i'm generally a skeptic of the belief that "animals have feelings too," but these pictures sure look like a bird mourning the death of its friend.
in an effort to combine two things i have no interest in, mindless pop music and supporting bush, i have made a bush campaign video. it should probably not be viewed by children - not even the children who are in it.
on march 20, i was at a peace demonstration in chicago at which one of the speakers yelled "long live the intifada!", encouraging the crowd to repeat the same. today i got an email from gabe gudding, who attended yesterday's demonstration against caterpillar's sale of the bulldozers israel uses to demolish palestinian homes. in his account of the events, gabe mentioned that someone at the demonstration yelled* "long live the intifada". (* after i wrote this, gabe wrote to correct me: this wasn't yelled, it was on a sign.)
maybe the caterpillar demonstration was different than the chicago demonstration, but i got the impression in chicago that most of the crowd had no idea what "intifada" means. one young man a few yards behind me had the presence of mind to boo the chants of "long live the intifada", but most people just stood there looking a bit confused.
it is my opinion that the intifada is not something anyone interested in peace in the middle east should support. wikipedia has a good explanation of what "intifada" means. at best, it can be seen as a peaceful demonstration that, against the wishes of most of its proponents, fell into the cycle of violence that has been going on between israel and palestine for too many decades. at worst, it can be seen as the palestinian half of that cycle of violence. in any case, there have been two palestinian intifadas, and palestinians have nothing to show for it.
so i'd like to never hear "long live the intifada" at a peace demonstration again, but if i do hear it, i hope i'll have the presence of mind to boo.
doc searls asks Are these people(s) ready to govern themselves?
and i just want to throw up. surely the british once wondered: "is india ready to govern itself?" and came to the same wrong answers to which so many americans are coming today. my question is: if we decide the answer to doc's question is "no", are we ready to govern iraq? more to the point: who is better able to govern iraq: iraqis or americans? the longer we stay there, the more we'll convince ourselves that the answer is americans. but in truth it will always be iraqis who are best able to govern their own country, whether they're ready or not. readiness is not the key requirement of functional democracy. if it was, we'd call it "ready-cracy". the "demo-" means "by the people", and americans are not "the people" in iraq.
can anyone explain to me any of the following? 1) why does lisa rein bother posting daily show clips to her weblog when the same clips are already available on the daily show website? 2) why do other sites link to her when she posts these clips, but not to the clips on the daily show website?
how much is your life worth? $6.1 million. unless you're poor. or female. or black. or in a car accident. then your life is worth millions less. so says the US government. via new york times magazine.