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The "Prince of Pot" on tour

"My point is that everything you can think of water,fatty foods kill you, trans fat kills you, salt kills you, sugar kills... more

JackHerer
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Ireland Makes Blasphemy Illegal [seriously]

* Atheists can be prosecuted for saying that God is imaginary. That causes outrage. * Pagans can be prosecuted for saying... more

meretricis
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My Sister's Keeper reviewed by The Rotten Tomatoes Show

Brett Erlich and Ellen Fox join forces with bloggers, comedians, students and citizen critics to review "My Sister's... more

Ellen_Fox
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Friend ship

The Friend-Ship carries a message for PEACEfestUK

radfax
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Uncharted 2 Multiplayer: No Patches Allowed

On tonight’s episode of GameTrailers TV, Evan Wells and his team, Naughty Dog, revealed a surprisingly awesome fact about... more

JohnDraisey
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Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Berkeley » Resources

To learn more about the situation in Palestine and Israel, feel free to browse through the assorted links below. (Links at the... more

WorldPeaceTV
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EXCLUSIVE clip: ‘Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince’ Wizards Head To The Bar

FROM MOVIES BLOG: Okay okay okay… I know I hinted yesterday that we would be premiering an exclusive clip from from... more

unimatrix0
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How much does it cost to buy every iPhone app?

To buy all 55,732 apps in the app store as of (7/6/2009) it would cost $144,326.06 .. or $2.59 per app ($3.34 if you don't... more

TravG73
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Video game timer knows when to quit

Can't seem to get your kids to stop playing games? A 79-year-old Minnesota man is banking on it. John Morrisey's... more

anglcazn
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FOX News Is #1.... But Why?

FOX News shows own the top eleven ratings spots for cable news. Why are they so dominant? Could it be because there are more... more

Future_America
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Five Ways Natal Will Ruin Halo

Natal may not be as great for Halo as one would think....

Sexirobot
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Mortal Kombat Trailer

The last news about Mortal Kombat (aka Mortal Kombat 3). Watch the movie trailer soon. at... more

teaser_trailer
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Cell phone towers can help predict the next big flood

Researchers from Tel Aviv University say they have found a novel and reliable way to help predict the intensity of the next big... more

TravG73
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The Evolution of Data Encryption Regulations

Massachusetts is taking data encryption regulation to the next level by actually defining what is meant by... more

Paisano1
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Facebook, MySpace: a race/class divide?

Really?
________________________________________________________________________

Speeches, like plays, are sometimes more interesting to read rather than see live.

So I have spent some time staring at the words of a speech recently given by Danah Boyd, from the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society, titled "The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online."

In the speech, given to the Personal Democracy Forum, Boyd picked up utopian views of technology, pinned them against a wall and asked them for a little more than their name and rank.

"For decades," she said, "we've assumed that inequality in relation to technology has everything to do with 'access' and that if we fix the access problem, all will be fine."

She then used the example of Facebook and MySpace to suggest that perhaps people's behavior online absolutely mirrors enduring social divides.

As many Americans use Facebook and MySpace, she said. But which Americans?

Using teens as the indicators of where the world is heading, Boyd described some of her research among them and took the words of one 14-year-old, Kat from Massachusetts, to describe her central thesis:

"I'm not really into racism, but I think that MySpace now is more like ghetto or whatever, and Facebook is all...not all the people that have Facebook are mature, but its supposed to be like oh we're more mature...MySpace is just old."

For Boyd, the sites we go to reflect our idea of what "people like us" do. Another teen, 17-year-old Craig from California, put it extremely baldly (especially for a Californian):

"The higher castes of high school moved to Facebook. It was more cultured, and less cheesy. The lower class usually were content to stick to MySpace. Any high school student who has a Facebook will tell you that MySpace users are more likely to be barely educated and obnoxious."

Boyd, who is also a researcher at Microsoft Research New England (Microsoft being a prominent investor in Facebook), described the migration from MySpace to Facebook as being akin to white folks setting up their own communities. Yes, the places that spawned the allegedly desperate housewife. This wasn't that Facebook was newer or cooler. This was "modern day 'white flight.'"Really? ________________________________________________________________________ Speeches, like plays, are sometimes more... more

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47 minutes ago

Key Issues, Part 4: The Apartheid Wall

The Apartheid Wall Palestinian Child Plays with Toy Car at Apartheid WallIn 2002, the Israeli government announced its plans to... more

WorldPeaceTV
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56 minutes ago

'Pool got my daughter pregnant'

A Polish mum is suing an Egyptian hotel after claiming her daughter got pregnant using their mixed swimming pool. The bizarre... more

zoloftkid
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1 hour ago

Key Issues, Part 3: » Occupation and Its Realities

The occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has continued unabated since 1967. Its impact on the lives of Palestinians cannot be overstated, taking the form of gruesome violence against civilians, the restriction of free movement, arbitrary arrests and detentions of Palestinian men, women, and children, home demolitions, extra-judicial assassinations, and other forms of collective punishment.
Contents

* Restriction of Movement (Checkpoints, Curfews, Road Blocks)
* Home Demolitions
* Mass Arbitrary Arrests and Detentions
* Collective Punishment and Violence Against Palestinians

Restriction of Movement- Checkpoints, Curfews, Road Blocks

Palestinians Wait at Huwarra CheckpointImagine that you must pass through a checkpoint in order to leave Berkeley and travel to any other city, even Oakland. Imagine, furthermore, that hundreds of dirt and concrete obstacles block your access to roads in Berkeley. The impediments to your movement will have a great impact on your daily life.

