Susan Arnout Smith is a writer of thrillers, plays, TV movies, and NPR essays. But for a long time, if you looked her up on Facebook, you would find not the respectable website of a published author, but an obscene, pornographic site of a fake persona “trolling for sex,” she…
Continue reading …The long legal road ahead for Jared Lee Loughner is beginning to take shape. Federal prosecutors will get the first crack at him, followed separately by the state and local cases, reports the Los Angeles Times . So far, the 22-year-old faces only three federal charges—for the attempted assassination of…
Continue reading …For American TV viewers looking to keep tabs on Egypt, there’s really no contest, writes Allesandra Stanley in the New York Times : Keep it on CNN. Rivals MSNBC and Fox are giving lots of air time to the subject, but their coverage tends to degenerate into predictable left-right battle lines….
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Click here to view this media Normally I’m about as interested in Hollywood divorces as I am in grass-growing competitions and NASCAR, but I thought Camille Grammer’s dissing of her ex-husband, wingnut actor Kelsey Grammer, was interesting for what it said about the state of our national discourse and how that filters down into our private lives and personal relationships. Grammer, interviewed early this week on Joy Behar’s HNN show, indicated early on that the two of them no longer saw eye-to-eye politically. And that seemed to be part of a larger drifting apart in the relationship, because they no longer had sex, either: BEHAR: Was it his fault or your fault or both? GRAMMER: It could be both, but it was more on his end. BEHAR: More on his end? GRAMMER: Yes. BEHAR: OK, well then again, good to be rid of him. GRAMMER: [Laughs] You know. I miss intimacy. I think that’s a really important part of a marriage, is to be intimate with your partner. And we didn’t really have that. BEHAR: It really is nice. But cuddling is fun. GRAMMER: Oh, I love cuddling. BEHAR: You didn’t do that. GRAMMER: He was too busy watching Fox News. He didn’t want to cuddle. BEHAR: Well, there’s a real turn-on. Of course, when Fox’s Bret Baier ran an item on this yesterday — minus any video — he was properly appalled: “Fox News has been blamed for a lot of thing, but this probably takes the cake.” And on the superficial level of Hollywood divorces, it would be silly indeed to read too much into this. It is, after all, purely anecdotal evidence from a single relationship. Nevertheless, the general phenomenon she’s describing is a dynamic I believe has been repeated on a massive scale over the past decade and more: friendships, family relationships, marriages and other close personal relationships soured because one of the two people involved has become a fanatical devotee of movement conservatism, particularly through the cultlike auspices of talk radio and Fox News TV — and the other person in the relationship does not. We’ve all encountered it: former college pals, or hometown buds, or old flames, or coworkers, or brothers-in-law, or grandfathers — all convinced now that you’ve become a bad person because you’re aiding and abetting those evil liberals in their attempt to destroy America. And what happens on an interpersonal scale is often ugly. It happens at Thanksgiving tables, at weddings and family reunions, when you go home to visit and see your old friends, or at work with people you’ve been friends with for years. There are several reasons for it. The first is that the relentless message of the right-wing talkers, whether at Fox or on the radio, is simple and unmistakable: Liberals are bad people, sick in their souls, and they want to destroy America and your way of life. Day and day out, that’s the message the True Believers get. And boy, do they believe it. The second is that, as Nicole reported awhile back, it’s been definitively established that Fox News watchers are deliberately malinformed — that is, they believe a broad array of things that are factually untrue, but have been told by Fox News that they are true: Fox News is deliberately misinforming its viewers and it is doing so for a reason. Every issue above is one in which the Republican Party had a vested interest. The GOP benefited from the ignorance that Fox News helped to proliferate. As we’ve explained on many occasions , this kind of rhetoric alienates people from reality — including the people who choose to live in that reality. By functionally unhinging people — there is no other way to describe the effect of persuading people to believe, doggedly and unshakably, in things that are provably untrue, even in the fact of irrevocable factual evidence — it serves to drive a real wedge between them and everyone else, while conversely forging powerful bonds with the like-minded. Finally, it must be understood that the mission of both Fox News and talk radio is not merely to propagandize with disinformation, but also to inflame. This is why conspiracy theories — which, functionally speaking, are narratives intended to induce simultaneous feelings of powerlessness and paranoia — abound on Fox News. There’s no one quite as congenitally angry as a congenital Fox Watcher. No wonder Grammer didn’t want to snuggle. What Fox News does is make people want to go out and beat up liberals. As Joy Behar says: What a turn-on, eh? This isn’t a problem just affecting Hollywood marriages. It’s affecting millions of personal relationships, and in a decidedly poisonous way. Fox News, as Bill O’Reilly likes to say about the “far left,” really is bad for America — bad for our politics, bad for national discourse, and really, really bad for our friendships and family ties, the very real fabric of our society.
