Found this video & thought it to be an oxymoron.
They condone violence yet their suggestions through song an chant are equivalent to the “evils” they protest against.
This stuff makes me angry, just who do they think they are? Men and Women dedicate a portion of their lives to help defend the privilidges we enjoy today (including their right to demonstrate) and they are part of the evils by association.
Pah!
We need to redefine “instability”, at least in the context of the Middle East.
If there’s sectarian violence and murder done on a daily basis, how does it make sense to call it instability when it happens again the next day? Seems pretty much like the status quo. We’d like to think that if we in the West just try hard enough, we’ll make the region stable but we’ve missed something - it is stable, insofar as the same thing happens over and over again on a daily basis.
Muslim hatred of Jews and Christians and anybody else not Muslim isn’t new. Neither is Muslim violence new, whether directed inward or outward. How much more stable can you get? Therefore, I declare the Middle East stable.
Now we have to decide if we’re willing to live with it.
I love the quote, “The surest sign of alien intelligence in the galaxy is that they aren’t here.”
A big question that has puzzled scientists is that, if there is extraterrestrial life out there in the galaxy, why can’t we find it? The assertion in this post is that they’re all at home watching “Alien Idol”.
Whether or not you believe in aliens, this observation is brilliant as a veiled commentary on humanity itself. Why aren’t we half way to the stars by now? Why are we waiting for the aliens to come to us? I’ve asked the question before in the context of space tourism - is that the noblest good that our space program can result in?
Our present society is making some very interesting choices for itself. By interesting I mean not good. I think it’s dangerous to accept limitations such as are placed on us by space travel. Not doing things because they are hard is a dangerous precedent to become comfortable with. No culture on earth survived long because it made choices to avoid difficulty. We do so now at our own peril.
I found out about John Ridley a short time ago, and much of what he says makes a lot of sense. Because of my ancestry and the society we live in, I have been labeled and I haven’t any right to say what follows. Therefore I’m putting up links that can be read. These are stories about black society from a black man. THESE ARE IMPORTANT, THOUGHT OUT, & REFLECT SERIOUS PROBLEMS PLAGUING OUR SOCIETY. PLEASE READ HIS WORK!
You don’t have to agree with everything he says. But please READ, THINK, then comment; this is not the forum for raw emotion.
Revolutions of all sorts tend to have unintended consequences - good and bad. Political revolutions can bring about regime change but also tend to usher along purges, repression and violence. The Industrial Revolution brought higher standards of living to the general population with the trade off of environmental degradation. Globalization has brought with it a raft of benefits in availability and cost of goods but has also contributing to abuses of power, people and political instability around the world. Home Depot has single-handedly spurred a home renovation boom while simultaneously dooming “mom and pop” hardware stores.
Progress happens. The negative unintended consequences of progress are the price to pay for the benefits we reap. Hindsight affords us a clarity of vision that allows for the convenient critique of actions that are past changing and gives us the false sense that the negative consequences of progress were ignored, or more conspiratorially, weren’t so unintended.
All that to say this: Digg.com and its ilk are leading us down a road to profoundly negative unintended consequences. I say this now so that in ten years, when my warnings weren’t heeded and the Internet is a smoking ruin, it won’t be such a surprise that this has happened (and I’ll be able to say I told you so).
Digg is to the Internet as Cosmopolitan is to the magazine industry - it is a channel for low value content to be fed to the masses. Digg is to the Internet as Walmart is to the retail industry - it is a channel for low worth content to be fed to the masses.
I’m taking a pretty hard line here, but I’m convinced that Digg sets a very dangerous benchmark. Note that I’m not saying that the idea of a social news site is bad - what I’m pointing out is that by being the mass-market publisher of the Internet, Digg is becoming what so many of us revile: a corporate behemoth, a controlling force, a hegemony that squeezes smaller and better offerings into the shadows.
