Here is an awesome series of photographs for the Boston.com. Incredible photographs of two pretty crazy festivals.
Now this, is fucking brilliant.
Oh Game Journalism. The idiot cousin of the already moronic mass media.
Neat info graphic about body parts mentioned in genres of music.
I quite enjoy reading Andrew Sullivan, and i am strongly sympathetic to his perspective, given that he is clearly an American at this point, but with a very British sense of justice. In that frame of mind he’s been calling for Janet Napolitano to resign, in the face of the US Gov’s failure to stop the Christmas Day Crotch Bomber. But i think that Sullivan’s British sense of justice is getting the better of his good sense about American political dynamics.
I agree in principle that people should be held accountable if they have failed at their job. I too was braying for Alberto Gonzales’s blood along w/ everyone else. But there is an important distinction between the political mechanisms involved in Parliamentary systems of government in the UK and Canada, and the US and that is, the nomination and approval process of cabinet positions.
In Canada and the UK you can have a Defense Cabinet Minister, or Health Cabinet Minister resign, because the Prime Minister can just replace him or her with another member of Parliament (With the Queen’s or the Governor General’s rubber stamp). There is an ample pool of bodies ready and able to fill that cabinet slot. This is distinctly not a possibility in the US (particularly given the current political climate), where each Presidential nominee has to wait out Republican obstructionism in the Senate, even before being subjected the committee process, and then running the gauntlet of the full senate.
In the end it’s true, you could have Janet Napolitano resign on the principle of the matter, but which would you prefer: Secretary Napolitano, now? or a headless DHS for the next 6-12 months?
An amazing blog post/case that shadowfax linked to :D
Nice, Andrew Sullivan published a comment I sent him in full (Thanks Andrew!).
Here’s the comment:
You have quite clearly mischaracterized Morozo’s argument. Morozo’s point is that technology does not INHERENTLY lead to democracy. It may well be that technology helps enabled people with reformist and democratic ideals to organize and communicate. That is not the same thing as what many people presume, that technology will free people.
Morozo’s presentation actually missed the most devastating argument available to him, which is the juncture of two of his other arguments. Repressive regimes may have a favored lever of control, but they certainly have no compunction about using any and every tool available to them. The most devious thing that a regime like china can do is to *both* cultivate blog networks and subcultures which agree with the regime, *and* use the networking property of the internet to identify and shut down networks which are critical.
In doing so, they can claim that there is a legitimate and independent community which they had no hand in creating (literally true), and the predominance of those voices will eventually develop a self-sustaining critical mass, if they are the only voice available to hear. This is about incubating your own virulent crazies by protecting them from counter-arguments.
This is a modus operandi that should look familiar. It’s about controlling the means of distribution, and you can still do it in the age of the internet.
In fact, that is exactly what the USA is trying to do to combat Islamic extremism. They are trying to identify and target extremist networks online, and, in the middle east, prop up and promote organizations and politicians who purport to have ideals concordant with our own.
Technology is just a tool. We, the users, provide its values. There are many aphorisms that are appropriate to this situation. First, that the strongest cage is the one which you build for yourself. Second that Technology may change the terrain upon which we do battle, but the real war is waged within the hearts and minds of men.
In retrospect reading the comment makes me realize two things. The first is that I need an editor (heh). Also that I left out a deeper discussion for the sake of brevity, which i think i will expound upon further.
