Flashcube

Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” seems to have caused a bit of controversy and ultimately led to the resignations of 14 members of the Carter Center’s Board of Councilors.

In a letter to President Carter, the group wrote that the former president had abandoned his role as a peace broker in favor of malicious partisan advocacy, portraying the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a “purely one-sided affair,” which Israel bears full responsibility for resolving.

The letter also cites a “disturbing” passage from Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which appears to call for Palestinians to end acts of terrorism only if Israel abides by its obligations under international law and under the proposed road map — a peace plan guided by the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia. The passage appears to condone violence against Israelis, said the signatories.

“We can no longer support your strident and uncompromising position,” said the letter. “This is not the Carter Center or the Jimmy Carter we came to respect and support.”

Equating Israel to a terrorist state seems to be an argument amongst the left and you can choose to agree with it or not. That being said, it’s no surprise that Jewish support for the Liberals in Canada is dwindling.

In a nutshell: Apartheid?! What the fuck?! Can you use a more loaded word, Mr. Carter?

Geez. Were I one the chosen people I’d probably quit too.

I once thought that head transplants were the thing of science fiction but apparently not. Who fucking knew.

Even more disturbing is this film about a successful experiment in which they kept a severed dog head alive.

To call the video for 30 seconds to Mars “From Yesterday” unpretentious is like calling the Scissor Sisters “possibly homosexual”.

From the letterbox, chinese subtitles and the 3 minute preamble before the song even starts to the crazy plot about an ancient Chinese child emperor’s birthday wish for them to be his guest. It’s a good thing that Jared Leto found that magical map that transported him and his band into the past. It gets better from there. For real. Two words: Samurai Fights

It’s hard not to like the Bears. Unlike their more flamboyant cousins who host home renovation shows, Bears seem a lot more down to earth and generally nice. Beers and high-fves all around. I’m sure that were there to be an outdoorsy-type show hosted by Bears it would kill in the ratings. In the meantime here’s some videos by Bears where they take a good-natured and funny look at themselves.

I worked with a Bear once. He wasn’t too into into the outdoors but was a big sci-fi nerd, collected action figures and a fan of Buffy. I’m not sure if that disqualifies him from the club though.

Article about American Apparel founder Dov Charney from The Economist:

DOV CHARNEY courts controversy. The 37-year-old founder and chief executive of American Apparel, the largest T-shirt manufacturer in America, has been called a brilliant businessman, an amateur pornographer, a Jewish hustler and a man with a social mission. He is admired for single-handedly creating one of America’s most successful fashion retailers, for devising his company’s sexually suggestive approach to advertising and for treating his workers much better than his rivals. He is also envied, loathed and criticised for all of these things.

Google video is hosting a 50-minute documentary about the Stanford Prison Experiment.

From Wikipedia:

“The Stanford prison experiment was a landmark psychological study of the human response to captivity, in particular, to the real world circumstances of prison life, and the effects of imposed social roles on behavior. It was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University. Volunteers played the roles of guards and prisoners and lived in a mock prison built in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. However, the experiment quickly got out of hand and was ended early.”

An excellent German film called “Das Experiment” is based off these events.

Mark Steyn ponders why the Iraqi government has an affinity for the song “I will always love you” originally by Dolly Parton.

“Amazing. All over Baghdad, folks were switching on the radio to find Whitney ululating “I will always love you-oo-oooaahooeauooooeeeuoaaaoooo…” And, all over Baghdad, folks in the next apartment were sighing, “Terrific. Saddam’s got those Shi-ites at Number 23 wired up to the cattle prods again. Might as well forget about getting any sleep tonight.””

Top movie body counts of all time. I was surprised that two of the Lord Of The Rings films claimed the top two spots. I suppose when waging battles against a zillion computer-generated orcs it’s hard not to.

From 89 Rock Cliches:

“83. The Third-Single Power Ballad

It’s a well-documented fact that any successful album’s third single will be a power ballad. Doesn’t matter if it’s rock, pop or even R&B. Country albums are exempt from this phenomenon, however, as they’re 50 percent power ballad already.”

Some friends and I had a gift exchange this year and I was given the book “Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada”.

For the person who gave me the it, I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to purchase it – especially seeing as they didn’t vote for him in the last election. It would have been like me getting them the new Michael Moore book or god forbid a subscription to Adbusters.

From the 100 or so pages I’ve read already, I actually enjoy it as it’s giving a greater idea about the context in which someone like him came about. It’s also interesting to see the reasons behind the creation of the Reform party where it was more a reaction against the policies of Mulroney’s PC party than it was Turner’s Liberals.

Adam Daifallah has a better review than me.

“Harper was in his mid-20s when he began his intellectual journey to ideological conservatism. First, he was frustrated with the goings-on in Ottawa. The Mulroney government, with its centrist policies and obsession with Quebec, was turning into a major disappointment for small-c conservatives.

Second, while studying for his master’s degree in Calgary, he and a close friend, John Weissenberger, devoured serious political texts that shaped their right-wing outlook. They read such philosophers as David Hume and Edmund Burke, economists such as F.A. Hayek and contemporary conservatives like William F. Buckley. Harper and Weissenberger were fans of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, leaders who were bringing real conservative change to their societies. Why couldn’t the same thing happen in Canada?”