Imagine, furthermore, that these checkpoints and roadblocks are placed there by the Oregon State Police, who can issue–by decree–any arbitrary regulations about who can pass at what times and under what conditions. There is no legal framework in which you are guaranteed access to medical care, to your workplace, to your school, or to the market. You are at the mercy of the Oregon State Police.

Finally, imagine that Oregon declares all unincorporated areas outside of Berkeley’s city limits to be “Oregon State Lands.” Only the Oregon State Police can grant permits to build on this land, and they have an unstated but very obvious policy of refusing such permitsto any Berkeley resident.

You would inevitably conclude that the checkpoints are inhumane on the one hand, and primarily serve Oregon’s desire to control land in California on the other hand.

For Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, the checkpoints and other impediments to movement are simply a means for Israel to control all activity in the West Bank, particularly land-use policy. They also make it easy to collectively punish the entire Palestinian population on short notice.

Palestinian Taxi Drops off Woman Forced to Cross Dirt Blockage on FootIt is important to understand that the vast majority of these checkpoints and roadblocks are not on the Green Line, which is the de facto border between Israel and the West Bank. Rather, the vast majority are internal to the West Bank, including 27 permanently staffed checkpoints that block movement between different Palestinian cities; 16 temporarily staffed checkpoints manned when the West Bank is put under Israeli closure; 12 checkpoints in the city of Hebron; and hundreds of earth and concrete barriers blocking roads from village to village, from city to city, and sometimes completely preventing any movement outside of a city at all.

These impediments allow for the imposition of arbitrary curfews on the West Bank by Israel. During the second intifada (2000-2005), the Israeli military placed entire villages under curfew if some of the residents were suspected of throwing stones. Towns from which suicide attackers came were treated even more harshly, including cities like Nablus. Curfews, furthermore, were enforced with live fire, in accordance with IDF regulations that were revised to allow for the clamp down of any sort of Palestinian political activity with an iron fist. (Source: B’tselem)

continued belowThe occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has continued unabated since 1967. Its impact on the lives of Palestinians... more

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1 hour ago

Censorship in South Dakota - Marijuana Activist Silenced By Judge as Condition of Probation

For most of this decade, Bob Newland has been the voice of marijuana law reform in South Dakota. The photographer and Black Hills... more

JackHerer
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Trailer Time: Love Happens, The Answer Man, and Informant!

In Trailer Time we show you some of the newest trailers in the theaters and on the web. The Rotten Tomatoes Show is a movie... more

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1 hour ago

Key Issues, PART 2: Palestinian Refugees and the Right of Return

The Palestinian refugees are a largely disenfranchised majority of Palestinians, about half of which live in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the other half of which live in refugee camps throughout the Middle East or have emigrated to other parts of the world. The refusal of the Israeli government to recognize their rights as refugees to return is one of the biggest symptoms of the apartheid regime.
Contents

* Historical Context and the Nakbah
* The Rights of Refugees
* Why Israel Continues to Violate the Rights of Refugees
Historical Context and the Nakbah

Refugee from the Nakba Oversees Refugee CampThe mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 is called the Nakbah, an Arabic word for “catastrophe.” In late 1947, there were approximately 900,000 Palestinians in the area that was called Israel in 1948 after the Declaration. Within a year and a half, around 750,000 of them were driven out to become stateless refugees. Only 16% of the original Palestinian population in the area that became Israel was allowed to stay within the 1948 borders and, after being subjected to martial law for nearly two decades, were finally granted citizenship in 1967.

Palestinians Flee During NakbaThe Nakbah occurred during a war between Israel and a number of surrounding Arab countries. Israeli leaders used this war as an opportunity to shape the demographics of the land they had taken over in their favor, establishing a clear Jewish majority in the area that became Israel. Benny Morris, a leading Israeli historian, writes that at least 24 organized massacres occurred in 1948: “That can’t be chance. It’s a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion [the first Israeli Prime Minister] silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres” (Morris, 2004).

Palestinian Refugee Girl after NakbahThese massacres were used to terrorize the Palestinian population, as villagers were threatened by Israeli military officials that they would suffer the same fate as their compatriots if they did not leave. After the end of the war, the Israeli government used bureaucratic means to deny citizenship for Palestinians who fled so that their refugee status would become permanent and the state’s goals of maintaining a Jewish majority of citizens could be realized.

The Nakbah was not supported by all Jewish parties when it happened. Aharon Zisling, a minister from the left-wing Mapam party, said on June 16 1948: “We are embarking on a course that will most greatly endanger any hope of a peaceful alliance with forces that could be our allies in the Middle East… Hundreds of thousands of Arabs who will be evicted from Palestine […] will grow up to hate us […] If you do things in the heat of war, in the midst of battle, it’s one thing. But if, after a month, you do it in cold blood, for political reasons, in public, that is something altogether different” (Flapan, 1987: 110).

Next subparts below in commentsThe Palestinian refugees are a largely disenfranchised majority of Palestinians, about half of which live in the Gaza Strip and... more