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I find it hilarious that there is catch phrase words used by Kuwait newspapers and journalists. The result is usually hilarious hyperbolic headlines.

Any criticism for example is always "slammed":
MP slams government
Kuwait slams Israel's inhuman practices
MP Dr Ali Al-Hajri slammed the government's silence towards the statements made by the Minister of Commerce and Industry Ahmed Baqer
Al-Harbi slams commerce minister
Iranian paper slams MoI's Farsi language channel plan
Clerics slam German magazine
MP slams govt's incapability
Officials slammed for frequently travelling on ministry's expense
MP slams govt over disorganized food distribution for Kuwaitis
MP slams education minister
MP Al-Mulaifi slams premier
MP slams Al-Sabeeh

Anything great is always either "hailed", "praised" or deemed a 'success':
Al-Sabeeh meeting hailed
Kuwait reform process hailed
Eight-digit phone system 'success'
WHO praises Kuwait for its efforts to combat smoking

In the cabinet and parliament they only 'grill':
Al-Sabeeh may resign if grilled in parliament
Al-Sabeeh grilling proposal
Move to grill premier
Call for grilling
Al-Hajji among ministers expected to be grilled

Any Country ties are always "deep tied" or "deeply rooted":
Kuwait-Yemen ties 'deeply rooted,' says ambassador
Kuwait, Turkey affirm deep ties
Kuwait, Bahrain affirm deep-rooted relations

Hat tip http://www.balloon-juice.com/

It's 1960.

Everyone whoever got up to the Bronze star knows that the SiftCrack is the want to gain stars, TOP15 videos and so on. The Web 2.0 equivalent of leveling up in World Of Warcraft.

 I think this can be extended further by introducing SiftCrack, a recursive element that pushes Sifter participation by statistical comparison taking the gameplay element of sifting to another level by encoruaging participation. 

 Think along the lines of Siftbot becoming a full avatar and pushing the meatbags to perform better. Like he would be a lil' icon on the side that would post statistical messages based on your last post performance.

 "Your puny video fared better then your last miserable attempt" 

 "Your video broke Top 15 and has the 2nd highest votes of all time!"

 "Your comment got upvoted by 6 meatbags who should really get out more!"

 Anyone who played Teamfortress 2 and seen the nudging that the game gives via statistics would instantly know what am talking about. 

 I vividly remember the First Persian Gulf war, mostly because it was the first war which was widely followed and televised by a then still relatively new cable news company called CNN, they focused on the sheer military spectacle of showing Tomahawk missile launches, stealth bombers, tanks and grainy TV missile strikes in Iraq. At the time I thought it was good thing to do, to attack nation and punish it for it's despotic actions against its own people. Youthful, idealistic and very naive I believed strongly in interventionism.

I also believed very strongly in the ideals behind the formation of the UN.

Over the years my understanding of geopolitics and military policy grew, through understanding of Soviet advances into Afghanistan, the 2nd world war and numerous other conflicts. I saw that most military actions are not carried out for ideals of freedom or overthrowing despotic rulers.

But I still believed in interventionism as a way to 'free' a nation from a tyrannically ruler, reinforced by seeing such a person take power within my own nation in Central Asia and countries around Central Africa where I lived at the time.

Seeing wars sprout out while the international world set on it's hands and watched made me angry, I wondered why military intervention doesn't take place in places like Somalia and Rwanda. Somalia was eventually addressed haphazardly as a humanitarian AID mission first, a military operation a far distant second, with limited ROE and slim political support from the Clinton Whitehouse and International world. It underestimated the Somalian people and paid for it in American lives, with some of it's own troops dragged through the streets. Post Somalia there was no space for intervention in Rwanda, the US kept away, European powers sent limited forces. All in all the Rwanda people entered a ethnic civil war of barbaric proportions. The UN set on its hands because no one wanted to get involved in what they regarded as a insignificant nation with internal problems. It was disheartening.

Then 9/11 occurred, I knew the US government would most definitely cease its containment of terrorism policy in Afghanistan and take a far keener interest in Central Asia as a whole.

I supported the war in Afghanistan, I felt that the SF approach of letting the Northern Alliance lead the way with US over watch and NATO support was indicative of how military intervention should be carried out. I knew it wouldn't work totally because a nation that has been at war with itself for close to 30 years takes decades to recover, political intervention by other Central Asian nations and proxy Cold war conflicts saw to that. But I still have hope.

The Iraq war was a far difficult proposition, unilateral intervention, lack of concrete allies, superceding UN policy; all this after leaving after 1991, with no support for the rebel movement that Bush Senior himself urged to "Rise up against Saddam". While I supported righting the wrong, I also thought it was pure suicide at the same time akin to dumping a girlfriend to her abusive father and then coming back years later to resuce her again.

I knew the reasons behind going to Iraq were wrong, but if the case was built properly with international support it would be far easier to support what basically is an invasion of a soverign nation. We all know how it was played and what the consequences have become.

