Saturday, April 23, 2005

"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." - Abraham Lincoln

Random Playlist Song: Bob Rivers - What If God Smoked Cannabis? (Spoof of Joan Osborne's 'What If God Was One Of Us')

If God had long hair,
And if his eyes looked pretty glazed...
If He looked spaced out,
Would you buy his story?
Would you believe he had an eye infection?

And yeah, yeah, God looks baked.
Yeah, yeah, God smells good,
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah!

What if God smoked cannabis?
Hit the bung like some of us?
Drove a tie-dyed microbus,
And he subscribes to Rolling Stone?

When God made this place,
In the beginning,
Did He plant any seeds?
Or did he put them there for Adam and Eve,
So they'd be hungry for the apple that the snake,
Was always offering?

And yeah, yeah, God rolls great,
Yeah, yeah, God smells good,
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah...

What if God smoked cannabis?
Do you s'pose he had a buzz?
When he made the platypus,
When he created Earth, our home?
Does He like Pearl Jam or the Stones?
And do you think He rolls His own,
Up there in heaven on the throne?

And when the Saints go marching home,
Maybe he sits and smokes a bone.

[Ed: The song's even funnier if you listen to the original first.]

***

I have decided to go on sabbatical. I shall return on Thursday, after my Microeconomic Analysis I exam.

Nonetheless, I shall remain in spirit.

I belong to that not-so-exclusive club of founder members of a new blog... those who believe that when I have gone on sabbatical, that I've gone into permanent retirement, really should have their heads examined.

And even from the exam hall, even if you are going to bar the doors and I feel that something is going wrong, I'll rush out.

***

You are "There is a Manta Ray in my pants"
John Kerry




Damn. I was looking forward more to getting "I am sorry to hear that you are the King of Egypt. I appreciate the flowers", or "I just finished raping your mother, and have defecated on myself" instead.

***

Me: anyway people accuse me of being racist
just because I don't join in the lynching
and what was that thing in 1984 called?
where they flashed emmanuel goldstein's face and everyone cursed and swore?

Techno Prince: but perhaps you needed to be more forceful in stating your condemnation of racist views
otherwise people will misinterpret and think you're being more equivocal and ambivalent towards such deplorable views

Me: ahh The Hate

Techno Prince: a lot of people still think in black and white

Me: well they're idiots
too bad for them

and I don't think racism is as bad as most people claim it is
people have prejudices about most things
why is racism supposed to be the worst and most abhorrent?

Techno Prince: because it leads to horrid policies and stuff, I guess
besides, it often leads to a slippery slope to regarding other ethnic groups as inferior or less than human

Me: that happens with prejudice and irrationality in general
not racism in particular

you attack the symptoms, not the causes
I am against stupidity and irrationality in general

Techno Prince: well, racism can be said to be a manifestation of prejudice and irrationality
so it is the generic all-encompassing monolithic label to attack and condemn

Me: err
but people can condemn racism while revelling in sexism, homophobia and much else besides

Techno Prince: exactly
people are hypocrites :)

however, just because all these are abhorrent and yet not treated with the same amount of condemnation, doesn't mean that we should be equal-oppurtunity and not attack all of them

I guess it's up to the individual to decide which one is worth more energy towards condemning and acting against

Me: just because you do not think a criminal should be lynched and hanged by a vigilante court does not mean that you support his actions
make that a petty thief

Techno Prince: ah true


Someone else: hhm.. i guess whichever way u define it, inaction is still considered an active decision
so abt "someone's" point abt not being vocal enuff 2wards it.. is a thought worth considering

Me: well when people are being lynched by vigilante mobs it doesn't feel right to join in
but rather to highlight the flip side of the coin

Someone else: yea i noe, we can do the same thing by various means
but pple can't read intentions.. so they always judge by actions
u noe, that kinda thang

Me: when a petty thief is being lynched, it is as much a miscarriage of justice as if he goes unpunished


Another Someone (anonymising people can get so boring): it sounds like you're more against racism for the intellectual reasons, rather than having any passionate, emo response like OH DOWN WITH RACISM ^^;;
which leads you towards the middle ground in your attitude. or smth like that

***

"Look, I am of the liberal left and I am a First Amendment person. When the Nazis demonstrate on Michigan Avenue, one of our main streets, I recognize their First Amendment rights - even though there may be Jews and even survivors of the Holocaust in the audience. But when the Nazis deliberately seek out a place - Skokie - where there are many Jews, including survivors, then the question of intent becomes terribly important.

It is the difference between the Nazis marching in Greenwich, Connecticutt, and marching in those parts of Rockland County where there are Hasidim (an orthodox Jewish sect), some of whom barely escaped the ovens of the death camps. The same act of demonstrating which is all right under the First Amendment in Greenwich becomes an intentional, specific assault against the Hasidim. I'll put it another way. In front of a Veterans Administration Hospital, as the paraplegics come out for recreation, a group of demonstrators with, signs and chanting, ferociously advocate euthanasia for paraplegics because they are too great an economic burden on society. Is that a legitimate exercise of free speech or is it an assault from which the paraplegics should have been protected?"

- Head of the Anti-Defamation League

***

One of my idols on my latest mugshot: hmm you certainly don't look like a schoolgirl. oh well wait till it gets longer... maybe you should try vidal sassoon. it's really good

you seem to be immune to fashion disasters

Me: I thought I'm a walking one

***

"(I'm perpetually amused by the Star Trek IRC channel I visited once where Star Trek was the only officially frowned upon topic.)... Why should "generic fantasy" be defined in such a way that it cannot be good and non-boundary-pushing? To cleverly paraphrase Douglas Adams: with literary genres there's a danger in getting excited about the ways you can push them forward at the expense of what you want to say.

... I think one of the mistakes made is saying that fantasy has to be this or that to
begin with, including "strange" and "dangerous". Why does a change in basic setting impose conceptual requirements? Why can't it be used to tell stories that could normally be told in a mainstream modern-world or historical fashion that no one would bat an eyelid at? Here in Sweden for the last thirty years the standing argument has been that if you want to write fantasy (as opposed to fantastic mainstream fiction à la magic realism), you MUST emulate the acknowledged greats like Lewis or Tolkien or be accused of geekishness and "missing the point of fantasy". And of course, there will always be someone to take the other approach and claim you DID emulate then and line up THAT artillery against the same work. It's a win-win situation for the snobs when they can take anything and claim it doesn't belong in the realm of fantasy precisely because they like it."

Heh

***

Why texting harms your IQ - "Txts n emails mk ppl stupid coz they R worse than smking pot & lead 2 a st8 of 'infomania'"

Ghostbusting gizmo goes on sale - but watch out for the gremlins - "Does the rattling of chains keep you awake at night? Do the wraiths of long-dead relatives join you for family gatherings? If so, a Japanese gadget company has designed the very thing for you — the world’s first portable ghost radar. The device, which fits neatly into a pocket, promises to alert its owners to the presence of eight different types of spectre, from “lost souls” to “evil spirits”. Using a variety of carefully calibrated sensors — one of which claims to detect human fear — the machine will then inform users whether the ghost is malevolent or benign."

Kamen Rider Vegetable

Top ten Firefox browser annoyances - "As seen by a Mozilla Suite user"

A kidnapping gone wrong - with an unexpected ending!
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