Middle East peace - the real story

It is extremely frustrating watching the hypocrisy the western governments display in their aid to Arab citizens and their revolutions under the title of human rights and freedom when they constantly deny Palestinians their right of self-determination and dignity through their staunch support to Israel; all for the campaign money they receive. Please watch the video; it is exactly 4 min long. It will briefly explain to you what happened and what is currently going on, so no excuse for you to not know what happened.

U.S. Debt Crisis

Earlier last month many of us watched as the U.S. congress struggled to get a bill passed for their debt ceiling limit so as to not have to default on their loan. So as I was following what was happening I came across a string of information that made it easier to understand the problem and why it is crucial. I believe that the order in which I have the videos set up will help give a wholesome picture to what was going on. If you care and have the time, do listen to all of them, attentively, even if you’ve seen them before. I promise that you will get more from them this time around; I know I did.

To start off here is a video/documentary that explains what is happening with the U.S. economy. This video is only 24 min long.

Now let’s look at the two speeches that were given to the nation a week before the bill was passed.

Here you have President Obama. To me when President Obama gives a speech to the nation he really is addressing the nation, the Americans.


And here is Boehner’s response. Very bipartisan, right wing, Fox News reporting style, speech.


And finally the outcome. No tax increases, just spending cuts.

Ramadan Mubarak

Though I am busy preparing for an exam tomorrow, I thought I’d pop up to wish you all a Ramadan Mubarak!Today is the first day of Ramadan :)



Opposed to my Ramadan post two years ago, there aren’t many indications in Toronto that Ramadan is today. I did come across two so far, the first was in a Food Basics (grocery store) weekly flyer and the second was this morning in Toronto Star’s website.

And despite the countless number of times that I have come across interesting things that I’ve wanted to share with you, I just haven’t had the time to post :(  I have been having a super busy and fun summer, I like to keep it balanced :), so don’t get overwhelmed when the posts start rushing in.

Also, if you don’t know a lot about Ramadan or may have forgotten what it is, I have provided some explanation in my Ramadan Mubarak 2009 post.

365 days of makeup!

 Here is a look at what a year's worth of make up looks like, basically gross! especially for those girls who apply foundation every morning...eeks.

Using almost 230 ml (roughly half a can of pop) of makeup — two bottles of liquid blush, seven bottles of foundation, two bottles of cream eye shadow and three lip glosses — Sander Plug and Lernert Engelberts painted the face of Belgian model Hannelore Knuts in one nine-hour sitting. The result: Natural Beauty.

Lernert & Sander: Natural Beauty on Nowness.com.

Ready for summer :)

I finally got my hair cut for summer and I love it!! It is so carefree and pretty. I am so into it that I am thinking of permanently keeping it short, but still trying to figure out if that’s something I can afford until I am a full time working women!

In 500 Billion Words, a New Window on Culture-NYTimes

Did anyone hear about this before? (click on the title above to get to the article)

So basically, in a nutshell, Google has created a database of 5 million or so digitized books and the main purpose is to find cultural trends in words/terms and how often they are used within a given period of time or when their use even came about. Now I am big enthusiast for language, culture and how the two evolve within time, so this is really interesting, though it only gives you numbers, the fun part is then researching or just seeing why and when certain words' use become prominent over time and whether that changes.

Here is my first try at it and this is what I got from the corpus English. Seeing the results and relating them to history is great! Like making historic events come to life :) I only used one word on each search but you can type in up to 5. Read the article too, it has some interesting facts.

Word: Housewife

Time period: Between 1850 and 2000 with smoothing of 50

(Click on the below link to get a better look at the graph)

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?content=housewife&corpus=0&smoothing=50&year_start=1850&year_end=2000

Word: Hippie

Time Period: 1850 and 2000 with smoothing of 3

Result: Huge peak in 1960-1980’s…amazing!

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?content=hippie&corpus=0&smoothing=3&year_start=1850&year_end=2000

Word: Terrorism

Time Period: 1950 and 2005 with smoothing of 3

Results: What do you know, goes way up after the 9/11 attack and still going up…

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?content=terrorism&corpus=0&smoothing=3&year_start=1950&year_end=2005

Word: Israel

Time Period: 1800 and 2000 with smoothing of 10

Results: again, between 1940 and 1980 the use of the word is increasing as Israel occupies Palestine and decides to create a country for itself right there in 1948, along with the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?content=Israel&corpus=0&smoothing=10&year_start=1800&year_end=2000

Now try it yourself

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/

No more rain boots!

Here is a snapshot of the last time I had my rain boots on; it finally got too warm to wear them even when it is raining outside.

And when it finally gets that warm, sunny and green, it is really difficult for me to restrain myself from basking in the sun and going for a swing, even when not appropriately dressed for either :p