I've obviously lived a very sheltered life.

There was a buzz at the door and my Mom went to answer. A minute or so later, she calls me and tells me to come see what she was given.

A pamphlet. The front cover of which is a pastoral picture of a field with a cabin, a moose, pumpkins, apples and a man and a woman of unknown non-white origin (they could be African, South East Asian, Aborigine... it's a tad inconclusive).
Emblozened on this pretty if somewhat saccharine scene are the words:
All Suffering
SOOM TO END!

I turn it over, not bothering to open to read any of the content, and in a bright yellow box on the bottom of the page it says:

Would you welcome more information?
Write Jehovah's Witnesses at the appropriate address below.
[Various addresses in various countries - Israel is not among them]
www.watchtower.org

Inside are various unrelated quotes from from the Christian Bible (the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures edition) regarding the End.

I'm genuinely stoked! I've never seen a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet before. Most of the Jews for Jesus stuff that I've gotten over the years looked pretty haphazard and not really serious.

My Mom says that in South Africa she's get knocks on her door every week!

Proselyting is forbidden in the Jewish faith, it's all about strengthening the faith in those who are already Jewish!
But it never hurts to be available if you do want to convert I guess.

This is just special.

The two women who came to the door were Philippine, Israel has many a work immigrant from that part of the world.
Philippines work in care-taking - my great aunt and uncle have a woman who lives with them, she has a degree in computer science.
Thai people work in agriculture and the Chinese work in construction.

I'm sliding to a subject that has nothing to do with the entertainment value of getting a pamphlet of this kind.

I'm skimming through it and I can understand why so many seem to go to religion, any religion.
I'm not judging anyone's faith, I'm deeply critical of religious institutions, is what I'm going for - because I know I have some people of faith on my f-list and who may be lurking around.

Having all the answers, or at the very least know that someone or something has all the answers is incredibly comforting.

Judaism is a religion of question and debate and interpretation, but I've always understood that doubting the authority of the Torah, the other Books and the other scriptures: Talmud, Mishna, Etcetera.

I suppose being Jewish gives me that edge on the whole "special snow-flakeyness", being an Agnosto-Atheist I can't help but think it's all too ridiculous.

I was sitting at the bus station minding my own business.

A man of about 50-55 comes towards me and asks if it's all right if he smokes. I thought it was very (see, overly, for the society we live in) polite of him to ask and said "sure".

This was quite obviously a ploy.

He begins to tell me a story.

"I just couldn't sit at the other bus station. There was a girl there; dressed far too revealingly for me, her chest hanging out and short pants".

I'm staring at him as though he's grown an extra head. Instead his beard, peyot, kipah (yarmulke/skull cap) and tzitzit become glaringly obvious props for his forthcoming tale and story.

In my head, I'm screaming: "Why? Why is this man talking to me and regaling to me this bullshit story!?"

He continues (sans my loud thoughts that this man is a religious nut): "I ask [the aforementioned girl] do you believe in G-d?"

In my mind: "Mercy!"

He tells her words: "'Yes' she says and I ask you [that is, me and the universe in general most likely] if she's have said 'yes, but I sin', I could live with that... But dressed the way she is... how can she say that!?".

Meanwhile, I'm trying to understand why this woman (if she indeed exists outside this man's narrative) engaged with this man, seeing as I was doing my best to Not Engage with this person and his irrational tirade about how this woman's dress somehow marks her heretic - obviously I'm the best audience ever! What with my long jeans, trainers, long-sleeved shirt and high necked top underneath it.
If only we were telepathic, nay?

He goes: "She tells me her beliefs are simple. How can creation be simple?!"

How I wished I had a desk on which to bash my head and his continuously!

Throughout this entire time I'm dying for a bus, any bus to arrive to take one of us away! I'm also silent, grimacing from time to time and keeping away from him as much as possible while not leaving the bus stop - I really did not feel safe enough to tell to STFU... perhaps if there was another person there I would have told him to stop bothering me... but *Gah*, the situation just really did not encourage aggressive-aggression and I went for body-language instead.

"Creation can't be simple" this man says, "I tell her [still this very-well-could-be-fictional-girl] 'that table? You see it? Someone designed it, yes?' she replied 'yes'. So no tell me G-d doesn't exist!"

I was ready to throw up on him. I had been feeling queasy regardless, but I could have blown chunks over this.

