Debra

and the osCAR goes to…

12/18/2006 by Debra

The open-source movement responsible for software like Linux and Mozilla’s Web browser, Firefox, is proving contagious: A German entrepreneur is applying the same approach to automobile design.
Former BMW employee Markus Merz, who now owns an automobile consulting firm in Dingolfing, Germany, calls his project Oscar, shorthand for Open Source Car.
The idea behind open source development is to allow anyone to copy, modify and redistribute ordinarily secret information about a technology without paying royalties to the original developers.

What a fantastic idea!

Now you can combine your inner geek and inner car girl/guy.

Great things could happen with this, a car could be designed that works for people and the environment.

Worth keeping an eye on.

Professionalism or control?

12/18/2006 by Debra

Robert Cox wants to bring some professionalism to the blogosphere.
As president of the Media Bloggers Association, Cox is about to unveil new membership policies designed to help bloggers who see themselves more as journalists than freeform diarists.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that about eight per cent of American adults keep web journals, most of them personal in nature even though the most high-profile ones may be about news, politics or technology. It’s the more serious efforts that Cox is courting.
Among the planned criteria: members would have to take an online course offered by the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, covering legal issues related to blogging.
Members also could seek credentialled status by undergoing training or demonstrating other work as professional journalists. They also must agree to the organization’s ethical standards and adopt formal editorial and corrections policies. Doing so could give them the backing they need to obtain review copies of books and access to newsmakers and events, Cox said.
Of course, having credentials from Cox’s organization won’t guarantee access. The question of whether to treat bloggers as journalists has come up repeatedly at major events such as the Olympics and national political conventions.

You have to take a course, pay for memberships, and a think tank decides what passes for acceptable journalism.

Isn’t this in part what the blogosphere was trying to get away from?

Wasn’t the idea to open up an avenue where those who couldn’t afford a journalism degree could still speak to the issues of the day.

Recognition of the personal being political.

Being able to shed light on things like the recent cuts the Harper government made that the “Professional Press” doesn’t deem noteworthy.

Thoughts?

Harry behind you!.. it’s the fundies

12/17/2006 by Debra

A Georgia mother of three may take her fight to banish Harry Potter books from schools to the courts after the state’s board of education voted to keep the wizard series on library shelves.
The vote, on Thursday, upholds a previous decision by the Gwinnett County school board to deny Laura Mallory’s request to eliminate J.K. Rowling’s bestselling novels from schools.

This is a quote from Laura Mallory;

The kind of stuff in these books — murder and greed and violence. Why do they have to read them in school?”

Quite right children should be reading the bible and reading about such things as ….well as….murder, greed, violence…… ahem

Yes but my point…

Guilty till we can prove you..ah..guilty

12/16/2006 by Debra

Remember when they at least pretended there was a presumption of innocence?

Remember when having gone through trial and proved not guilty you were in fact considered not guilty?

Did you ever think that two world governments would conspire against one man? And then compound all the wrong that had transpired by folding their arms stomping their feet and refusing to admit either their own guilt or any satisfaction with the declaration of innocence.

For Maher Arar, it never ends.
It wasn’t enough that the Canadian computer engineer was deported by the U.S. to Syria to be tortured.
Nor was it enough that, even after he got home, unknown Canadian government officials deliberately leaked false and damaging information to the media in an attempt to smear him.
Now, after a painstaking 34-month judicial inquiry finally cleared his name, the U.S. government has decided that it is its turn to smear Arar.
The smear was delivered by David Wilkins, U.S. ambassador to Canada. In a statement released yesterday, he said that Arar will stay on a U.S. watch list that denies him entry to that country “based on information from a variety of sources.”

Right wing governments are correct when they say they do not believe in big government. Big government being a code word for government responsible to and for the people.

Totalitarian government, however, seems to be something they can get behind.

totalitarianism
Form of government that subordinates all aspects of its citizens’ lives to the authority of the state, with a single charismatic leader as the ultimate authority. The term was coined in the early 1920s by Benito Mussolini, but totalitarianism has existed throughout history throughout the world (e.g., Qin dynasty China). It is distinguished from dictatorship and authoritarianism by its supplanting of all political institutions and all old legal and social traditions with new ones to meet the state’s needs, which are usually highly focused. Large-scale, organized violence may be legitimized. The police operate without the constraint of laws and regulations. Where pursuit of the state’s goal is the only ideological foundation for such a government, achievement of the goal can never be acknowledged.

Wheel of misfortune

12/15/2006 by Debra

Italy has revived the medieval practice of establishing special depositories where parents can safely and anonymously abandon their unwanted newborn babies.
From the as far back as the 8th century, it was common for desperate mothers to lay an unwanted child on a wooden wheel, which was half inside the wall of a convent and half outside. This allowed mothers to leave their babies without been seen.
Today’s version of the so-called “foundling wheel,” follows the same concept, but has been updated. The new foundling wheel offers a heated cradle area and is located half inside the Casilino hospital in Rome.

Some would ponder why we are still using medieval concepts to deal with women’s issues. Some might ponder the circumstances of these pregnancies, the emotional after care of the mothers and children.

Others might say

“It represents an intelligent and efficient way for social structures to face dramatic situations…it follows the call of all those struggling to give children, women and all those who live in difficult conditions, equal opportunities and dignity,” Turco said in a statement.

huh.

Here’s a list of things that contribute to equal rights and dignity see if you can find the one that doesn’t seem to belong;

Obviously this is better than a child being left in the street but rights and dignity?

I don’t think so.

I May have to scream….

12/14/2006 by Debra

After beginning this post I realized I was just too angry to write a nice explanatory post.

I’m angry…I’m angry that some really think that a womans’ right of control of her body is something they can have high school level debates about.

I’m angry for my daughters. I’m angry because of the young woman I know who was kept away from all friends and family until it was too late to abort and then beaten so badly that she miscarried at 22 weeks.

I’m angry for the victims of rape forced to carry the evidence of the sperm of the prick they never wanted in their body.

I’m angry for the women who birthed till they died. I’m angry for the women who had to beg and be shamed by a panel of doctors who decided whether their choice to abort was frivolous or not.

I’m angry for all the women who have had to deal with some bastard thinking he had any fucking right deciding what she could or could not do.

I’m angry for the women fought and bled and died to get us as far as we’ve come only to have their victories put up as dartboards on frat boy walls.

Perhaps the white knights could climb off their high white horses for just a second or two and pay attention.

Abortion= a woman’s right to control a) her own body b) her own destiny c) her own life.

Why would you even put that up for debate? Who the fuck gave you permission to discuss what goes on in my womb?

Will we next be treated to a debate on whether or not rape is really a crime? If a woman has no say over her own body then how can rape exist?

And after all we wouldn’t want women saying no frivolously.

Reproductive rights are not up for political ~~wankers~~ wonkers to debate.

My body MY FUCKING CHOICE!