Japanese man cer­ti­fied as double A-bomb victim

Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a busi­ness trip on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suf­fered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He then returned to his home­town of Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, city offi­cials said.

A long but highly insightful con­ver­sa­tion between acclaimed authors Salman Rushdie and Irshad Manji on the nature of belief, Islamism, the his­tory of Islam and Quran, and what to do in a world full of cra­zies on both the Islamist side and the racist west­erner side. Rational, thinking people of all vari­eties will enjoy this video… please watch in full, it’s worth it. Intelligent com­ments are welcome.

There’s been so much neg­a­tivity sur­rounding Sarah Palin’s VP can­di­dacy, I thought I’d try and find some­thing to thank her for….
————————————–

Thank you, Sarah Palin
for taking women – and men -
back a few notches so fast
we all got whiplash.

Thank you Sarah Palin for proving fem­i­nism right;
For showing that men and women are truly equal.
That women can be just as stupid
as the stu­pidest of men.
Like the men run­ning the country
for most of the past decade.
And of course, Condi too.

Thank you Sarah Palin,
for flashing your girly smile,
and throwing back that silly Northern twang;
Your beauty queen charms warm the limp, lonely hearts
of Bill O’Reillys and Karl Roves every­where.
Thanks for being the pret­tiest beard
for frus­trated Republicans still in the closet.

Thanks Sarah Palin for charging rape vic­tims
for their own rape kits, while preaching to us all
the joys of cher­ishing our rape babies.
Because life is pre­cious -
until hunting season, that is.

Thank you Sarah Palin for helping intel­li­gent women
realize they are intel­li­gent first, women after.
Thanks for helping smart men appre­ciate
smart women more than ever before.

Thanks Sarah Palin for making George W. Bush
look edu­cated by com­par­ison.
Thanks for making Cheney look saner -
at least he shoots at things at close range and
doesn’t make couch covers from their bodies.

Thanks Sarah for not blaming us mor­tals for cli­mate change -
None of us was around 6,000 years ago
when you believe the Earth was cre­ated…
How could we know what caused cli­mate change?

Thanks Sarah.
For every­thing you do.
With every­thing you say,
you are a reminder
for every girl and every woman
of the choice inside each of us.
The choice…
to be a smart, savvy, self-aware human being
or to be
just another jackass, with lipstick.

~Kiran Mehdee, 1 October, 2008

So many things to occupy time, so little time for them to occupy.

Here’s an inter­esting inter­view I came across with author Salman Rushdie

For the other geeks among us, you might find PC World’s list of the Top 50 Tech Visionaries inspiring.

Here, you can listen to an audio ver­sion of a Q&A between Stephen Colbert, Steve Carrell and Ann Hathaway (listen to the audio online by clicking on the link in the middle there).

Lastly, but def­i­nitely not leastly, here’s a tribute to the fun­niest guy who ever lived who died this past weekend, George Carlin. The world was fun­nier with ya, George, we’ll miss your sick, twisted, bril­liant brain. Here he is, in his own words…

The Economist has an article about the small but growing move­ment of people con­cerned about cru­elty to ani­mals in China.

You never know you’ll find on just another ordi­nary stroll… A huge, unknown con­tainer of some­thing uniden­ti­fied washed up on a Scottish beach recently.

The tank, which is 27m high, has no mark­ings and is thought to have fallen from a ship before being washed up on the west of Benbecula.

It was dis­cov­ered by a dog walker on Poll Na Crann beach – known locally as Stinky Bay – near Griminish.

orig­inal image © Reuters

Imran Khan voices the ques­tion on many people’s minds about the lax secu­rity pro­vided by the gov­ern­ment.
Graham Stewart pro­vides an insightful his­tor­ical per­spec­tive on dynas­ties and assas­si­na­tions.
Amir Taheri presents the chief rea­sons why reli­gious extrem­ists in Muslim coun­tries despise democracy.

more to come…

Children play in a flooded street after rising sea levels in Penjaringan sub­dis­trict, North Jakarta. (The Globe and Mail)

My gen­er­a­tion grew up accepting things like AIDS, cell phones and DVDs as part of our reality. For the gen­er­a­tions growing up today things like Climate Change will be part of their frame­work when they think of their world.

AP has selected Colbert as its Celebrity of the Year, which makes a lot more sense than the former KGB officer chosen by Time magazine.

“It is truly an honor to be named the Associated Press’ Celebrity of the Year. Best of all, this makes me the offi­cial front-runner for next year’s Drug-Fueled Downward Spiral of the year. P.S. Look for my baby bump this spring!”
—Stephen Colbert

Industry insider blog Deadline Hollywood Daily, among others, is announcing that The Colbert Report and The Daily Show by Jon Stewart will be returning to the air starting January 7, 2008. Finally I can start paying atten­tion to the news of the world again! Without these two around making reg­ular com­men­tary on world events, watching the news was like chain-smoking unfil­tered cig­a­rettes. Thanks, Universe!