Yesterday's Title, Today!
First thing's first: yesterday's post title was supposed to be used today. I apologize, and if your name is Father Time, please key in on today's post, as you're mentioned twice and you'll be interested in at least one section.
The week is halfway over, and tonight is the eve of the new year. As we get ready to stay up late to greet the new year as it arrives, and as Mighty Mo prepares to purchase a metric tonne of alcohol, I'm curious about several things. First, if you didn't post your resolutions for 2009 in the comments to yesterday's post, I hope you'll post them today. Second: what was your greatest memory of 2008? Finally: what do you look forward to leaving behind as we pass from '08 to '09?
Instead of starting today off with the news, I'm going to change it up a bit and top load the fun stuff. Today's satellite image is the infamous "Russian Woodpecker" site at Prypyat, Ukraine, near the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site. Long-time shortwave listeners like Father Time may or may not remember a time between 1976 and 1989 in which shortwave and other broadcasts from around the world were horribly disrupted by a semi-clandestine Russian ballistic missile warning system. The pictures of this thing are absolutely stunning, so go check them out.
Today's video is of Jamie Foxx totally zinging a so-called stand-up comedian who should have never been invited to speak. Check it out.
And now, the news.
A lingerie football player is suing her ex-lover Over nude photos that he distributed over the Internet after they'd broken up. The photos include a supposedly unauthorized picture that he took of her performing a "particularly private, intimate sexual act" with him. Folks, in a digital world, it's damn near impossible to control this kind of thing. Unless you know for a fact that you have complete control, don't send naked pictures of yourself to people... Unless you're an attractive young woman and you're sending them to me. (Shush, Father Time, it's a joke.)
Speaking of new and innovative uses for the Internet, Israel is apparently making significant use of online tools in its information operations portion of the campaign against Hamas. This follows heavy online influence on the South Ossetia War in August, and the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November. The mullahs are at it, too: they're using the Internet to register volunteers to fight Israel in various ways, shapes, and forms. Pure propaganda? Your guess is as good as mine. Shia clerics helping Sunni terrorists? Don't anybody go telling the major networks and newspapers, it would shatter their entire world view.
Yesterday, I mentioned a couple of articles that were surprisingly neutral, or even openly sympathetic to the Israelis. There were two more today, one from a commentator for the Guardian, and another for the Times of London. Neither are necessarily dismissive of Israel, but both are sober and realistic: they acknowledge that Israel is responding to an overwhelmingly adversarial and confrontational stance from Hamas that included clear and present danger against Israeli citizens. That, friends, is a telling change of pace. If multiple pundits in London, and in the American media, are acknowledging Israel's legitimate justification for assaulting Hamas targets,
the justification must be pretty damn solid.
In another follow-on to my most recent article about the MEK and Jundallah, Iran's Fars News claims that Jundallah has claimed responsibility for a recent suicide bombing in the Iranian border town of Saravan. Apparently both the MEK and Jundallah are ending 2008 in the news.
Not surprisingly, the Times answered a legitimate and mature article about Israel with a condescending and juvenile tagline about the birth of Governor Palin's grandson: "Bristol Palin and her redneck fiance have welcomed a son - Tripp Johnston, the controversial Republican's first grandchild." Accusing Sarah Palin of being "controversial" aside: redneck? Really? It's lines like that which make it difficult for me to take British journalism seriously.
That's it for today, folks. Don't forget to post your responses to the questions from the first line in the comments section, and check back tomorrow. Have a safe and exciting New Year's Eve, and may 2009 be everything that 2008 wasn't!
The week is halfway over, and tonight is the eve of the new year. As we get ready to stay up late to greet the new year as it arrives, and as Mighty Mo prepares to purchase a metric tonne of alcohol, I'm curious about several things. First, if you didn't post your resolutions for 2009 in the comments to yesterday's post, I hope you'll post them today. Second: what was your greatest memory of 2008? Finally: what do you look forward to leaving behind as we pass from '08 to '09?
Instead of starting today off with the news, I'm going to change it up a bit and top load the fun stuff. Today's satellite image is the infamous "Russian Woodpecker" site at Prypyat, Ukraine, near the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site. Long-time shortwave listeners like Father Time may or may not remember a time between 1976 and 1989 in which shortwave and other broadcasts from around the world were horribly disrupted by a semi-clandestine Russian ballistic missile warning system. The pictures of this thing are absolutely stunning, so go check them out.
Today's video is of Jamie Foxx totally zinging a so-called stand-up comedian who should have never been invited to speak. Check it out.
And now, the news.
A lingerie football player is suing her ex-lover Over nude photos that he distributed over the Internet after they'd broken up. The photos include a supposedly unauthorized picture that he took of her performing a "particularly private, intimate sexual act" with him. Folks, in a digital world, it's damn near impossible to control this kind of thing. Unless you know for a fact that you have complete control, don't send naked pictures of yourself to people... Unless you're an attractive young woman and you're sending them to me. (Shush, Father Time, it's a joke.)
Speaking of new and innovative uses for the Internet, Israel is apparently making significant use of online tools in its information operations portion of the campaign against Hamas. This follows heavy online influence on the South Ossetia War in August, and the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November. The mullahs are at it, too: they're using the Internet to register volunteers to fight Israel in various ways, shapes, and forms. Pure propaganda? Your guess is as good as mine. Shia clerics helping Sunni terrorists? Don't anybody go telling the major networks and newspapers, it would shatter their entire world view.
Yesterday, I mentioned a couple of articles that were surprisingly neutral, or even openly sympathetic to the Israelis. There were two more today, one from a commentator for the Guardian, and another for the Times of London. Neither are necessarily dismissive of Israel, but both are sober and realistic: they acknowledge that Israel is responding to an overwhelmingly adversarial and confrontational stance from Hamas that included clear and present danger against Israeli citizens. That, friends, is a telling change of pace. If multiple pundits in London, and in the American media, are acknowledging Israel's legitimate justification for assaulting Hamas targets,
the justification must be pretty damn solid.
In another follow-on to my most recent article about the MEK and Jundallah, Iran's Fars News claims that Jundallah has claimed responsibility for a recent suicide bombing in the Iranian border town of Saravan. Apparently both the MEK and Jundallah are ending 2008 in the news.
Not surprisingly, the Times answered a legitimate and mature article about Israel with a condescending and juvenile tagline about the birth of Governor Palin's grandson: "Bristol Palin and her redneck fiance have welcomed a son - Tripp Johnston, the controversial Republican's first grandchild." Accusing Sarah Palin of being "controversial" aside: redneck? Really? It's lines like that which make it difficult for me to take British journalism seriously.
That's it for today, folks. Don't forget to post your responses to the questions from the first line in the comments section, and check back tomorrow. Have a safe and exciting New Year's Eve, and may 2009 be everything that 2008 wasn't!
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