And make no mistake - the Digg effect on the Internet will be the equivalent of Home Depot forcing smaller stores to close up shop. Small sites dealing in specialty content will find it harder and harder to increase readership because the content they produce won’t be mass-market friendly, thus no exposure on Digg. The inability of small sites to get their quality content onto the front page of Digg will mean that a large portion of the Internet population won’t be able to find real quality content (thanks also to Google in this case).
There is a way out of this. If social news is what the public wants, social news is what they should be given - but I’d like to suggest that social news site software needs to become a turn-key solution much like Wordpress is turn-key for blogging. This will lead to a profusion of social news sites with specialized focus and audiences and will blunt the power of Digg. Instead of relying on Digg’s over-generalized taxonomy of content, smaller offerings can become much more focused and specific, catering to knowledgeable communities of interest, relying on the discernment of those communities and ultimately raising the overall quality of the offerings.
In short, I’m suggesting that the software underpinnings of social news sites should be open-source and freely available. Open algorithms will allow for fine tuning, quality control and should help fighting “gaming”. Easy publishing will mean that catering to specific interests should require only the most basic skills, increasing accessibility.
Digg won’t go away in such an environment, but other and more focused resources will rise up to serve specific demographics that aren’t being well served now. Consider the following example as a demonstration of the benefit that could arise from what I am suggesting:
Aviation Week and Space Technology (AWST) is a magazine with a circulation of just over 100,000. It is sometimes referred to as “aviation leak” because it breaks so many stories in the aviation and space industries. It’s small readership comprises a generally affluent and knowledgeable demographic and so enables AWST to be profitable with prime advertisers and steady subscription rates. In this example AWST represents the specialized interests of a small and focused website.
Popular Mechanics boasts more than 10 times the readership of AWST. It covers aviation and pretty much everything else. The level of the coverage in the magazine is very shallow, leading to little real understanding of what is being discussed and requiring little competence from the reader. In this example, PM represents Digg.
Suffice it to say, I want to see more Aviation Week and less Popular Mechanics in our future. Do you?
I complained previously about not having any real conservative candidates to vote for. Thanks to Human Events Online for deepening my depression.
Congress Returns to Spending Bills Loaded With Pork by Brian Riedl and Michelle Muccio
The gist is that congress, under the rule of the Republicans, is handing out as much pork as ever. Conservatives should be furious over this. Pork is handed out by circumventing the normal process for funding, which means that special interests with lobbyists and the like get money while those with no influence get none.
Regardless of your thoughts on whether the government should be funding anything at all, this is wrong. Money and influence should have no bearing in funding, only the merits of the proposal. Conservatives shouldn’t allow pork simply because it serves their own interests - it will serve the interests of Liberals when the tide of influence shifts in Washington.
Rather, pork should be outlawed. Money already plays too large a role in the shaping of influence and pork only serves to intensify the power of money with our elected officials. Pork is contrary to conservative thought that encourages free competition. Conservatives of the world unite! The only thing you have to lose is the patronization of power-hungry influence peddlers.
Unbeleivable
He was argumentitive from the get go, didn’t follow directions. Seems like he merely wanted to make a staged “statement” more than anything.
Sick.
Use some fancy words in that environment & suddenly your a martyr.
How could this have been avoided? Hrm.
1. Have your ID when & where it’s required.
2. When asked to leave because of lack of ID, leave BEFORE it escalates to Police coming in.
3. Don’t argue, do as you’re asked by Police. Protesting when not appropriate only escalates.
4. Don’t argue, do as asked by Police. Get up. Protesting when not appropriate only escalates.
5. Don’t argue, do as asked by Police. Get up. Protesting when not appropriate only escalates.
6. Don’t argue, do as asked by Police. Get up. Protesting when not appropriate only escalates.
7. Don’t argue, do as asked by Police. Get up. Protesting when not appropriate only escalates.
Really want to get worked up? Check out the comments on digg: http://www.digg.com/politics/UCLA_Releases_Weak_Statement_About_Library_Incident
An observer speaks out: http://messageboard.tuckermax.com/showthread.php?t=12336
I’m troubled, but we will see.
Rooted in Democracy and everyone has a right to know?!
We shall see.