose their spine or their binding. but they will never short circuit, get erased, blow a fuse, or have their screen break. also, there is no potential for big brother to pull a big brother on your orwellian collection of orwell books.*
don’t think these apocalyptic implements are bad for society in general? there are already reports of kindle-happy principles and administrators scrapping their school libraries, clearing out all the books, and bringing in a few kindles for the tots to share, in lieu of books. imagine a world where you learn to read on a machine with a gray lcd screen that needs to be plugged in a wall socket rather than a physical book. if the kindle evangelists get their wish, that future could be sooner than later. sadly.
look, i like my ipod and my smartphone and even my dvr every now and then, but i draw the fucking line** when it comes to books. books are sacred. they should not be digitized and evaporated as a medium.
books are meant to be picked up, held, dog-eared, passed on to someone you love or think you might love, referred to over the years, margin-marked, read late at night, quoted, given to a stranger, discovered at a street-side second-hand shop, and cherished.***
*really, you can’t make this kind of shit up.
** here is the line: ——————————————————————————————
*** or, conversely and regrettably, sold back to a college bookstore in a time of abject poverty for an 1/8th of their total value which, coincidentally, was enough to buy a bag and a few 40s.
Whatever numbers you hear about the cost of Obama’s escalation in Afghanistan are bound to be low. Once you add in veterans’ benefits, the long-term costs of medical treatment for wounded soldiers, replacement costs for the equipment they will use up and wear out, etc., you end up with a lot more than the extra $30 billion that Obama mentioned in his speech on Tuesday. If you want to be prudent, assume that the true costs are at least twice what you’ve heard. Together with the money already allocated, it’s going to be well in excess of $100 billion per year. Keep that in mind the next time you pass a rusting bridge, or when your local School Board has to cut its budget and lay off a few more teachers.
[video]
so, johnson developed a deep respect for military men, who conned him into escalating the vietnam war. it was the perfect testing ground for their toys and theories, the perfect training ground for their generals.
tonight’s escalation bonanza speech is already old news before delivery. i’m going to watch it anyway and see what kind of tone and solemn spin is lobbed at the public. it’s a sad day. i simply can’t get behind this one, it is a massive mistake escalating this war and an executive decision that is going to further destroy our economy and directly lead to the deaths of more american troops and afghan civilians while simultaneously lessening our collective security. guess what? we are the military occupier. no amount of coin-centric nation building or usaid funds or switch to counter-insurgency tactics can change that. we are hunkering down in a country that is not ours, while our multi-billion dollar unmanned precision drones drop precise ‘smart’ bombs on wedding parties and civilian homes with ever-increasing precision frequency.
i don’t buy this kind of liberal argument that escalation can be justified as a progressive goal in the national interest. sadly, i’ve heard that sort of thing a lot.
rights universality via a liberal interventionist project can not be implemented through the barrel of an american tank in afghanistan, just as ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ could not be implemented through the barrel of an american tank in iraq via a neocon redraw-the-modern-map-of-the-arab-world scheme.
greenwald nails it…
This is all to be expected. Ostensible justifications for war are more or less universal, as is the familiar mix of fear, claims of moral necessity (and superiority), and appeals to patriotism and military love that are always hauled out to justify their continuation and escalation.
clipse - til the casket drops
straight crack.
julian casablancas - phrazes for the young
never really liked the strokes, really dig this.
blakroc - blakroc
underwhelming verses from a-list rappers. the black keys kill it though.
yeasayer - all hour cymbals
two years later, i simply can not get enough of this album. classic.
andy palacio & the garfuna collective - wátina
so breezy and wonderful, this album reminds me of rum punch and roadside empanadas in aguadilla. stumbled across it sunday scrolling through my archaic i-pod, so happy i did. rip andy.
from today’s sec-gen noon briefing…
- The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is being observed today at UN Headquarters.
- Addressing an event this morning, the Secretary-General said that it is vital that a sovereign State of Palestine is achieved. He added that the Palestinian people continue to struggle for their inalienable right to self-determination — a fundamental, universal human right enjoyed by so many others across the world.
really? really.
فن شارع, Karantina, Beirut.
pascal zoghbi presented a lecture on arabic graffiti in lebanon and the larger arab world last week at notre dame university (beirut, not south bend). today he graciously put up the the presentation, with pictures, on his awesome blog.
Though the graffiti scene in the Arab world is still young, over the past few years it quickly took over the streets of its cities. Due to the bad political, economical and social situation in Lebanon and Palestine, the graffiti art is spreading rapidly and voicing out the pain of its people. In other Arabic nations like Jordan, Egypt, Syria, etc… the underground movement is still very shy and not as present due to the normal life situation and the ability for police to stop any graffiti. In Lebanon and Palestine, graffiti is not yet seen as vandalism and against the law. As long as the message does not imply any direct political meaning, then the police will not stop you, even in broad daylight.
here are a few of my favorite pics…
“BEIRUT 961 UNDERGROUND”, Gemeyzé, Beirut.
إهانة حرفية, Jisr Al Basha – Karantina Highway, Beirut.
غرافيتي من بيروت, Hamra, Beirut.
بوس الواوا, Bliss,Beirut.
“Free Marwan”, Israeli-Palestinian Wall.
“but i shall never again consider myself even the remotest judge of human nature. you may quote we wildly on that.”
At Tuhama’s Lebanese deli in Dearborn, and at bakeries and barbershops throughout town, it’s no secret the CIA is looking for a few good spies.
“There is a lot of talk, and nobody likes it,” said Hamze Chehade, a 48-year-old Lebanese-American, taking a bite of his chicken shawarma.
perhaps, in solidarity with their soon-to-be-fallen turkey brethren, today was the day the animals decided to take over.
first, jeopardizing the ENTIRE world cup… “south african baboon gangs grow more aggressive; opening car doors, leaping through windows for food.”
and then… “thirsty wild camels wreak havoc in australian town.”
also, this just in… “putin’s rare siberian tiger goes missing.” most definitely now plotting an authoritarian/hyper-capitalist/judo crime spree of epic proportions.
meanwhile, in malaysia “a wild short-tail macaque (beruk)” is attacking hapless toddlers and stealing chocolate.
also, there may or may not be a coyote roaming the streets of queens.
“If Mrs. Palin truly wants to discuss her faith, we invite her to clarify what her faith says about Israel, its role in the Rapture, and the ultimate fate of Israel and the Jews who choose to keep their faith.”
anti-semites for israel.