We have seen over the last year and a half abuses and uprisings in Burma, Tibet, Darfur and Georgia. The whole wordl is again sititing on its hands, the UN is quickly becoming as insignificant as the League of Nations before it. The Security Council is a hotly played Poker face game between super powers with totally different agendas and viewpoints.

With the actions in Iraq and now Georgia the policy of interventionism is completely shelved for a long time. I don't think this is completely good idea. The US was wrong in going at it alone under compeltely dubious and false reasons, but it gave Russia the impetus to essentially do the same in Southern Assetia. The US cannot even criticize the Russian actions because it would bring up the reasons for going into Iraq, a dialog the government as a whole wants to avoid taking place in main stream media.

I still believe that balanced, planned, multilateral peace keeping force can be a force for democractic change in nations where there is conflict.  I hope that multilateral peace kepping force gone emerge under a more focused and concrete UN structure.

My personal compilation of dancing styles from around the world.... more inside ...

Can anyone reccomend some good website hosting solutions?

I would like to buy several domain names. Any tips?

You probably heard of Purple Drank mentioned sometimes? You ever wonder what it really was?  

Purple Drank is a slang term for a recreational drug popular in the hip-hop community of the Southern United States.

Its main ingredient is prescription-strength cough syrup containing codeine and promethazine. The purplish hue of Purple Drank comes from dyes in the cough syrup. Recently, the term has expanded to cover mixtures including over-the-counter cough syrup.

There are numerous other slang terms for Purple Drank, including Sizzurp, Lean, Syrup, Drank,Barre, Purple jelly, and Purple stuff.

Dionisis - The Mark of Innocence Buy At ITunes

The Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG6 is a pocket sized, hand held camera that shoots video in MPEG4 format at 640 by 480, it can also take images at 6MP, but its use is better as a cheap beginner handheld camera. The device records video on a SD memory card, meaning you can have cards from 256MB up to 4GB which would translate to roughly 4 hours video. 

Its set up vertically so you can easily record and operate it just one hand, the small size allows for some creative video shooting. It features a large LCD screen and the menu system is very easy to navigate. The zoom is 5x optical and 12x digital, the control for the zoom is a bit here and there, I found it better to zoom before shooting better, but this is what one should be doing anyway as zooming as you are filming is very jarring to the viewer.

Video quality is amazing for its price, coming really close to best miniDV cameras I have used and beats out most of the cheap ones putting it close to the prosumer range. Since video is in MP4 and images are in JPEG there are no problems between running this on a MacOSX or Windows based system. Since the files are MP4, you can directly import the video in all known video editors very easily from MovieMaker right up to Sony Vegas. Files are pulled via the USB connector or straight from the SD memory card. Spare batteries can be purchased but on charge the camera can shoot for roughly 90 minutes on a single charge.

Usually devices in this price range do not include any features, however the Sanyo features good image stabilization, white balance, AF settings, ISO settings, sound and voice recording. There are also settings for shooting under various conditions, such as night and so on. There is a standard AV port, which can also be used as a head phone port so you can hear exactly what you capture. Infact if you got your video content in MP4 you can play it back on this camera as a viewer. 

The only qualms I have is the lack of direct AC connection for power.  The memory cards can set you back some, but its still below the price of any MiniDV camera you might find. Video in very low light conditions will suffer, but this is understandable given its size and price range. Photos on the camera are good quality but not a replactment for a dedicated digital camera, on night shots the camera creates red eye effects.  But at this price range this is more nitpicking then solid criticism.

If you want to give video editing or Youtube video recording a try I can't recommend anything better then this. Its protability and small size also mean it can hardly be noticed when you are recording video at a concert especially appealing to me because I personally hated looking like a tourist with a large hand held camera.

I reccomend it.

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http://www.onesentence.org/ - true stories in one sentence.

Turns out Jack Bauer's torture antics on 24 did actually provide ammunition for the creation of toruture techniques in Gitmo. Check it out at John Cole's Ballon Juice. 

It was easy to see and hard to believe then that people could just say "Oh its a TV show, it doesn't influence policy". No it does.

 "Beaver told me she arrived in Guantánamo in June 2002. In September that year there was a series of brainstorming meetings, some of which were led by Beaver, to gather possible new interrogation techniques. Ideas came from all over the place, she said. Discussion was wide-ranging. Beaver mentioned one source that I didn’t immediately follow up with her: “24 – Jack Bauer.”

It was only when I got home that I realised she was referring to the main character in Fox’s hugely popular TV series, 24. Bauer is a fictitious member of the Counter Terrorism Unit in LA who helped to prevent many terror attacks on the US; for him, torture and even killing are justifiable means to achieve the desired result. Just about every episode had a torture scene in which aggressive techniques of interrogations were used to obtain information.

Jack Bauer had many friends at Guantánamo Bay, Beaver said, “he gave people lots of ideas.” She believed the series contributed to an environment in which those at Guantánamo were encouraged to see themselves as being on the frontline – and to go further than they otherwise might."

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 26. I work at a school. My morals with regards to causing bodily harm to kids is zero.

One of the funniest things I seen on Cracked in a long time.