God pretty much hates you, but LOVES oil

Since sometime long prior to recorded history religious/superstitious wingnuts have loved blaming natural and manmade disasters on the sins of man (and woman - especially woman). Even in the present day. Pat Robertson blamed 9/11 on pagans, abortionists, feminists & gays and lesbians, he also blamed the Haiti earthquake on a Haitian "pact with the devil." More recently Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi said that earthquakes are caused by "immodestly dressed women" a theory that was tested and disproved.

So they have all these bizarre theories that say x causes y and, in the words of Monty Python, "sheep bladders may be used to prevent earthquakes" but what about oil?

So Barack Obama announces in March plans to expand offshore drilling in fact the "largest expansion of our nation's available offshore oil and gas supplies in three decades.” Then on Tuesday April 20 there was an oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexio which killed several people and started a large fire. On Thursday, April 22 the rig sank and an oil spill began. So, although the incident started on Tuesday the oil didn't start spilling until Thursday. Thursday also happened to be Earth Day. Earth Day is a holiday celebrated in the United States since 1970. It was inspired by an oil spill off California in 1969 - the same oil spill that inspired many of the restrictions on offshore drilling (see start of paragraph if I'm losing you at all). Now that oil slick (which is still growing) is threatening fragile ecosystems and the fragile economy of Texas and Louisianna!

WOW! What an amazing string of seemingly interconnected coincidences!

What, you're probably asking yourself if I've set this up properly at all, what are the fundamentalist religious wingnuts saying about this one?? Would you believe um ... nothing. Pat Robertson is a Republican, Republicans love oil. Cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi is Iranian which means that a good chunk of his money comes, directly or indirectly, from oil and apparently neither of them or any of the multitude of other diviners of God's messages to man see anything to comment on here at all.

God may hate pagans, abortionists, feminists & gays and lesbians and immodestly dressed women but god loves oil and those who produce and consume it. Fear not, buy a hummer.

Let's see the iPad compete with this!

Via Boing Boing

Wonderful Generic Comments Still Flowing at Economist - 2 days after original post comes down

A few days ago the Economist posted a non-story. That it it appeared to be a demonstration of how to do a post on their site, which fonts to use, the size various elements should be, etc., I can only assume that it was posted accidentally but the comments started coming anyway. Since the post contained things like Headline Goes Here, sub head goes here and the body of the post only said blah blah blah the commenters responded accordingly. For example:

"Asine and sarcastic comment pointing out the absurdity of this article goes here."

Comment blasting the blantant pro/anti-Israeli and-or pro/anti-Palestinian bias of the article goes here.

Witless newbie question goes here in "ALL CAPS" font

Lengthy rant espousing my own political agenda, assigning blame for the worlds problems and ignoring the fact that the story I'm commenting on is about cricket.

After the end of the day the original post was taken down, but the comments were left in what has become almost a piece of art, a running commentary on the running commentaries that occur online and two days later people are still adding bits and pieces to it.

You can see it all over here.

100 Movies in 200 Seconds

All great films, even good ones, have their magical moments. Although you don't know it's going on at the time the films spend a great deal of time and effort building to those moments. Once you've got them though, once you've seen the film those single lines can bring back the entire experience of the film. So, if you have 3.5 minutes enjoy this YouTube video I found via John Gushue this morning and relive 100 classic films:

Wait?? Bizarro World is Real??? (via MIT)

There is an article today about dark matter at MIT Technology Review large parts of which hurt my brain but the gist of it seems to be that:

"And today, Robert Foot from the University of Melbourne has an even more interesting solution. He says that mirror matter could explain both. "This result adds weight to the mirror dark matter interpretation of the direct detection experiments," he says.

The theory behind mirror matter suggests that every particle in the standard model has a mirror equivalent that interacts with ordinary matter only very weakly.

However, mirror particles interact with each other in exactly the same way as ordinary particles. So in this scenario, the Universe is filled with mirror planets, stars and galaxies. That's a mind blowing idea.

Foot is one of the leading proponents of mirror matter and says other observations also point to its existence.

