Some Help Understanding Israel This Week (Next Week, You're on Your Own)

I get confused about the Middle East when I quit following the related news stories for a while. I hate getting behind, but there is just too much news too keep up with. Fortunately, I came across a blog entry that has quite a bit of helpful information, including this tidbit about an interesting Palestinian group I hadn't heard much about:

The Palestinian people elected a terrorist organization to lead them and so far, in the territory it controls, Hamas has behaved like a pack of terrorists. But another branch of government, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, and based in Fatah-controlled West Bank, has indicated it is willing to work with Israel and with the world for peace. In fact, they’ve indicated they are ready to take over Gaza.

People from the Middle East tend to have different opinions on these complication Israel-related issues and they agree with each other about as often as your family members agree on politics at Thanksgiving. However, I can tell you that you cannot write off all Palestinians as bloodthirsty villains the way some like to do. Hamas does not represent the whole of these people and many of them are tired of being associated with terrorism.

I recommend you read the article, it's quite enlightening, even though I'm not sure I agree with all of it.

My Favorite Christmas Special

My brother and I used to look forward to the Claymation Christmas special all year long. The California Raisins were the main attraction, but the highlight of the program, for us, was the bell ringers.

4 Ways to Misuse Your Facebook Status

1 - Updating your status with something that makes you look illiterate.

The status is obviously made to create a complete sentence, still, some people's statuses say something like:

Billy BOOMER SOONER!!

or

Jessica is I am hungry

A nicely placed hyphen (-) would take care of a lot of this, for example:

Adam Jones - Go Cowboys!

2 - Telling people when you are not home so they can rob you.

I see way too many status updates that are just begging someone to come along and steal their stuff.

Cindy is not home and will not be home for hours.

Rob will be out of the country for the next three weeks and his house will be empty. And, sometimes he forgets to shut the door all the way lol.

These sound like exaggerations but people really do things like this and I wonder if I am the only person who thinks that the "It Takes a Thief" guys could do a special TV show about Facebook.


3 - Telling people when they can stalk you.

This one is horrifying and quite serious. Every now and then a single lady tells everyone that she is weak and alone.

Jennifer is alone with her cat all night.

Stephanie is about to take a shower.

Someday, I fear there will be a very regrettable infraction of privacy due to careless Facebook tweeting, it could be a serious problem.


4 - Updating your status every five minutes

We all know at least one person who does this. You befriend them and suddenly your Facebook page looks like this:

John is getting dressed.

John is putting on his socks.

Mary is ready the first day at her new job.

John is sipping his coffee.

John noticed a man walking a dog and thought the dog looked funny.

John is leaving his house.

John is going back inside because he forgot something.

The interesting updates that you use to keep up with your friends are suddenly drowning in someone's narcissistic fantasy. Those friends don't stay on my home page for long. Trust me, no one wants Facebook.com to be synonymous with your twitter page.

OK, that's all for now. Any unforgivable uses of Facebook/MySpace you want to report?

Bing Crosby Sings Christmas Songs with...David Bowie?

No, I didn't make that up. Crooner Bing Crosby actually sang "Little Drummer Boy" with the curiously androgynous glam rocker in this old TV special. According to Mental Floss, Crosby liked Bowie and wanted to work with him more, unfortunately, he passed away before this was possible.