Enough!

Arianna Huffington on how Obama should react to the sleazy, despicable attacks from the Repugs:

The fear of activating the residual racism provoked by the caricature of the "angry black man" should no longer hold sway. As John Cusack points out, over the last 40 years, popular culture has been "filled with images of strong, powerful black actors who have been able to express righteous rage and still capture our affection and respect. From Sidney Poitier to Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Morgan Freeman -- these are men who have the inherent dignity to express the kind of cosmic rage that comes from being human and responding to injustice. They are perceived as authentic and powerful precisely because they show us their anger as they fight for what is right and true and good. If they didn't, we wouldn't respect them."

Picture Poitier as Virgil Tibbs in In the Heat of the Night when Rod Steiger's southern sheriff mocks his "funny name for a nigger boy from Philadelphia" and asks, "What do they call you up there?"

Righteous rage drips from every syllable of his five-word answer: "They call me Mister Tibbs!"

Prescience, from Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: "Well you made her Mr Drayton, I just met her in Hawaii":

Her Maj owns McCain

"The Queen began using a computer in 2006 and regularly emails her grandchildren, although a year earlier she confessed to never having used a computer while conferring an honorary knighthood on Microsoft founder Bill Gates."

"During her reign the Queen has always kept up to date with the latest technology," said a Buckingham Palace spokesman.

"The visit to Google is another example and shows how willing she is to embrace new technology and change."

The Queen gives an audience to YouTube owner Google

McCain was asked by the New York Times if he actually looked at websites. He said his staffers showed him things on the computer, such as Drudge Report and Politico. His wife then yelled at him, during the interview, because he didn’t mention his daughter Meghan’s weird blog.

Asked if he could actually make the computer show him a website, McCain said:

"They go on for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself."

John McCain Looked at the Computer!

By the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith is 82, McCain is 72.

Ellen and Portia's Wedding Day

Pass the Kleenex!

Still here

Of course the world didn't end - despite the fears of Daily Mail readers, including very scared children (sigh - and what does that tell you?).

All that and the LHC has actually not done a collision, wherein the fear lies. This is a great video explaining what it's actually all about.

Insight: the hell of the asylum seeker

The Azerbaijani gay asylum seeker Babi Badalov last week sent out a plea to friends reflecting his appalling situation, caught in the fifth richest country in the world, between destitution and possible honor killing (actually more than possible, his relatives have already made threats). A situation which the Home Office, backed by the Daily Mail etc. considers 'civilised'.

Babi is currently trying to get his case reviewed having been turned down on the basis that he can be 'discreet' once he's 'sent back' (a passive way of describing what will actually happen to this remarkable artist). This is Labour. This is the direction they give to so-called 'independent' judges in asylum cases. Tell them they can be 'discreet'. One face to foreign gay people, another to British ones. 'Be open'/be discreet'. What is it Labour?

I'm sharing this plea from the heart to cut through the chaff and get to the heart of the matter. Jacqui Smith and our government are perfectly content to effectively torture tens of thousands of such people, gay and straight, old and young, in our name.

Well, not in mine.

The Nigerian gay preacher which Babi refers to is the gay Nigerian Anglican church rebel Davis Mac-Iyalla who - indeed - was granted asylum in record time. Good on Davis, but it stinks of hypocrisy.

Yes, it is capitalised and - in the original - in large text. AKA screaming.

HELL-OO HOMEOFFICBASHI JACKGUI SMITH HEAD UNITED KINGDOME MINISTRY INTERNAL AFFAIRS
I AM TIRED TIRED OF PAIN YOU GIVING ME
IT WAS 47 years ENOUGH PAIN HORROW LIFE FOR ME BACK IN MY COUNTRY
A NOW YOU MORALLY TORTURING ME
FOR 2 YEARS
HOW MUCH I SHOULD CONTINIE LIVE WORRY SCARY LIFE HERE
EVERYDAY I AM INTO FEAR
EVERYDAY I AM UNHAPPY WITH HAPPY LIFE AROUND ME
EVERYDAY I HAVE FEAR OF POST MAN WILL DELIVER TERRIBLE NEWS LETTER TO ME FROM HOME OFFICE
EVERY TUESDAY I GO SIGNING I FEEL I WILL GET HEART ATTACK
MY KNEES ARMS FEEL LIKE ELECKTRICAL SHOCK
I AM TERRIBLE AFFRAID THEY WILL DETAINE ME
WHERE I AHVE BEEN ALREADY 32 DAYS IN 4 DIFFERENT DETENTION CENTER AND THEY KEEP ME 3DAYS MORE AGINST LAW DUE TRANSPORT DIDNT COME
YOU GRANTED NIGERRIAN GAY PREACHER IN RECORD TIME
HE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ME
YOU MAKE SOME VERY HAPPY SOME KEEP UNHAPPY INTO WORRY FEAR
HELLO MISS SMITH
DO YOU NOW THAT I AM 49YEARS OLD
I HAVE NOT STRONG HEALTH AND WEAK HEART
DO YOU WANT ME DIED HERE?
I VERY HATE THIS INJUSTIC WORLD!!!

Do something
Home Office email (always note Babi's Home Office reference number: B1234623)
public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
indpublicenquiries@ind.homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Any support will go on Babi's case file.

Petition

Web 2.0 backs up

"I'm afraid that some blogspot and wordpress blogs may still experience delays due to the backlog in our queues, but we are working as quickly as possible to work through."

Which is why Technorati hasn't updated my blog for 15 days.

And there's all those Twitter outages of course ...

Human ghost in the machine?

“We still don’t know where the bottom is”

HT: Crooks & Liars

Mort Zuckerman talking about the Fannie and Freddie Mac bailout.



The bank deregulation fallout (which G.Brown may have had a hand in). Been there, done that?

Here's the legacy for the grandkiddies: disastrous climate change and massive debt. Could we be more selfish?

‘The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.’
John Kenneth Galbraith

Sleazy self-promotion

But oh so timely on the interwebs ...

SpinSpotter + e-ink

Couple of possible game changers lurched onto the scene yesterday. I say lurched because they're not without their faults but - hey - you can see the potential.

SpinSpotter is a Firefox add-on which claims to be able to spot spin in news reports.

Users download Spinoculars, a toolbar that sits atop the browser and lets readers know if the story they are reading has any phrases or words that indicate bias.It highlights those phrases in a big red box, and readers can click to find out what exactly SpinSpotter found wrong with the phrase.

As Scott Rosenberg points out, this isn't actually that easy for an algorithm to do. And he's right on the central point: 'objectivity' is - well - 'objective'.

But anything which helps debunk can only help. And if tools can be devised to do this, good on 'em.

Next is something which is an inch closer to that sci-fi future promised in - owh - 1956?; talking magazines. Esquire used so called e-ink on their 75th anniversary edition. The YouTube of it doesn't thrill very much but - you get the potential ...