Perhaps the new evidence will tempt astronomers to look harder. If it exists, mirror matter ought to be observable in other ways. For example, its gravity should bend light causing microlensing events although distinguishing mirror matter microlensing events from the same thing caused by ordinary but dim matter will be hard."

I'm not a physicist or even an astronomer but what they seem to be saying that for everything in the universe - every star, planet, galaxy, etc., there is an equivalent of it in dark matter - but the two kinds of matter (light/dark) have little influence on one another.

How's that for completely fucking with your perception of reality (for a monday?)

Why the Shatner for GG thing is important

If you know me you know that I take things very seriously, especially on the political front - so some were scratching their heads over my vocal support for the William Shatner for Governor General thing.

Personally I really do think he'd do a fine job (if he could actually be convinced to take the job) but it's about more than that. The campaign is important because of Afghan Detainees, Rahim Jaffer and other scandals going back a decade or so. Voter turnout in Canada continues to hit new lows as more people enter the 'none of the above' camp. According to a new poll if there were an election today it would not result in a government - any government. With the Tories and Liberals both sitting at about 30% neither could create anything like a stable minority.

There are also obvious problems with the whole system - the Green Party has more support than the Bloc Quebecois and has no seats (for example.)

So what does William Shatner have to do with any of this?

It's something that people aren't cynical about. People like Shatner. It gave people something to be positive about for a time and, much more importantly, caused people to think creatively about what it is they DO want. People have long lists of what they don't want and that list includes (according to at least 70% of Canadians in every case) every party and leader currently sitting in the house of commons.

After several elections of thinking about what they don't want - looking at a slate of candidates and not liking anything on the menu I can't help but think that thinking positively and creatively about what it is they do want has to be a good thing - whatever you think of Captain Kirk.

By the way - the creator of the group, Matt Hartley of the National Post, shared his thoughts on the matter here - he doesn't seem to see in it what I do but if you happen to be a big player in a political party and are trying to figure out who your next leader should be - he does offer a few clues:

"If you’re looking for someone with masterful oratory skills — well, just imagine the speech from the throne — and someone able to use his star power to bring awareness to causes and issues that are important to Canadians, then Mr. Shatner would be an admirable choice. There’s an endearing immodesty about Mr. Shatner, a joviality to his character and a willingness to not take himself overly seriously. As Canadians, we can certainly identify with that."

One more clue, if you want to avoid the pitfalls that have hurt the fortunes of our last few Prime Ministers - Don't be a sneaky bastard.

An Interview with the Creators of South Park and some images of the Prophet Mohammed

Boing Boing has an interview up today with Matt Stone and Trey Parker about the 200th episode of South Park and the controversy about images of the "prophet Mohammed"



The whole controversy about images of Mohammed is a bit silly to me. First of all I'm not a Muslim so whatever laws they may have don't apply to me. I have nothing against rules - but I refuse to accept the implication that by not following their rules and laws I am somehow biased against them. The reality is that while I do believe in a higher power - I have little to no respect left for any organized religion. Also, because I actually believe in something and don't just pretend to (as some kind of hell insurance) I don't feel the need to convince anyone that I'm right or to accept what I believe. People who feel the need to "convert" others do not, I don't think, actually believe in what they're selling.

I'll also point out that Muslims who believe that it is somehow criminal to depict the "Prophet Mohammed" do not know their own history.

Here is an image of Mohammed



for hundreds of historical images of the Prophet Mohammed - primarily pulled from Islamic art through the ages (he's been a very popular subject for hundreds of years) see the Mohammed Image Archive

the Ewok Celebration Song - Barbershop Quartet Style

Via boingboing

p.s. I don't know about you, but on my screen having the video this size cuts off the e at the end of YouTube making it YouTub - which just sounds friendlier and ... cleaner

Shatner for Governor General Pt. II: Top 10 Reasons

William Shatner for Governor General Part II

Last night I wrote in a fairly tongue in cheek way about the possibility of naming William Shatner the next Governor General. All campiness and jokes aside I think it's seriously a good idea. First of all there are people campaigning to make Bobby Orr the next GG so why not Shatner?

Here are a few good arguments in his favor:

1) He would instantly be the best known Canadian statesman internationally, at the very least since Trudeau - but in many places he would be better known than Pierre ever was.