He continued with this line of talk and thought for a good ten minutes, in addition going on to inform me that the Bible predicted Swine 'flu (o_O) and that according to Rabbi What-ever-the-fuck 14,5-and something are going to die because that's the Gimatric interpretation of the Hebrew letters of Swine 'flu (which are שפעת חזירים).

I actaully breathed a sigh of relief when his bus arrived and he was out of my life.

It was just too odd. I don't think I'd ever been proselytised to before. Obviously him asking me if he could smoke was a ploy to start engaging me in conversation.
Good tactic.

I now have a funny anecdote about Jewish fundamentalists... who are so different from all the other ones you encounter in the street (much to our annoyance)

---

Off Topic, but related to the fact that I'm home and talking about this.
I'm feeling queasy and at the last minute decided not to go the talk tonight, because I'd rather not be sick in front of people.
I'm disappointed, but hopefully I'll be able to catch the DAM people at a later date during their visit in the region.

Hey folks,

Go blow shit up for justice!

Sincerely,

Your queer feminist anti-militarist anarcho-socialist grrl.

I believe in peace... Bitch!

This pic was taken at some point in 2007 and is from a random pic search.

I saw it yesterday over at Mark Allen via my brother.



My whole family are fans of Turing.
And of sarcasm.

I love sarcasm and parody.

Something to laugh at on this here Yom Kippur!

( Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) vs Edward Cullen (Twilight) )

Buffy rocks.
Period.
"Twilight" can go suck on a stale bag of O Neg and perish quickly into the aether never to return.
Please.
Now-ish!

This is of course, memed everywhere.

This the text that accompanies this brilliant remix at the blip.tv link:

In this remixed narrative, Edward Cullen from the Twilight Series meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer at Sunnydale High. It's an example of transformative storytelling serving as a visual critique of Edward's character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy's eyes some of the more patriarchal gender roles and sexist Hollywood tropes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed in hilarious ways. --- This transformative work constitutes a fair-use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law. The remix is licensed under a creative commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 license. -- Find me at www.rebelliouspixels.com

Israeli Weddings are renowned for the loud music and the hours of dancing that happen during the actual dinner party.

The following video has (most) of the music that one will likely hear and the moves we make when we dance.

Imagine that, + 200 people, the majority of them slightly wasted.

Yeah...

I want this shirt.
Share the wealth.
Poor Uni Student begging for a cool shirt.

Thank you for your consideration.



THE PRE-SALE WILL END MONDAY, MARCH 30th MIDNIGHT (Boston Time)

Caturday postage!

It's not my cat, but it's a cat!



Thanks to [Southern!Girl] for making me laugh!

As usual.
Neil wins.

And they're both so cute!


Must get The Graveyard Book already!
And I want the English edition, I don't want want imprinted with the Newberry emblem.

The Israeli Socio-Political Satire show Eretz Nehedret - ארץ נהדרת - lit. Wonderful Country is probably one of the sharpest, most biting, satires on television today.
They are definitely up there (at least in my book) with "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report".

On this week's show they had a sketch of hip-hop Hasbarah (Hebrew for "explanation" and what is colloquially known as Israeli for describing the efforts of explaining Israeli government policies, and to promote Israel to the world at large)

The video is brilliant - but unfortunately cannot be embedded at this time, so I've put the direct link here and translated the lyrics which are a mixture of Hebrew and English (everything emphasised is me translating the Hebrew/Hebrish terms)
Link to Video: It's Time for a War Anthem.
( Lyrics under the cut )

Hilarious!
So biting and true!
Though, I acknowledge... it may only be funny for the Israelis and other Hebrew speakers here.

I just watched the Doctor Who 2008 Christmas special titled "The Next Doctor".

That means there will be spoilers! Beware!

It was... eh.

The villainess, Miss Ms. Mercy Hardigan, was boring and an Angry Woman who is Angry! At Men!
Lots of Men.
Has most brilliant mind there ever was!
Mwahahahahahahahahahaha!
Defeated by massive guilt trip.
Not so brilliant.

The Cybermen were uninteresting, like they usually are when there aren't any Daleks around.

Seriously, the Cyberman-Dalek exchange in "Doomsday" series two finale was one of the best ever! So hilarious.

( For your enjoyment: the entire brilliant scene of Dalek and Cyberman Extermination and Deletion! )

Aaaaaaanyway!

The Doctor - Tennant - was cute and dashing as always.
The "Next" Doctor - Morrisey - should... really keep to singing as he's truly a horrendous actor.
Rosita - yes, that was the name *gag* - was the pretty, cockney, token woman of colour... she of course had to rescued from danger and from prostitution... I'm feeling the forward sci-fi thinking here.

