In a biting piece of Israeli comedy, this video shows an Israeli kindergarten that teaches, for example, the perils of disillusioned leftism and the proper way to describe an Arab (“Sorry, I meant demographic threat”). Related Entries January 5, 2011 Israel’s Lieberman Says Peace Will Have to Wait December 31, 2010 Former Israeli President Katsav Convicted of Rape
Continue reading …The IRA Can’t Be Terrorists! Rep. Peter King Has A Strange Double Standard
January 8, 2011 No CommentIt’s okay to be confused about Peter King’s fluid definition of “terrorist.” Basically, it’s any violent group to which he doesn’t relate on a personal level: Now that Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., has assumed the chairmanship of the House Homeland Security committee and is promoting hearings on Muslim “radicalization,” there’s been a burst of media coverage surrounding his decades-long support for the IRA, the Irish terrorist group, which he broke with only recently, in 2005. But for Tom Parker, an official at Amnesty International in Washington who hails from Britain, the distaste for King is personal. As Parker notes in a new Op-Ed, and explained further in an interview with Salon Thursday, he survived an IRA terrorist bombing in 1990 when he was 21. “I have no problem with his support for a unified Ireland. What really bothers me is the hypocrisy of the man,” says Parker, who is now policy director for terrorism, counterterrorism and human rights at Amnesty International USA. It was King’s designation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a terrorist that prompted Parker to go public. Parker himself is critical of Assange, “but to call him a terrorist when you have supported people who actually blow stuff up, it seemed to me that that was really beyond the pale,” he says. “This is a guy who is happy to bully other people when he has a whole crowd of skeletons in his closet on this issue.”
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Arizona is at it again. A controversial law governing ethnic studies programs has taken effect in the state. The first victim: the Tucson school district’s Mexican-American program. —JCL The New York Times: The class began with a Mayan-inspired chant and a vigorous round of coordinated hand clapping. The classroom walls featured protest signs, including one that said “United Together in La Lucha!” — the struggle. Although open to any student at Tucson High Magnet School, nearly all of those attending Curtis Acosta’s Latino literature class on a recent morning were Mexican-American. For all of that and more, Mr. Acosta’s class and others in the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American program have been declared illegal by the State of Arizona — even while similar programs for black, Asian and American Indian students have been left untouched. “It’s propagandizing and brainwashing that’s going on there,” Tom Horne, Arizona’s newly elected attorney general, said this week as he officially declared the program in violation of a state law that went into effect on Jan. 1. Read more Related Entries December 30, 2010 New Year’s Call for a Border Reboot December 27, 2010 The Case of the Missing Murder
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Anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has returned home to Iraq from his self-imposed exile in Iran, delivering a speech urging support for the new Maliki government and resistance against the U.S.—but not necessarily through armed struggle. —JCL Reuters: Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr urged a sea of rapturous followers Saturday to resist all occupiers of Iraq and oppose the United States, but not necessarily with arms. In his first speech since his homecoming Wednesday after years of self-imposed exile in Iran, the one-time firebrand burnished his anti-U.S. credentials and urged supporters to give Iraq’s new government led by Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki a chance. “We are still fighters,” said Sadr, who led two uprisings against the U.S. military after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and has called for an earlier U.S. withdrawal than the agreed deadline of the end of this year. Read more Related Entries December 30, 2010 New Year’s Call for a Border Reboot December 27, 2010 The Case of the Missing Murder
Continue reading …In one of the most ignorant political moves known to man, a controversial law in Arizona has gone into effect that bans ethnic studies program taught in the state, declaring illegal classes that “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals”. Because Arizona, of course, doesn’t treat anyone differently because of their ethnicity. —JCL The New York Times: The class began with a Mayan-inspired chant and a vigorous round of coordinated hand clapping. The classroom walls featured protest signs, including one that said “United Together in La Lucha!” — the struggle. Although open to any student at Tucson High Magnet School, nearly all of those attending Curtis Acosta’s Latino literature class on a recent morning were Mexican-American. For all of that and more, Mr. Acosta’s class and others in the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American program have been declared illegal by the State of Arizona — even while similar programs for black, Asian and American Indian students have been left untouched. “It’s propagandizing and brainwashing that’s going on there,” Tom Horne, Arizona’s newly elected attorney general, said this week as he officially declared the program in violation of a state law that went into effect on Jan. 1. Read more Related Entries January 5, 2011 Israel’s Lieberman Says Peace Will Have to Wait December 31, 2010 Former Israeli President Katsav Convicted of Rape
Continue reading …SteelSeries trots out Spectrum 7xb headset, Siberia Neckband for iPod, iPhone and iPad
January 8, 2011 No Comment