2) From his start at the Stratford Festival Shatners career in stage, screen and television has spanned 6 decades so far. He is probably the best known Canadian actor and the best known Canadian pop culture figure of the 20th century.

3) In addition to his acting career he's written over 20 books, fiction and non fiction and even released a few albums further strengthening his arts and culture credentials and having done podcasts he even has some grasp of the internet.

4) I haven't heard many political statements from him (except in character as Denny Crane) but from what I have heard - such as the interview with Rush Limbaugh I posted yesterday he strikes me as non-partisan, well informed and reasonable.

5) He would be a great ambassador not only for Canada but for Canadian arts and culture.

6) Although he has spent much of his career working in the United States he has always been proudly and vocally Canadian when the topic came up.

7) Foreign leaders would line up for Canadian visits and Canadian embassy events if only so they could meet Captain Kirk

8) As an actor William Shatner could pretend those foreign dignitaries were interesting

9) With his own cult following and Hollywood connections he could fund raise for charity like no GG before him

10) He has a sense of humor, which can't hurt given the job description

Beyond that it would be a nice recognition for a lengthy career that has brought Canada a great deal of positive attention from the United States and everywhere else in the world where his work is known (which is just about everywhere now.)

I don't know what skills and qualifications the Government is looking for in a GG but it seems to me they could do a whole lot worse and, for Canada as a whole, Shatner would do better than the list of political chronies that is likely on the PM's desk at the moment.

There is a Facebook page here with nearly 10k members - you should add your name

Captain Kirk for Governor General (yes, seriously!)

Canadian politics have been a little dull lately with pretty much everything being consumed with scandals, rumors of scandals, denials and refusals to cooperate with anyone getting any info. So what better way to spice things up than to make Captain Kirk the Governor General?? I'm serious (via Shatner himself) he couldn't get himself or us into much trouble, it's a largely ceremonial role but having Captain Kirk as GG gives us instant international cool factor and would swell the crowds at GG appearances considerably. He likely wouldn't get in trouble anyway, he's actually quite intelligent and thoughtful - watch this takedown of Rush Limbaugh. There is a Facebook Page Here - you should join it!

By the way, it would also mean that we could have a new theme song when the GG put in an appearance:

Happy 4:20 One Toke Over the Line - Lawrence Welk Style

It's somehow fitting that just a few days shy of the Global Marijuana March that a video has surfaced of a Lawrence Welk show performance of the marijuana anthem "One Toke Over the Line" (I found it via CBC Radio 3). I'm guessing that the Lawrence Welk folk were really pleased about a Top 40 hit with the words "Sweet Jesus" in it and probably didn't understand the drug reference but that doesn't make it any less a classic television moment.



By the way, that Dick Dale is not this Dick Dale, if it was this Dick Dale it would have been harder to write off as an accident:

Universal Comic Strip Punchline Discovered

Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing reports that Robert Sinclair has discovered the ultimate punchline for all comic strips. If you're drawing a comic strip and are stuck for a punchline just insert "Christ, What an asshole!." Seriously, watch...







Plenty more examples are available here and here.

Scandals are not going to bring the Liberals back to power

The thing that I think someone needs to explain to the Liberal party is that it is not scandals that will return them to power. Yes the Conservatives are mired in scandal; yes they are being undemocratic and are the least transparent government in recent Canadian history. Most voters remember how deeply the Liberals sank in their own scandals not very many years ago. Most voters, who are paying attention, also know that the Afghan Detainee issue may very well involve past Liberal governments as well as the current Conservative one.

So all of the scandals are serving to diminish Canadians overall faith in Parliament and the Canadian democratic system, but that does not translate into points for the Liberals. As I've pointed out time and time again the Liberals have yet to put forward a realistic, cohesive alternative vision for Canada. Michael Ignatieff keeps saying he's going to do that, but so far nothing at all.

So, regardless of how scandal plagued the Conservatives are, the Liberals get no traction from it.

What voters really want, and they've said this consistently in poll after poll, is for Parliamentarians to get to work doing the business of Canada - the job we sent them to Ottawa to do. Sadly, no matter whom we elect, that is not what happens.

