It’s funny how sometimes I discover current events based on keyword searches in my blog visitor log. This time the FBI spyware case drove readers to my old post, so I thought I might as well re-post it here. Click to watch the video.
Billary Coming to the Valley
Posted on May 30, 2007 ·
Hillary Billary Clinton is coming to Silicon Valley – she’ll be speaking at Applied Materials tomorrow.
(hat tip: Silicon Valley Watcher)
US-funded Reconstruction Projects Fail in Iraq – After being Completed
Posted on April 29, 2007 ·
“In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle”. – reports the New York Times.
The reconstruction programs were designed partly to rebuild what the Army destroyed in the first place, partly to promote goodwill to the United States. Yet another Mission accomplished. 
Fox News Out-Foxed Themselves
Posted on April 4, 2007 ·
This is hilarious: Fox News ran an April Fools’ poll to see who “the most foolish American” was.
They announced the winner… drumroll: Britney Spears, with 33% of the votes. Too bad they forgot to cover the the real winner: President George Bush, leading the pack with 40%. Watch it on .. where else, but Youtube.
Conservapedia: an Exclusionist Wikipedia-Clone
Posted on March 5, 2007 ·
And I thought Wikipedia’s deletionists were exclusionist. Oh, boy, was I wrong… the real exclusionists created their own Wikipedia-clone:
“Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American… Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America.”
How can it possibly be an objective source of “historical, scientific, legal, and economic topics” by excluding the views of the majority of the World?
As for Christianity and America, I hate to bring this to the Conservafolks, but Christianity really, really did not originate in America. Not that Conservapedia’s entry on Christianity explains anything – you’ll have to check out Wikipedia for that.
Conservapedia doesn’t fare any better on the *minor* [sic] contribution to history, science, culture, architecture ..etc by pre-Christian civilizations like Egypt, China, Greece ..etc. For example here’s the entire entry on Egypt:
“The oldest non-nomadic civilization in the world which still exists today. Egypt is located in north-east Africa. ”
Greece does not do any better:
“The collective term for the civilizations of the Greek subcontinent.”
Nice. Concise? Pathetic.
Conservapedia started as a school project. (Again, we have to visit Wikipedia, not Conservapedia to learn this). I’m sure eliminating diversity, filtering out most of the World’s knowledge is the best way to improve our kids’ education. As if America were not already falling behind in education. My advice to the Conservafolks: get Senator Ted Stevens on board.
Tags: wikipedia, conservapedia, religion, christianity, diversity, wikis, bigotry, conservatism, exclusionism
Hate Speech in the Presidential Campaign
Posted on March 3, 2007 ·
This campaign hasn’t really started, but it has reached a shamefully low point when Ann Coulter publicly called Senator John Edwards a faggot.
This may not be such a surprise, considering that in the past she made similar remarks about Al Gore and Bill Clinton. What’s really, really bad though is that she made the speech from the podium of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) attended by several GOP Presidential candidates and VP Cheney – and the audience was cheering. C’mon, anyone with a sense of decency should have left the room.
Notably absent was Senator John McCain and so far he is the only Republican candidate publicly denouncing Coulter’s remarks.
This campaign is off to an ugly start.
Protecting Children in the 21st Century by Tossing them Back to the 19th Century
Posted on February 15, 2007 ·
I don’t understand this uproar. Of course Senator Ted Stevens is right. Social networking sites should be banned. The Internet, too. And TV. In fact, let’s ban electricity. Books should be burned, except the Bible. All children should wear a black uniform, their heads shaved bald. Libraries, schools closed, children should only go to church. Wait! Have they not been sent to re-education camps yet?
(I’ll be back with more great ideas after getting some inspiration from here)
Sutter Health Committed a PR Suicide – Firing Military Hero Nurse
Posted on January 24, 2007 ·
Lieutenant Colonel Debra Muhl of the U.S. Air Force Reserve got fired from her job at Sutter Health two days after she told her supervisor she was being deployed to Iraq. Now she filed a lawsuit.
“Colonel Muhl is an honest-to-goodness war hero,” her attorney said. “She has treated thousands of wounded individuals and service members …”
Sutter Health insists that Muhl’s termination was based on internal economics only.
While I’m not qualified to comment on the legal merits of the case, I do recognize a major blunder when I see one. Whether the firing was lawful or not, the PR nightmare of firing a military hero (and wherever we are on the Iraq war issue, we have to recognize her as such, not being in an active combat position but saving lives) .. anyway, repairing the PR damage from firing a war hero will far outweigh the savings from whatever “internal economics” Sutter Health referred to.
Sutter Health could not have made a more stupid decision.
(full story at the San Francisco Chronicle)
Tags: sutter health, military, reservist, USERRA, PR Blunder, PR nightmare, PR suicide, Iraq, war, iraq deployment
Pentagon Sells Arms to Iran
Posted on January 16, 2007 ·
The US Military is selling fighter jet parts to Iran. No, this news is not from the 70’s, it’s from 2005.
The process is really simple: sell > confiscate > resell.
“In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department’s surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again — customs evidence tags still attached — to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.”
Now, you might say the Pentagon’s surplus store (Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service) is not selling directly to Iran, only to middlemen. That’s certainly the bureaucrat’s defense:
“”The fact that those individuals chose to violate the law and the fact that the customs people caught them really indicates that the process is working,” said Baillie, the Defense Logistics Agency’s executive director of distribution.”
Hm… let’s think for a minute. Is it safe to assume that only those who operate F-14s would be interested in buying spare parts? I thought so. The only problem is, that since the Pentagon retired the F-14 Tomcats, Iran is the only country still flying them.
The process is working, after all. (read the full story on CBS News)
Yahoo Falling Behind – Literally
Posted on December 29, 2006 ·
And I thought getting 3-4-day-old news was bad enough. Naive me … today my.yahoo.com is serving up 3-week-old “news” from various sources:
According to Yahoo the Fiji military coup just happened, Saddam probably has a few more weeks to live, and we won’t be ringing in 2007 for a few more weeks.
Or is this already the “2006 in retrospect” site? 
Recent Comments