But perhaps you live in Lebanon and have a yen for different scent, one that reminds you of Hezbollah. How about buying “Resistance Perfume”? It’s unisex, it sells for only $1, and it

comes “exclusively” with a political message and a picture of Hizbullah’s secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Apparently, the scent of resistance is a strong and musky one that comes with a single pledge - “a truthful” one.

“You are the truthful promise … and I have great faith in you and I promise you divine victory,” is the perfume’s slogan, borrowed from one of Nasrallah’s speeches during the July-August war with Israel.

A digitally manipulated picture of a sinking ship, meant to represent the Israeli warship damaged by a Hizbullah missile during the conflict, along with reprints of Nasrallah’s speeches and messages from the “Lebanese prisoners in Israeli prisons” - are all part of the perfume’s package, turning a cover into a political message.

It’s the “green” choice too, by the way:

“We can put popular European brands” in the “Resistance” bottles, he said. “Versace, Chanel, Escada, white musk, floral scents, whatever scent you want, you can get.”

You can read all about it here: “New Perfume Smells Like ‘Divine Victory” ***

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*** The headline refers to Hezbollah’s propaganda campaign, begun immediately following Israel’s smashing of Hezbollah strongholds to smithereens. The ad campaign proclaimed, in French, Hezbollah’s “divine victory” over Israel. I wrote about it here, and I’ll be writing more about propaganda and PRopaganda(TM). They go hand in hand with infotainment.

Usually I’m annoyed by the posters at Matthew Yglesias’s blog for their simpleminded parroting and cheerleading of whatever politically correct “liberal” or “progressive” position young Yglesias stakes out for them.

Yglesias has a tic. When he’s against something, he tends to prounounce it a “bad idea.” (Don’t believe me? do a Google search of “Yglesias” and “bad idea.”). Usually, the things he considers “bad ideas” are “bad” because they can’t be reconciled with a (politically correct) “liberal” worldview. Color me deeply unimpressed by this kind of circular ideological “reasoning” from an otherwise bright-seeming and knowledgeable Harvard graduate who is quoted admiringly all over the blogosphere.

So there’s that. But today I’m annoyed at the gang over there for dissing the Nintendo Wii because it requires—gasp!—physical exertion.

Yglesias writes:

there’s something odd about a video game system that’s actually physically strenuous. I got into some monster rallies playing Wii Tennis and I think I hurt my elbow.

One of his commenters responds:

the whole idea of a video game that involves full-body physical motion is just…unsettlingly “cyber” to me, like that factory in China where people have full-time jobs farming characters for online RPGs, or the very existence of Google Earth.

I want all this disturbing William Gibson stuff to go away. Bring on the global warming and the peak oil! Luddites, arise!

Fer chrissakes! Nintendo created a device for getting that gets young Americans off their asses to do some physical activity. What the hell is wrong with that in a nation of obese children?