Low voter turnout is partially a result of people not paying attention. There is no point in worrying about that. If people aren't going to pay attention and really understand the issues there is no point in having them vote, we're really better off if they don't. There are also though those who think it makes no difference when they do vote and increasingly those people have a point. To be clear I'm not endorsing staying home on voting day - but the Liberals and the Conservatives, and to a lesser extent the other parties are more engaged in fighting one another and trying to gain points in the polls than they are in doing their jobs.

There seems to be a mindset among those who run for federal office that is not a drastic departure from their power seeking feudal ancestors. They get into power and immediately set about trying to make the other side look bad so they can win points for the next election - what ends up happening amid all the mud slinging is that the entire institution looks bad.

The attitude is further evidenced when they do something they feel is positive for Canada. Inevitably there is a news conference where some government minister (sometimes the Prime one) puffs up his chest, pats himself on the back and announces what a grand thing they've done when in reality all they've done is their job - this is what they were elected to do. It's their job. Their seeming need to stand at a podium and make an official announcement to the press every time they do what they are supposed to as if they should be awarded bonus points for it demonstrates a deep misunderstanding about the role they were meant to play.

What I would ideally like to see is a checklist of what Parliament is going to do over a given period. I would then like to see them complete that checklist in the timeline provided. I would like to see sincere debate, expert testimony, proposals, amendments and counterproposals and ultimately a recorded free and open vote on whatever issue is at hand.

Scandals should certainly be investigated but that is not what I want to hear about during question period - especially in cases where we already know that the Government is not going to answer the question.

All political parties, if they want to restore the confidence of Canadians in our Parliamentary system need to get over themselves, stop pretending they are in a perpetual election and do their jobs. The Liberals, if they want to seriously be considered for government again, needs to outline what it is they believe in, what about it is different from the Conservatives and what their plans would mean for Canadians. The Liberals will return to government if and when Canadians decide they are good for Canada. They will not return to power simply because they've demonstrated that the Conservatives are corrupt. That we already know.

Comedy: Mr. Deity & Jesus disagree on some Biblical plot points

Way more Mr. Diety here

How Google will take over the world

Google is, I'm pretty sure, going to take over the world and that may not be a bad thing for consumers. If you look at the full line of Google products at this point it covers nearly everything. The Google search engine, Blogger, YouTube, the Google Chrome internet browser, Google desktop, their new Android smart phones, Google Earth, Google Maps, Feedburner, Google News, Book Search and Gmail are only the very tip of the iceberg. There is a list here.

Now Google is branching out still more - today while they were telling newspapers that everything is fine they were also laying the groundwork for Google TV - this is, of course, part of the reason that Google is building it's own high speed network - up to 100x faster than anything available now.

To date Google does everything except create content. They take everyone else's content, make it as available as possible and then share the ad revenue they make off of it. They've been remarkably successful and remarkably profitable.

I wonder though how long Google will stay out of the content business. I've frequently commented here on traditional media's seeming inability to adapt to the new realities of the online world. Google on the other hand has adapted so successfully that they now, in many cases, make the rules - they shape the environment that others have to adapt to. Meanwhile the large media companies that make the content that Google serves up are becoming less and less profitable, and less and less valuable as companies.

It makes me wonder if Google is watching the decline and biding it's time. Is it possible that over the next decade that Google might decide to buy Time-Warner, EMI, the New York Times, Bell Globe Media, and dozens of other struggling media companies? I think it's not only possible but also likely. It would instantly end any questions about copyright and Google's ability to do as it likes with the content. Why haven't they done it yet? They don't need to. Every year most of the 20th centuries large media companies (in every media) become less profitable than the year before. Google has no need to rush - the longer they wait the less they will need to pay.

Give them another 20 years and Google Earth may be more than an application. From a consumer standpoint though things could be much worse. So far Google has managed to serve up what consumers want (everything) at a price they are willing to pay (free) and has stood up, even to international superpowers, against censorship. No one else has come close to that.

