You are currently browsing the daily archive for May 31, 2010.
Bringing aid to starving people, a crime according to Israel.
The black hole that is Middle East coverage had better not suck this particular story down its greedy maw. Israel can pretty much murder at will in the occupied territories and international media will give them a pass. The media had better not slink to its usual spineless standards when Israeli commandos board a ship laden with humanitarian aid and kill nine innocent people. It just had better not happen. The CBC and Al-Jazeera report:
“Netanyahu said the Israeli soldiers had boarded one of the floatilla’s six ships to check it for weapons when they were attacked by activists with knives and clubs.
“They literally attacked the first soldiers on the ship, they were mobbed,” Netanyahu said in Ottawa, where he was meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “They were clubbed, they were beaten, stabbed, there was even a report of gunfire.
“And our soldiers had to defend themselves, defend their lives or they would have been killed,” he said.”
Ah yes, the favourite method of denying culpability. We were only acting in self-defence. Bullshit. You boarded a ship with no probable cause ,in international waters no less, and in the ruckus YOU caused had to respond with deadly force and kill nine innocent people. Wake up you murderous bastards, this is not the occupied territories where you can kill on a whim.
“The aid convoy was organized in part by the Free Gaza Movement, an international group of pro-Palestinian activists that claims the Gaza blockade is a violation of international law.
Audrey Bomse, the legal co-ordinator for the Free Gaza Movement, called claims the passengers had planned to provoke the soldiers “absurd.”
“It was clearly an attack — probably a premeditated attack — by Israel upon civilians,” she told CBC News.
“These are supposed to be crack military forces. I can only assume that they wanted to intimidate people from doing this in the future.”
Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian government spokesman, said the government “condemns the brutality in which the Israeli government treated this peaceful attempt to break the siege on Gaza.”
Absolutely. The World should be in an uproar about this gross violation of international law. Some are already taking steps:
“The United Nations Security Council was to meet on Monday afternoon for an emergency session to discuss the matter.
Turkey, Spain, Greece, Denmark and Sweden have all summoned the Israeli ambassadors in their respective countries to protest against the assault.”
There are mass protests in Turkey over the murder of its citizens in international waters:
Protesters take part in a demonstration at About 10,000 people gathered in the Turkish capital to protest Israel's military assault on a convoy of six aid ships. (Thanassis Stavrakis/Associated Press)
I am outraged at the audacity of Israel and the spineless response of our Western leaders.
Harper:
“Canada deeply regrets this action, the loss of life and the injuries that have occurred and obviously we’ll be looking in the days that follow to get all the information we can get to find out exactly what has transpired,” Harper said following a meeting with Netanyahu.
Obama:
Obama expressed “deep regret at the loss of life in today’s incident and concern for the wounded,” according to a White House statement. He also expressed “the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances” surrounding the event, it said.
If this had been Iran boarding a ship in International waters and killing people, it would have been like World War 3 had just started. Instead we get this jellyfish piffle of mindless palavers. Inexcusable.
Intransigentia has also written cogently on this topic, catch up with her here.
Set individuality to 11!
I’ll say it straight out. I am not a fan of Apple products. They are easy to use, fantastic, but are they useful? In my opinion, absolutely not. I break technology. I get mad, frustrated, annoyed even to the level of wanting to TISP!(*) my computers down a very dark and deep hole. The thing is once fixed, through hard work and fair amount of luck, I know how to fix something if it breaks like that again or at least diagnose what not to do the next time. Apple takes the me borking my hardware aspect out of computing, easier for me, but also more limiting. The CBC article mirrors some of my concerns.
“On one hand are the all-too-familiar complaints about pricing for the device’s 3G wireless capabilities. On the other are criticisms that Apple is trying to maintain too tight a control over what users can and can’t do with their gadgets, or that the company is trying to remake the web to its liking.”
Do not forget the requisite shaft for Canadian Broadband consumers:
“The company announced it would offer two plans, one allowing for 250 megabytes of monthly usage for $15 and another giving five gigabytes for $35. That angered potential customers, who pointed out on the company’s Redboard forum that AT&T in the United States was offering a superior plan — unlimited usage — for less money, or $30 (U.S.).
Rogers staff responded by saying that five gigabytes was more than enough usage based on its existing customers’ usage of smartphones and laptop data sticks.”
Lovely. But unsurprising.
“Apple is maintaining similar tight control over what sort of content can go onto the iPad, and even what can be attached to it. The device lacks a CD or DVD drive, as well as a standard USB plug, which means that connecting to Apple’s iTunes through the company’s specially designed plug is the only easy way to get media onto the device.”
Steve Jobs and his for all of his proprietary bullshite can rightly be called His Most Excellent Buttplug of High Douchatude from now on. I buy your hardware and then the only way I can put things on it is through a media pipe of your choosing. Frack the hell off Apple.
“The general public doesn’t think of the iPad as a device where someone other than the owner has the keys to it,” he said. “They haven’t thought, ‘Why is this allowed?’ They just think, ‘Oh, it’s a cool device.'”
And the general public is stupid. Most of the i-crap is more about looking hip and cool. Forget about net neutrality, open source and open access software, as long as my waste of skin peer group can identify me by my glaringly white ear buds I’m “good”. The Apple phenomena is the hybridization of stupid people with stupid devices, profitable but ultimately not good for us.
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