Tagged by N; Five things you don’t know about me:

1)

This happens to me very often — which is something I can say about a number of other xkcd comics as well.

2)

I haven’t missed a postsecret post in almost two years. Every Sunday I browse the postcards and save those that resonate with me on some level. My collection to date is 128 secrets strong.

3)

Uh huh — that’s right!

4)

My memory has not been the best of late. (Or is it that it has always been crappy, and I’m only falsely remembering that it was better before?) For instance, at one point I used to know a third of the quran by heart; now, I’m lucky if I remember anything beside surat alra3d.

5)

I am a firm believer in the church of 80% sincerity, but I am a little lacking in practice.

… to 4 years in prison for mocking religion — one year for each major religion; Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Egyptian Presidency.

(news from Sharkawy (arabic))

Seriously, honey; I am not being lazy; I am doing it for my heart.

(via inkycircus)

I am happening sad.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been going out on the pond for two hours of pickup hockey on Sunday afternoons. This is the first winter I’ve kept it up for more than two weekends in total. Now, while I’m having a lot of fun out there, and getting better each time –as perhaps would be attested to by the increasing number of times I am managing stick-puck contact and the decreasing number of times I am forced to perform a butt-ice contact– I am certain I wouldn’t be a welcomed addition to any team playing in the World Pond Hockey Championship, which is held every winter in Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, Canada. This year, the championship attracted 120 teams from every Canadian province, as well as 23 U.S. states, and such countries as England, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and -get this- Egypt! Naturally, I was curious… I know Egypt is quite good in field hockey, but pond hockey? I mean, there are quite a few more fields –as few as they are– than there are frozen ponds.

Turns out the contact person for the team “from” Cairo is a Mr Schofield, Bill. Hardly an Egyptian name, I’d say… So, unless, the name was lost in translation from something like ostaaz Bilal Shafiee, the Egyptian connection is still a mystery to me.

Exercise your democratic rights!, Your creativity!, And the power of the internets! (which is more than just a series of tubes.)

The Call:
As you might ‘ve already anticipated, the current civil conflict in Iraq is likely to cause a partitioning of the country to three or more territories; and as the government of the USA is likely to outsource the partitioning project; it might help to be first on the ball.

This is a great opportunity for your voice to be heard! This is not 1920 anymore, when people didn’t have any say in the partitioning of their land (or the land their governments assumed control over after a gruesome war.)

Supplementary material and winning criteria:
Here is a blank map for the area to be partitioned, and, to get you started, some accompanying maps of oil infrastructure, land use, and population density. These might not be entirely accurate, as they are from 2003, and what ensued since might have had some impact.

I would expect the winning entry to be equally unfair to all implicated parties, while having an element of arbitrariness to it. It must also include enough vagueness to provide for never-ending conflicts, which would be reasons for possible future interjection.

You win:
Be the first to come up with a winning partitioning of Iraq, and your name might be etched in the history books. In addition, to the entity with the winning entry, if you mention that you first got the idea from this blog, I am promising you your choice of either a used copy of Orwell’s 1984, or a spanking new copy of Chomsky’s Hegemony or Survival.

Good night, and good luck.

Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years - but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school, he places oil [at] centre stage as the cause of all commotion. This innovative history programme is based around Robert Newman’s stand-up act and supported by resourceful archive sequences and stills with satirical impersonations of historical figures from Mayan priests to Archduke Ferdinand. Quirky details such as a bicycle powered street lamp on the stage brings home the pertinent question of just how we are going to survive when the world’s oil supplies are finally exhausted.

Absolutely brilliant, and very very funny. Link.