Prominent British Authors seek to prosecute Pope

According to the National Post british author Richard Dawkins and journalist Christopher Hitchens have hired a lawyer to attempt legal action against Pope Benedict during a papal visit in September:

"In an email to Reuters, Mr. Stephens said there are three possible approaches: a complaint to the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands, a private or public prosecution "for crimes against humanity" or a civil case.

They will argue that the pope does not have diplomatic immunity from prosecution as a head of state because the Vatican has "permanent observer status" at the United Nations rather than full membership and voting rights"

Read more at the National Post

I wish them luck in their endeavor. Although all of the allegations have not been proven yet, the accusations are so widespread and cover such a long period of time that something must at least be tried. I am all for freedom of religion but the repeated, widespread and systematic abuse by representatives of the Catholic Church and the Vatican's repeated interference in and refusal to cooperate with investigations, as well as their tendency to hide behind freedom of religion and diplomatic immunity to protect repeat abusers of children have, in my mind, disqualified them as a religion.

International law enforcement agencies should work together to seize documents and prosecute anyone and everyone involved in abuse or concealing abuse.

Canadians Evenly Split on Can-Con Requirements: Poll

Via CanCult: The Canadian Journalism Project is reporting that Canadians are nearly evenly split on whether Can-Con requirements are still needed:

"One half (47%) of Canadians say they 'value and care about having more Canadian content made and broadcast because it fosters our national culture and it is critical to promoting our unique identity as a people'. However, the other half (53%) more closely agrees with the sentiment that 'we should stop worrying about and imposing Canadian content rules on the TV industry because we know what our identity is and we should just care about and value creating good entertainment that anyone will tune into, and if it happens to be Canadian in content and/or production, all the better'."

It is interesting I suppose but I can't help thinking that it's a bit like arguing over horse & buggy regulations in the age of the automobile.

Currently anyone with a decent internet connection and a little know how has access to just about anything they might want to watch or listen to from anywhere in the world, on demand, all the time at little or no cost. The audience for the box in the living room that you flip channels on is declining and will continue to decline year over year until it is no longer profitable to "broadcast" anything. Meanwhile you can take the same programming, put it on a server and deliver it to an audience of 6.5 billion potential viewers/listeners.

The opportunities for Canadian artists and content creators have never been better. As for television and Can-Con requirements it really doesn't make much difference to me. It doesn't make much difference to, as I said, anyone with an internet connection and a little know how. I will point out though that in the long run there is no future for "re-broadcasters" the only revenue will be in original programming.

The U.S. networks will be able to make all of their programming available online to Canadians and will not need CTV or City to do it for them. In fact they will have few incentives to even allow CTV or City to offer up the same programming. Even successful production houses (Alliance Atlantis, creators of CSI for example) will not need a "network" to broadcast their programming. They will be able to deliver it directly to the audience without any help. That's the future and arguing over Can-Con requirements is becoming more pointless by the day.

The full results of the Ipsos-Reid survey are here.

CBC Takes Another 12.6 Million Dollar Hit

It was announced today that the CBC is taking another 12.6 million dollar hit to it's funding:

"The CBC and Radio-Canada will get $96.5 million this year from the new Canadian Media Fund — $12.6 million less than they got last year to finance independent television productions.

Heritage Minister James Moore announced last week that the fund for creating Canadian content for TV and new media had been boosted to $350 million.

But funding for English-language programming at CBC is to fall by $8.9 million in the 2010 broadcast year, CBC president Hubert Lacroix revealed Wednesday in a memo to employees. Funding for Radio-Canada programming is down $3.7 million."

More at CBC News

As much as I like the CBC the reality is that CBC television is not funded at a level that enables it to do what it is trying to do - run a commercial television network.

It is funded at a level that would let them create a sort of national version of TVO - with alot of documentary, public affairs and talk programming, with some film and other arts programming thrown in. They are funded on a level that would allow them to be a television version of CBC Radio One. They are funded at a level that would allow them to become a leading producer of audio and video content for the web if they chose to give up traditional broadcasting but they are not funded at a level that allows them to produce comedy and drama on a regular basis.

I know that "commercial broadcaster" implies that ad revenue would give them what they need to produce programming, but that simply isn't the reality. Canada has a market that is 1/10th the size of the United States meaning that advertisers pay considerably less and since the recession television ad revenue is down across the board, a trend that is likely to continue indefinitely as audiences migrate to the internet and away from traditional television.