Oh Russel T. Davies why do you wound me thus!

Aargh!

As I was watching the episode on Ursula-the-laptop, my mother asked me why I was looking so glum and why was I cringing.

Dude.
It could have been so-so-soooooooooooooo much better!

The next Doctor Who special is called "Planet of the Dead".
It's either Zombies or Vampires.
Either of those options has to be better than this special.
I really hope Auntie Beeb doesn't SNAFU Tennant's final year as the Doctor.
It would leave me with a really sour taste in my mouth... I don't know anything about this new guy... Matt Smith... except that Steven Moffat (he who will be replacing current Executive Producer and main writer Russel T. Davies) has a crush on his coiffure.

Man... I mean, compared to "A Christmas Invasion", "Voyage of the Damned" and "A Runaway Bride", "The Next Doctor" was just unoriginal, predictable and just plain... eh.
I'm tempted to say Pareveh - which means neither Milk nor Meat as related to Kosher laws and is colloquial in Israeli Hebrew as bland, boring and neither here nor there.
So yeah.
Pareveh.

Edited To Add: Via hemlock_sholes and violachic.
The Alternative Doctor Who Christmas Special:
( Trek Through Time )

Is it funny, or sad that there's an Ayn Rand Club for Philosophy Students at my Uni and they're spamming the entire Humanities student body's email.
The first meeting is next Wedesnday.

Do I go and mock?
Or do I avoid the proto-fascist crazies?

Help me out dear friends.

I'm just... who would have thought? Randians on campus, and they could be anyone. Cooo! Maybe I should go and scope in order to know who to avoid for the rest of my academic career.
When I was a teenager I was a Randian, read all her books, felt that I was Smarter and More Capable than Thou... loved "The Selfish Ideal".
Then I finished adolescence.
Like may things Randinism is a phase.
How can people, students of high theory, philosophy and such actually consider this woman to be anything other than a stylish author!?
Digressing over.

So? Should I stay or should I go? *duh-na-na-na-naa*

Best Sinfest in recent history!

Gakked from sabotabby, creatd by realcdaae

#01 Under what circumstances would you be willing to attempt to assassinate the political leader of your country?
The last assassination in my country made things a whole lot worse, so I'm a bit iffy about that method of regime change. But if theocracy is established and those who aren't Jewish men are by law going to be considered less than human… well, desperate times.

#02 Who do you think would make a better US president: Hitler or Stalin? (You can't say neither... in this world it's illegal for you to not vote)
Stalin. His purges were a wee bit more rational… in the over all philosophical sense I think.

#03 If you had to bomb one city, anywhere in the world, which would you pick? (Picking none is not an option for this question.)
Jerusalem.
Problem solved.
( Click to be shocked, amazed and generally flabbergasted )

Now that's what I call a controversy!

Gakked from omnivorously.

#1 Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as The Controversial Survey?
There is evidence that suggests this, yes.

( A Smart Aleck? Me? Nah... )

#18 Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
Well, dear readers?
Do you approve? Agree? Disagree? Would vote for moi? Would see me a pariah of decent society?
I'm sure not everyone agrees, people after all, don't really share brains and even in your own brain you disagree with yourself on many things.
Am I right, or am I right?

Yes, I'm posting the video as well.

As if I wouldn't.



More blogging about Democracy (and the lack thereof) forthcoming.

Well... heh... just watch the video (as if you haven't already seen it elsewhere and five hundred times before).



Sometimes it's just hard to believe that The Daily Show isn't regarded as a real News magazine when the entire Fox News channel doesn't even need to be parodied.

Messrs Stewart and Colbert just need to sit back and let those Right-Wing pundits talk and dig and dig and dig...

Sharing a macro with y'all.



Credit to avgboojie, who made this little piece of hilarity

I think the most amazing thing is, as a friend remarked yesterday, that XKCD managed to be geekier than the Discovery Channel - despite the fact that Stephen Hawking is in the video.
Now that is some geek power.
Though I think my friends and managed to break the record by singing the XKCD version to the tune of the Discovery channel song.

You sing it too!

Boom De-Yada!


XKCD #442

I love The Daily Show, I find Jon to be one the funniest men in television today.
Here's a small portion of Mr. Stewart handing the asses of McCain, Obama and Clinton back to them in the shape of brisket.



Via.