Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Israel solidifies its control over web 2.0
A while back here at Paulitics, I
discussed the campaign by the Israel lobby to pay university students
to agree with Israel in classroom discussions, university clubs and in
rallies.
This
programme and the overwhelmingly pro-Israel North American (and, to a
lesser extent, European) media coverage were however not enough for the
powerful and extremely well organized lobby. The Israeli lobby then
created a desktop application called “Megaphone” about which many political commentators still remain blissfully unaware. Megaphone
serves as a syphoning tool which has the power to instantly send
pro-Israel activists flooding into any online discussion, web poll or
other forum where Israel is being discussed in order to grossly
unbalance the discussion thus creating the impression among Internet
users that Israel’s support is both much wider and deeper than it
actually is. However, as frightening and undemocratic as these two
operations were, they pale in comparison to what the government of
Israel is doing now in terms of making “crimestop” a reality.
The Israeli press is now reporting
that, in addition to the considerable influence of the Israeli lobby,
the government of Israel has decided to marshal its state treasury to
the cause further unbalancing the already obscenely unbalanced debate
over Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories. The
government of Israel will now directly pay pro-Israeli agents and
bloggers to infiltrate online discussions, message boards, online
newspaper comments et cetera with a ubiquitously pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian message.
On Michael Moore
An interesting read about the attacks on Michael Moore and his work.
The last paragraph:
I
am not making a case to support this disgruntled, angry filmmaker and
his search for the truth. You'll never hear me say the following:
"Either you are with Michael Moore or you are against us!" The fact is
I admire him more for taking a stand, for choosing to explore an issue,
even if it isn't 100% factually accurate. Michael Moore is no different
than any other journalist on any news program. He is being attacked,
left and right, for making accusations and pointing fingers, perhaps
stretching the truth to bring forth more debate and speculation. Or
possibly the real reason he is being attacked is because the guy is so
darn successful - he is about as well-known as Spider-Man and that can
raise holy hell for the Republican Party. If the U.S. is making this
man a success, what does it mean for President Bush in regards to the
average voter come Election Day? Who knows what the President was
really thinking when he sat in the classroom for 7 minutes after being
told that America was under attack. Michael Moore doesn't know either,
he only suggests (as he did in his book Dude, Where's My Country?)
And like many of his films, his suggestions spring with humor and
emotion - as he said in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, he
interprets the facts. Michael Moore wants the country to be the America
he remembers. He'll take on anyone, right or wrong, and isn't that what
people used to take pride in - the concept of freedom of speech?
Footnote:
The newest misinterpreted fact has arisen from Michael Moore's true
birthplace - he is actually from Davison, Michigan. This is a little
affluent suburb in Flint, so I suppose he is still from Flint, isn't
he?
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Undead Celebrities
They got it wrong. Elvis is in Hawaii working at a Burger King.
MJ will come back as a zombie of course to star in a remake of Thriller.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
The Most Badass Female Space Pilots of All
Posted because they included Aeryn Sun from Farscape.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Sarah Palin vs. The Internet
How did you spend the Fourth of July? Maybe having a BBQ with friends and family, watching a fireworks show, and generally enjoying a happy patriotic holiday? Batshit-insane American Quitter Sarah Palin ended her own special “Independence Day” by posting a series of desperate grammar-challenged nonsenseFacebook and Twitter pages. Really.
...
Monday, June 29, 2009
Ghotit - Dyslexic Checker for writing
...
For damage control Chermesh started thinking of a program that could help him find the right words he needed, even when the original spelling of how he perceived the word to look was unrecognizable by a spellchecker. He partnered with a technology graduate from the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and they created Ghotit.
...
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
RCMP Overdoing It - Handcuffing An 11-Year-Old Girl
A complaint has been filed against the RCMP after an 11-year-old girl in Fort Resolution, N.W.T., was handcuffed and put in a jail cell, according to the girl's mother.
...
NDP: A record of results for everyday families
At a time when ordinary Canadians are working to make ends meet, or are sadly having to struggle to find work, they need to know their MPs are working for them. That’s what New Democrats have been doing in this session – taking action to get pragmatic solutions adopted and hold the Harper government to account.
...
Effective Opposition: By The Numbers
Fewer than 15 percent of MPs are New Democrats, yet New Democrats have been doing more than 50 percent of the work of private members’ in this minority parliament.
Each New Democrat MP did the equivalent work of 41 Conservative backbenchers, 19 Bloc Quebecois MPs and 3 Liberal MPs.
...The ongoing LIsteriosis saga in Canada
“Twenty-two people died in this country. That cannot be swept under the rug.”
- Wayne Easter on June 18, 2009
...
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
io9 interview with Samuel Delany
Samuel R. Delany has been away from science fiction for over twenty years — and now he's coming back to it, sort of. His new novel Through The Valley Of The Nest Of Spiders is an introspective future history.
When we talked to Samuel R. Delany for our mega-feature about writers we wished would return to science fiction last week, he was gracious enough to stay on the phone and answer some more questions. And since we promised almost a year ago to ask him some of your questions — back when we had a failed game of phone tag with him — we decided to ask as many as we could. Along the way, he told us a lot more about his new novel.
...
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