If voters want a sort of a Canadian version of the BBC then we need a government that will increase the CBC's funding to something on the level of 4-5 times (that is not the Conservatives and likely not the Liberals either.) Otherwise the CBC needs to decide, based on the funding it does get, what it wants to become and what it is isn't an option.

Truthout: US Soldiers in Iraq told to shoot first ask questions never?

In the wake of the collateral murder video that has gone viral since Sunday more and more accounts from civilians and soldiers are coming out. According to an article published today on Truthout the rules of engagement for US soldiers in Iraq was remarkably lax:

""During the course of my three tours, the rules of engagement changed a lot," Washburn's testimony continued, "The higher the threat the more viciously we were permitted and expected to respond. Something else we were encouraged to do, almost with a wink and nudge, was to carry 'drop weapons', or by my third tour, 'drop shovels'. We would carry these weapons or shovels with us because if we accidentally shot a civilian, we could just toss the weapon on the body, and make them look like an insurgent." ... "One time they said to fire on all taxicabs because the enemy was using them for transportation.... One of the snipers replied back, 'Excuse me? Did I hear that right? Fire on all taxicabs?' The lieutenant colonel responded, 'You heard me, trooper, fire on all taxicabs.' After that, the town lit up, with all the units firing on cars. This was my first experience with war, and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the deployment." ... An act that took place quite often in Iraq was taking pot shots at cars that drove by," he said, "This was not an isolated incident, and it took place for most of our eight-month deployment."

The full article is here

CBC Archives: Malcolm X on Front Page Challenge, 1965

CRTC Audit of Community Channels show serious abuses

According to Mediacaster a CRTC audit of cable community access channels shows serious abuses by the cable giants (and even smaller cable cos.) From Mediacaster:

"The CRTC audits do indicate that Cogeco, Rogers, Shaw, and Persona all classified staff-produced news and other programming-even MTV promos in one instance-as "access programming", the association adds. Some Eastlink systems reported no access programming at all.

"The CRTC's data show that Canada's 'community' channels have become promotional tools for cable companies," said Catherine Edwards, spokesperson for CACTUS. "Canadians should know that cable companies collected more than $120 million from them last year so that they could have an entry point into their own broadcasting system, but very little of that money is being spent on training or access." In 2004 the CRTC concluded there did not "appear to be any promotion of community access on any of the channels monitored."

Rogers routinely exceeded the maximum of two minutes per hour of promotional ads allowed (sometimes by as much as seven minutes), CACTUS describes in its analysis of CRTC audit stateements, and it doubled the 15-second limit for sponsorship messages. Its OHL hockey program contained 24 ads in one episode and another 41 two nights later-but none of the ads were indicated in the Rogers logs. As for On Line with Rogers, aired in Guelph, the CRTC wrote the hour-long show was "similar to an hour long promo of their services."

Community channels were created in the 1970s to enable Canadians to actively participate in their own broadcasting system. The CRTC's current policy requires cable companies to ensure that at least 30% of their community channels' schedules consist of "access program": that is, produced by members of the community. The companies have been having difficulty meeting this minimum (reporting only 27% access production last year)."

This is just the latest in a series of abuses of power by cable companies. It is becoming more and more apparent that Canada's large cable companies and ISPs cannot be trusted to operate in the public interest or even within the law in many cases.

The Canadian government and the CRTC need to take steps to increase both regulation and competition including forcing Shaw, Bell and Rogers to sell off some of their existing capacity to new players.

Is Wikileaks the Future of Journalism

The U.S. based Foreign Policy is asking the question, but after this weekend I cannot imagine that there are many in the business who aren't asking. With few exceptions (and without exception in North America) television journalism has become toothless in the 21st century and newspapers are migrating to the web as their primary medium. What separates Wikileaks is it's complex international nature that allows it to protect its sources and to operate outside the reach of any single organization (public or private) that might try to censor or control them:

"The diffuse, international nature of the organization has protected Wikileaks from the fate of other organizations that seek to expose wrongdoing by powerful interests. It prints no paper, but instead stores its articles online in Sweden, where journalists are required by law not to reveal sources. Its domain name, wikileaks.org, is registered in California, where the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation intervened when an aggrieved Swiss bank tried shut the site down."

