Pat Robertson, the American televangelist, today appeared to withdraw a diatribe against Ariel Sharon in an attempt to salvage his $50 million plan for a biblical theme park in Galilee.

In other news, there is a god and he is hilarious

Robertson tries to save Jesusland after Sharon gibe

In an October 26 show entitled "The Man Who Kept Oprah Awake At Night," Winfrey hailed Frey's graphic and coarse book as "like nothing you've ever read before. Everybody at Harpo is reading it. When we were staying up late at night reading it, we'd come in the next morning saying, 'What page are you on?'" In emotional filmed testimonials, employees of Winfrey's Harpo Productions lauded the book as revelatory, with some choking back tears. When the camera then returned to a damp-eyed Winfrey, she said, "I'm crying 'cause these are all my Harpo family so, and we all loved the book so much."

But a six-week investigation by The Smoking Gun reveals that there may be a lot less to love about Frey's runaway hit, which has sold more than 3.5 million copies and, thanks to Winfrey, has sat atop The New York Times nonfiction paperback best seller list for the past 15 weeks. Next to the latest Harry Potter title, Nielsen BookScan reported Friday, Frey's book sold more copies in the U.S. in 2005--1.77 million--than any other title, with the majority of that total coming after Winfrey's selection.

I've disliked several of Oprah's previous moves and statements made by her book club, and this is just one of them.

A Million Little Lies

Robertson stated on the show that, "God considers this land [Israel] to be His. When you read the Bible, He said 'This is my land.' For any Prime Minister of Israel who decides he will carve it up and give it away, God said, 'No, this is Mine.'" He later added, "I would say woe to any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations, or the United States of America."

In other news, Pat Roberson is a gigantic asshole.

Televangelist Pat Robertson suggests Sharon's stroke is act of God in response to Gaza withdrawal

One writer using the pseudonym 'Le_SigNagE' on the Santarchy! (or also known as the Santacon) website commented, "... after all, this is what Christmas is really about… mindless vandalism and petty theft."

Amen.

40 alleged drunken Santas accused of running amok

A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.

"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it."

This is over the top. Mao? They sent out federal agents because a college student was reading Mao? Are we really worried about a communist movement in America these days? What the hell is going on?

Utterly horrifying.

UMass Dartmouth senior visited by federal agents for checking out Mao's 'Little Red Book'

"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," Bush said during his fourth and final speech before Thursday's vote for Iraq's parliament. "As president I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq.

Say what you will about the man. He has huge balls.

CNN.com - Bush takes responsibility for invasion intelligence - Dec 14, 2005

Chinese security forces have sealed off a village where police have allegedly shot and killed up to 20 people, in what has been touted as the most lethal use of force by authorities since the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Days after reports of the shooting leaked out, Beijing has confirmed that police had opened fire last Tuesday on villagers protesting against land seizures. According to government statements, three people had been shot dead as police quelled a demonstration. The incident came after months of protest against the building of a power station, which villagers say was on stolen land.

Protesting Chinese villagers killed in confrontation with police - Wikinews

Broadcast Consortium Threatens to Exclude Green Party from Leaders' Debate

Despite being a national party with widespread public support and a full slate of 308 candidates, the Green Party of Canada was excluded from the nationally televised leaders' debate in the 2004 election.

Now the broadcast consortium that controls the debate is trying to exclude Green Party of Canada leader Jim Harris again during the 2005/2006 election. This despite the fact that 4.3% of voters voted for the Green Party of Canada in 2004 and polls show that literally millions of Canadians say they would consider voting green in this election.

The Green Party of Canada must be included in the election debate.

Apparently democracy shouldn't have alternatives.

Where's the Green Party of Canada? | Digital Copyright Canada

Decius wrote:

There is a stupid notion going around that the news media would be better off if anyone and everyone got to make a contribution to it. Blogs and podcasts are examples of this and reader-generated electronic "newspapers" are beginning to spring up. People who should know better see this as democratizing the flow of news and information...

I have been concerned about this new, online "citizen journalism" becoming the source of more disinformation than truth, a concern that actually extends to most of the Internet.

Some people in the media are absolutely giddy about the opportunity to pile a complete and total indictment of the entire Internet on top of this incident. Oh my god! People can express their own views without control from the 4th estate! How will we ever know what is true anymore?!

Check out the headline on this article:

For all its wonders, the world-changing effects of the digital civilization contains a slimy, anarchic undercurrent of democracy run amok.

There is so much that is broken about the perspectives being offered around this incident:

The idea that Wikipedia and encyclopedias are the same kinds of things and their value should be judged by the same criteria.
The idea that Wikipedia must either be 100% reliable or completely useless for any purpose.
The idea that people are not capable of critical thinking and should not be responsible for doing it.
The idea that the alleged connection to the Kennedy Assasination would have been viewed as credible by anyone who isn't nuts.
The idea that internet anonymity is a bad thing.
The idea that "supporting freedom of speech" is compatible with "demanding accountability." (Haven't you people ever heard of the Federalist Papers?!)
The idea that the highly reliable totally awesome 4th estate should be the arbiter of the truth, when in their articles about this VERY incident they have repeatedly twisted this guy's voluntary resignation from his job (which he had to do because of the pressure THEY would put on his employer if he hadn't) so that it appears as if he was fired. "Man looses job over wikipedia prank..."

The biggest problem here is the idea that a national press campaign and the threat of lawsuits are a reasonable way of dealing with a problem on a publically editable wiki! This notion is so irrational that one suspects John Seigenthaler of taking advantage of the opportunity because he wanted to launch a broder attack on the Internet. You gunna sue me for suggesting that, John? Go ahead. Make my fucking day.

Hear hear!

The people that this is pandering to don't even understand it. I mentioned before that he went through all the trouble of a lawsuit when he could have used the talk page or changed the article. The idea of this being turned into a matter of the press versus 'the new media' is absurd.

I'm going to chalk this up to uninformed technophibia.

Again.

P.S, you should change the biafra quote to "The voice of a slimy, anarchic undercurrent of democracy run amok." for a week or so.

RE: Internet Backlash

Decius wrote:

Tom Cross, who is a software security researcher and co-developer of the MemeStream social networking website, also disagrees that “if we want to improve America's scientific competitiveness, we need to increase the supply of technical workers, which will reduce their cost.” Gathering Storm, he believes, has “misdefined the problem, [which] is on the demand side and not the supply side.”

“Technological competitiveness is not about how much technology you are doing but what kind,” he states. “You don't want to lead the world in having development sweatshops where people grind out code for hours at low wages. ... You want to lead the world in creating new innovations.”

Science Magazine quoted my MemeStream. :)

This is fantastic.

RE: ScienceCareers.org | What's Wrong With American Science? : Benderly: 9 December 2005