SteelSeries is on hand here at CES, and as with Sleek Audio , Turtle Beach and hordes of others, it’s also introducing new cans at the show. First up is the Spectrum 7xb wireless headset for Xbox 360, which touts a retractable microphone, four-piece breakdown for travel and interchangeable cloth and leather earcups. You’ll also get in-game volume controls along the right earcup, LiveMix technology — which balances in-game audio with voice communication — and the new ExactSND feature, a quick-button option that allows users to switch between three settings that have been preconfigured for different sounds. It’ll ship in Q2 for $149.99. Moving on, the Siberia Neckband is making a triumphant return, this time with innate support for the iPod, iPhone and iPad via an inline three-button remote. More details on specifics are embedded after the break, with a ship date of today and a price tag of $79.99. Continue reading SteelSeries trots out Spectrum 7xb headset, Siberia Neckband for iPod, iPhone and iPad SteelSeries trots out Spectrum 7xb headset, Siberia Neckband for iPod, iPhone and iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 14:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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New drama over WikiLeaks has come to light. The U.S. government has subpoenaed Twitter to secretly hand over details of five accounts on its site thought to be related to leaked classified information, suggesting a wide-ranging trawl for other evidence online. WikiLeaks has demanded Google and Facebook admit to any subpoenas they received as well. It is commendable that the U.S. government used the appropriate mechanism for obtaining evidence, rather than the Patriot Act-enabled spying we have been accustomed to. —JCL The Guardian: WikiLeaks has demanded that Google and Facebook reveal the contents of any US subpoenas they may have received after it emerged that a court in Virginia had ordered Twitter to secretly hand over details of accounts on the micro-blogging site by five figures associated with the group, including Julian Assange. Amid strong evidence that a US grand jury has begun a wide-ranging trawl for details of what networks and accounts WikiLeaks used to communicate with Bradley Manning, the US serviceman accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of sensitive government cables, some of those named in the subpoena said they would fight disclosure. “Today, the existence of a secret US government grand jury espionage investigation into WikiLeaks was confirmed for the first time as a subpoena was brought into the public domain,” WikiLeaks said in a statement. Read more Related Entries December 30, 2010 New Year’s Call for a Border Reboot December 27, 2010 The Case of the Missing Murder
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Dissent is rippling through the ranks of the Republican Party. Some prominent right-wing groups have announced that they will not attend a major party event next month due to the presence of gay groups and others perceived to be at odds with conservatism. —JCL Los Angeles Times: Some prominent right-wing groups say they will not attend a major Republican gathering in Washington next month, objecting to the presence of gay groups and other organizations whose aims they say are incompatible with conservatism. An estimated 10,000 people are expected to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, to hear aspiring presidential candidates and vote in one of the first straw polls of the 2012 cycle. Among the missing will be the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group and once a sponsor of CPAC; the Heritage Foundation; and the American Family Assn., which opposes same-sex marriage. Read more Related Entries December 30, 2010 New Year’s Call for a Border Reboot December 27, 2010 The Case of the Missing Murder
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Sony announced a heap of new Cyber-shot cameras earlier this week, and after spying the entire line posing Miss America-style at Sony’s CES booth, we decided to go hands on. The DSC-TX100V’s OLED screen, which is a Cyber-shot first, was definitely impressive in terms of clarity, brightness and color reproduction — despite only viewing a fellow convention goer obstructing the booth. The DSC-TX10 is also one the classiest looking ruggedized camera we’ve ever seen and thankfully lacks accents such as excessive rubber detailing . Sony wasn’t really down with us testinghow much grief it could actually take though. Similarly, we had hoped to check out the DSC-WX10′s 1920 x 1080 60fps video capture mode — since it’s the only digital compact to support it — but that idea got shut down the moment a few Sony VIPs arrived. Still, we did manage to take a few shots of each in the wilds of the convention center which you can check out in the gallery below. Gallery: Sony Cyber-shots CES 2011 hands-on Sony DSC-TX100V and the rest of the Cyber-shot posse hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 14:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Microsoft suggests Windows Phone Live will get more Kin Studio-like features
January 8, 2011 No Comment
Microsoft’s Kin may have been a failure of spectacular proportions , but it did introduce a few interesting ideas — namely, the Kin Studio web-backup service. Now it looks like Microsoft may be set to revive at least some elements of the service on Windows Phone 7. Speaking with the Seattle Times , Microsoft’s Aaron Woodman said that the company has made “very, very small baby step with Windows Phone Live,” and added that it’s “definitely part of the road map to have enriched services that make the phone more meaningful, and the Web more meaningful.” Woodman also apparently suggested that those services would be one way Windows Phone can “continue to compete” with Android, but unfortunately didn’t get very specific about a rollout date for the upgrades. Microsoft suggests Windows Phone Live will get more Kin Studio-like features originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 14:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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