Read the whole article at Foreign Policy

Wikileaks is at wikileaks.org

If you still haven't seen the collateral murder video you can watch it here or download it here.

Is YouTube controlling what "goes viral"?

The Collateral Murder video published by Wikileaks had only 359 viewers this morning when I first watched it. Now, about 8 hours later - after being widely discussed on social media, published to a number of blogs including Huffington Post and Boing Boing and being covered by a large number of news media including the BBC and Al Jazeera it has 359 viewers. That means that after 8 hours of coverage on traditional and social media - reaching millions of viewers/readers no one has watched it - not one person.

It's possible that this is a technical glitch on YouTube's end but given the nature of the video it raises disturbing questions. Is YouTube (Google) deliberately trying to control the popularity of videos on the site? If so what is this control based on and does the US Government or the Pentagon have a role to play?

Video: Collateral Murder: US military killing journalists in Iraq

Via Jules Penner and Wikileaks. This video, shot from a US helicopter, shows two Apache helicopters killing two reuters journalists in Iraq along with a number of other civilians. While a few of the people appear to have weapons they do not, at any point, appear to be trying to engage the US military nor do they appear at all concerned about the helicopters circling them.



Just in case this file should disappear from YouTube for any reason I've placed the .mp4 on MediaFire and have created and uploaded a Torrent file to that site as well.

Help make sure that this video doesn't get dissapeared by grabbing the MP4 at http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?n0z0cneqm0z and/or the Torrent file at http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?m1mmynywjdz and spread them around.

Not excited about the iPad? Don't feel bad, I'm not either.

The internet is all abuzz today about Apple's new iPad but, while I can see what it does to make life better for Apple I can't really see what it does for me. Sure it's pretty but I primarily use my computer for work - to do things with and personally I work better with a full keyboard and I'd rather have the screen directly in front of me rather than laying flat on the table.

I know that in order to maintain their profits that tech companies have to periodically come out with a great new thing - but in this case I'm not really seeing what it does that a laptop or netbook doesn't do.

On my laptop I can write, keep in touch with friends, do social media, listen to music, podcasts, and radio watch movies, tv shows, and internet video. I can participate in social media, keep up with news and current events via my RSS reader. I can also create, edit and publish audio and video files. I can, and often do, multi-task - doing several of these things simultaneously. Does the iPad let me do any of this better, smarter, faster or more efficiently? If it does no one has explained how.

I understand that it may be better to hold in your hand while reading eBooks, magazines and newspapers but I generally prefer RSS for newspaper and magazine articles, I keep up with a few dozen news sources that way - skipping over the articles that I don't care about and reading the ones that I do. In this way I keep up with current events - local, national and international news and I do it in a fraction of the time I used to devote to the evening news.

As for eBooks - I can put those on my computer and I can put them on my phone. I also have an old Palm with a 4 gb card in it loaded with eBooks. In reality though most of the eBooks I have I use for reference. Books I read for pleasure are almost entirely still on paper. Do I need to switch to a seperate electronic device for reading? No, I don't need to. At a cost of nearly $1000 am I tempted to make the switch? No not really.

I'm not typically a luddite. I love technology! But this, to me, doesn't really take anything forward. It's not really a step forward and is - in some ways a step back. I'm also not a fan of 3D and I with all of the iPad hype, including at least a few people speculating about 3D iPads I keep getting this picture in my head of people walking down Queen street with a bluetooth earpiece in, wearing 3D glasses and headphones staring at their iPads (obviously crashing into light poles, into each other and getting hit by cars alot.)

When I ask myself "in what way does it advance society, culture or my life" the only answer that ever comes up is "it doesn't." I can see why newspapers, magazines and even some book publishers are excited about it. They see a chance here for survival - but that is all an illusion. There is a whole lot of free out there and the number of people who are going to choose something they have to pay for simply because it looks nice on their new iPad is small and won't last long.