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New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority launched a pilot program a few months back that offered bus riders some real-time tracking information, but it’s now expanded things with a whole new program on the B63 route in Brooklyn. That service is currently accessible via a mobile-friendly website or text message, and smartphone users can also scan simply snap a picture of a barcode (presumably a QR code ) at a bus stop to immediately check in on the location of the next five buses that will arrive at the stop. What’s more, unlike the previous program, this new system is based on an open source platform developed with the help of OpenPlans, and the MTA is actually encouraging developers to dig into the API and develop their own solutions — which could certainly get interesting as the program is expanded across the city (the Staten Island bus line is next up). Head on past the break for the MTA’s press release, and hit up the link below to try out the service right in your browser. Continue reading Brooklyn bus riders get real-time bus tracking via cellphone Brooklyn bus riders get real-time bus tracking via cellphone originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Feb 2011 12:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Nokia reportedly planning ‘organizational changes,’ mobile phones exec on the outs
February 5, 2011 No Comment
Looks like Capital Markets Day is shaping up to be quite the barnburner for Nokia. In the wake of news that Microsoft and Nokia may have some sort of tie-up in the works, Germany weekly Wirtschaftswoche is reporting that newly appointed CEO Stephen Elop will be bidding adieu to a number of high-ranking officials. Citing “company sources,” the paper stated that Mary T. McDowell , a bigwig in the mobile phones unit, as well as Niklas Savander, the manager of the markets unit, could be on the outs. Moreover, Kai Oistamo (Chief Development Officer) and Tero Ojanpera, the manager responsible for services and mobile solutions, may also be enjoying their final weekends as Nokia employees. It’s all part of a monumental strategy shift, and if it all pans out, it’ll be Elop’s first major move since taking over as CEO last September . Of course, Anssi Vanjoki more or less left on his own accord , and the company has essentially forged ahead with little to no change since. We’re told that Nokia has hired headhunters to scout top people to fill said slots, but it’s hard to say why Elop feels that new brains are needed. Here’s hoping it’s the start of something… competitive. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Nokia reportedly planning ‘organizational changes,’ mobile phones exec on the outs originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Feb 2011 11:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Egypt: Why 25 January will be a date forever enshrined in the country’s history | Ayman Nour and Wael Nawara
February 5, 2011 No Comment
On the day the people decided to sever their final links with the days of the pharoahs, the rebirth of a nation began 25 January is a date that will be forever remembered in Egypt. That was the day when the Egyptian people decided to end the country’s last pharaonic dynasty with a people’s revolution. Egyptians, it seems, were ashamed that Tunisians did it first and were determined to have their revolution too. Young Egyptians joined the “Khaled Saeed” Facebook group to launch the call for an uprising against tyranny, oppression, torture, corruption and injustice. The group was named after a young Egyptian man beaten to death by police. That call was echoed on other Facebook groups, on blogs and on Twitter. El Ghad and a number of youth protest movements embraced the call from an early stage and started to mobilise support throughout the country. Many sceptics took the view that you cannot set a date for revolution, but although Egyptians are not the most punctual of people, this was a date they kept. On 25 January, Egyptians took to the streets in almost every major town and city. The police tried to crush the protests, but unarmed people stood firm against water cannons, armoured carriers and teargas. Three days later, on the “Friday of rage”, more than a million Egyptians took to the streets in support of the uprising. Anti-riot police used maximum force but finally had to retreat – and then they disappeared altogether, from Cairo and other major cities, in what appeared to be a conspiracy to plunge the country into chaos. The army had to step in and were immediately embraced by protesters, who took photos with them and climbed on to their tanks. Mubarak came on TV that evening, offering a government reshuffle and warning of chaos. The protesters were disappointed and have vowed to remain in protest until their demands are met. This is a revolution of the people. After eight days of protests, Mubarak started to get the hint – that he is no longer wanted as a president by his own people. The president’s termination letter has been sealed by millions of Egyptians. After 30 years of ruling Egypt, the 83-year-old man has clearly become detached from reality. After the November elections last year, when the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) “won” more than 90% of the seats amid reports of widespread fraud and irregularities, the opposition National Assembly for Change developed what is now known as the people’s parliament – a sort of shadow parliament with 100 members from various opposition parties and movements in addition to independents. The people’s parliament elected a committee of 10 members to start a dialogue with the regime in order to put people’s demands into action. The demands of the protesters were beautifully crystallised in two chants: “The people want the regime down” and “Bread, freedom and human dignity”. In political terms, the first demand relates to dismantling the authoritarian regime and installing democracy in Egypt. This means breaking down a culture of corruption emodied in the ruling NDP party, and restructuring the state security police to focus on criminal activities rather than meddle with the political process in defence of the status quo. The protesters also demanded the dissolution of both chambers of the parliament as well as local councils, all of which were elected by a theatrical political process controlled by the regime and its security apparatus. For this to happen, the people’s parliament proposed a peaceful transition of power through negotiating a national unity government of all political forces and protest movements in addition to the military. This transition government should oversee drafting a new constitution and laying out the rules of a political process that allows parties, civil society organisations and unions freely to emerge. This, in turn, can be followed by free and fair elections. New political facts have emerged from this “revolution”. The Egyptian people have demonstrated that they may be patient and peaceful to a fault, but they surely know how to make their voices heard at home and around the world. The way these spontaneous demonstrations took place and maintained a unity of demands, despite the blackout on mobile communication and stoppage of internet service, proves that a new collective conscience has been born in Egypt. In fact, Egypt itself has in these last few days been reborn. Ayman Nour, leader of the El Ghad party, was imprisoned in 2005 by President Mubarak and released on health grounds in 2009. Wael Nawara is a leading Egyptian writer. Hosni Mubarak Egypt Middle East Protest guardian.co.uk
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Tens of thousands of protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square have held their ground after Friday’s “Day of Departure”, continuing to demand that Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, stand down. The government, meanwhile, is attempting to wait protesters out, with Ahmed Shafiq, the prime minister, saying that things are returning to normal in the country. Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher has more.
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