Rubénerd!

Tristin Hopper writing for the Canadian National Post:

He felt that in Canada the risk of violent protest was simply too high,” said Ryan Ruppert, president of promotions company Spectre Live Corp., which had booked Mr. Cheney for an April 24 appearance at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

So you're brave enough to send thousands to their deaths and shoot animals in a reserve, but not to face your critics? You sir, are beneath contempt.

From Channel NewsAsia, regarding Singapore's Foreign Affairs and Law Minister's current trip to the US:

SINGAPORE: Singapore and the US have reaffirmed their desire to enhance the existing strong legal cooperation between both countries.

Ah crap.

Checking out one of the latest entries on Heartdrops.org that arrived in my RSS reader, one particular section really struck a chord with me.

Australian news sources

It’s always "three thousand people were killed when a ship ran aground on the east coast of Whatchamacallit. About fifty of them are believed to be Australians". The latter sentence always ticks me off, because for some reason, when a large number of people have died, the fact is always put forward that so-and-so Australians have died.

This x 10¹⁰²⁴.

For me, nothing showed the shallow nature of much of the Australian media than when the Bali bombings took place. I was still living in Singapore at the time, and remember reading the stories in the Australian newspapers online about how many Australians had died in the attacks. If other nationalities and the greater number of innocent Indonesians were mentioned at all, often it would be in a throwaway remark or in the footer somewhere.

I don't care about nationalities, or patriotism, or any of that feudal nonsense. We're humans, and humans died.

Other news sources

I begin to wonder if it is like that in other countries. Perhaps not.

Unfortunately, Australia isn't alone in this case. As I've lamented on Twitter time and time again, I'm so sick of reading about all the American fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan without any mention of the hundreds of thousands of civilian fatalities. I'm sure you've all noticed this too.

I've had people try to spin this, but to me all this says is some lives are more important than others. The truly horrifying part is, some people don't see an issue with that.

My brother, on the other hand, gratuitously laughs and repeats lines from newsreaders that follow as such: "Good evening a man has died…" where there is no pause for breath between the greeting and the announcement of a tragic incident.

Reminds me of those line from a Jack Johnson song. Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die? At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eyes.

He answers the question in the same verse. It's just make believe.

I don't know why people are so worked up about Megaupload being shut down. The case was ruled in the same manner that VCR manufacturers weren't found liable for the potential for copyright infringement, similarly ski equipment makers can't be sued if their balaclavas are used to rob banks. Finally, the operators were US citizens under US law.

Oh, wait.

The CAPTCHAS, forced waiting and hoops you had to jump through to start a download meant I rarely used Megaupload if I could avoid it. I can still appreciate this ruling as setting a dangerous precedent though.

UPDATE: If true, the operators of SOPA will have to quicky get used to this.

They'd have my vote, particularly for lumberjack fashion.

@WestWingReport: Pentagon is by far the #1 consumer of energy in U.S. The Air Force alone uses more oil than some countries. Renewable energy is top priority

@WestWingReport: Navy is also investing big in renewable energy. It has conducted test flights of F-18s powered by biofuels - & developing a "Green Fleet"

My question for the President: aren't you missing the point?

Remember my recent post about Ireland's economy, and how I rated as junk the ratings agencies themselves?

Unsurprisingly, Rob Delaney said it much better.

[Ratings agencies] maintained AAA ratings for companies run by abject criminals who knowingly, consciously, and systematically lied to US citizens and citizens of the world at large. Thus, they are culpable in the collapse of many banks (my own included) and their actions, among other things, drove thousands of families from their homes. As such, their opinion is worthless to me and it should be worthless to you.

But without more consumer spending, businesses won’t spend more. A robust economy can’t be built on inventory replacements. ~ Robert Reich

Exactly. This is another reason why my American friends should be viewing the reports that Chrysler "paid off" their governments debts six years early with nothing but scepticism. Paying off debts due to demand from governments refreshing their car fleets rather than from private consumers is tantamount to smoke and mirrors.

I'd also argue if the US government were serious about creating jobs and helping the environment they'd put people to work improving public transport instead, but that's just my no good greenie side asserting itself again.

So I checked Technorati.com this evening, that former darling of the blogosphere (do people use that term anymore?) I joined in 2005. Four of the twelve top stories were about American politician Anthony Weiner and his schlong. One third.

It's so disappointing that for all the blatant ratings grabbing and race-to-the-bottom journalism we accuse the mainstream media of pushing on us, blogs seem to be following the same path with vapid news stories that just aren't news. At least when I post pointless entries, they're cute! But I digress.

I guess a sex scandal sells, it's why Clinton was impeached and not Bush.