As a geek I'm always excited to see what the next new game changing technology is going to be but neither the iPad nor 3D are it. I might have an iPad, or something similar, eventually but only if the price comes down substantially and even then, in my life, it would be a toy not something that seriously changes anything for me.

Not at a Tea Party - the Oath Keepers could represent real danger to U.S.

Think the Tea Partiers are creepy? Check these folks out. Via Media Freedom International:

"Oath Keepers is one of the fastest-growing “patriot” organizations on the right. Founded April 2009 by Yale-educated lawyer and ex-Ron Paul aide Stewart Rhodes, the group has established itself as a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement that includes Tea Partiers, Birthers, and 912ers. There are scores of patriot groups, but what makes Oath Keepers unique is that its core membership consists of men and women in uniform, including soldiers, police, and veterans. At regular ceremonies in every state, members reaffirm their official oaths of service, pledging to protect the Constitution—but then they go a step further, vowing to disobey “unconstitutional” orders from what they view as an increasingly tyrannical government.

As of mid-January, according to Rhodes, Oath Keepers had at least one chapter in every state and was adding dozens of members daily. Some 14,000 people had signed up as members on the Oath Keepers website while more than 15,000, including dozens of military recruiters, had done so on Facebook."

There is no point in remaining in Afghanistan any longer

Canada should begin to withdraw immediately and not wait until 2011 - so should everyone else. Why? Because the best case scenario at this point is that, regardless of the military outcome - even if peace is made with the the Taliban - even if the Taliban is completely destroyedwe will leave in place a corrupt government with no respect for human rights. In the last 24 hours it came to light that the Afghans deliberately blocked Human Rights inspectors from checking on Prisoners. Today Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who only got re-elected through wide spread vote fraud, claimed that it was in fact UN election observers who committed fraud and kept him from winning an even larger majority.

During his speech Thursday, Karzai acknowledged there had been "vast fraud" in the August vote, which returned him to office for a second, five-year term. But he blamed the fraud on the UN and other foreign organizations, which he suggested were part of an international conspiracy to deny him re-election or tarnish his victory.

Chairman of the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, Grant Kippen, gestures during an interview with reporters in Kabul in October 2009. (Musadeq Sadeq/Associated Press) "No doubt, there was huge fraud. There was vast fraud. The fraud is not by the Afghans. This fraud has been done by the foreigners," Karzai said, including officials of the UN, the European Union and "the embassies here in Kabul."

This is after U.S. President Obama went to Kabul personally, just a few days ago, to tell Karzai to behave himself.

So the best case scenario on Afghanistan is that we leave in place a corrupt government that cannot conduct a fair election, that is ruled by brutal warlords and that has no respect for human rights and no more respect for women than the Taliban had.

When the Afghan mission began it was to "get Al Qadea" - we didn't, or at least we didn't get it's top leaders. Then we were going to fix human rights and make Afghanistan a better place for women and it's now clear that that isn't going to happen either.

Perhaps if the Harper Government had been more honest about what exactly was happening over there it could have ended sooner but it is clear that nothing worthwhile is going to be accomplished in Afghanistan and it is difficult to say what is accomplished by being there for another year.

EMI headed for the Boneyard - Filmmakers decide to join them.

According to the CBC EMI's creditors may be taken over by it's bankers for failing to secure some needed funds:

"EMI, which has the Beatles, Coldplay, Lily Allen and Pink Floyd on its books, had hoped to raise approximately $309 million US by offering its rivals a five-year licensing contract.

A source close to both sets of talks, who requested anonymity because the discussions were private, said Thursday that they fell apart after a failure to agree on price.

That leaves EMI, owned by private equity group Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd., battling to raise $185 million by mid-June to meet its commitments on loans from U.S. bank Citigroup."

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Meanwhile a group representing filmmakers - the U.S. Copyright Group has decided that the music industry's real mistake was not suing enough people. They have launched lawsuits against 10,000 torrent users and announced that they have 30,000 more in the works - which means that they are already suing more people than the music industry ever did. Look for those filmmakers soon in a natural history museum near you.

"Every Oscar-Winning Movie Ever" in 3.5 minutes

Via John Gushue this 3:29 clip from Cracked takes a literal video approach to American cinema: