The New York Times has a cool tool which you can search Bush’s SOTU speeches for any word or phrase and visualize how many times it was said since 2001 until 2007.

It is interesting enough tool to make a little search and see where do some 'Iraq related' statements stand, especially that I’m talking too much about Iraq today. Look what I found:

Great, Iraq 'occupy' more space, 'freedom' and 'peace' are evaporating, and the new entry is: "OIL"!!! God, isn't that what it's all about? I've always been saying it's all about OIL!

Maybe you got this by email sometime as I got it, but anyway, while cleaning the spam now I found this interesting piece. Interesting enough to share with others, so here it is:

Politics explained with two cow analogy:

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons. (Original source unknown)

Ok, but this legend is missing something called ZIONISM, so here is my addition:

ZIONISM: You have two cows. Israel steals them and shoots you. Your son comes and returns back one cow; Israel shoots him and steals the cow. Your son's son comes and returns back one cow, Israel shoots your son's son and steals the cow. Your son's son's son comes and takes back one cow; Israel shoots him and steals the cow. Your son's son's son's son comes and returns a cow; Israel shoots your son's son's son's son and steals the cow. And the story goes on...

So, who likes to share more definitions? Say, Neoconism, Bushism, UNism, etc... Come'n share yours ;-)

[Image credit: Carlos Latuff]

Google, which offers satellite photos of locations across the globe, has agreed to limit the resolution of footage of sensitive military installations and vulnerable sites in Israel. The locations are: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Dead Sea, Masada, the Dimona Nuclear Research Center (DNRC), Sdot Micha (listed as a nuclear weapons base), the Kinneret, and the Mizpe Ramon crater.

Just got this from official Google blog; they announced Google Base. They say it is an extension of their existing content collection efforts like web crawl, Google Sitemaps, Google Print and Google Video. On the other hand, I also came across Google Analytics, which actually monitors your site visitors and promises you to watch how they interact with your site.

I don't know if it's only me. But day by day I try to avoid using Google. I have a feeling that they are growing bigger than any existing Intelligence network, eben dangerous. Think of it, they know everything about you. With all these tools that you use, voluntary, you are actually telling them all what any intelligence service would wish to know about any one. I think I should boycott Google.

New service by Yahoo! Site Explorer allows you to explore all the web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search including your blog. View the most popular pages from your blog and other sites, dive into a comprehensive site map, and find pages that link to that site or any page (similar like if you type �link:www.sitename.com� in the Google search textbox).

Here's an interesting animated map of casualties in Iraq day by day over the past couple of years.

In case you missed it, this is the list of the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries", you should really take a look. Of course, the list was compiled by "a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders."
If anyone hasn't already read any of these (like me) add them to your "to read" shelf. This is the stupidest publicity stunt ever!!

This is Globalization 3.0. In Globalization 1.0, which began around 1492, the world went from size large to size medium. In Globalization 2.0, the era that introduced us to multinational companies, it went from size medium to size small. And then around 2000 came Globalization 3.0, in which the world went from being small to tiny. There's a difference between being able to make long distance phone calls cheaper on the Internet and walking around Riyadh with a PDA where you can have all of Google in your pocket. It's a difference in degree that's so enormous it becomes a difference in kind.

Palestinian youths do not buy mobiles just to hear them ring.

�We send SMS alerts to university students in the Gaza Strip informing them about exam and registration dates and keep them updated on the latest developments in their respective universities. All they need is just o send us their full names, their universities and their mobile numbers."