Image by Pantone801, found at Flickr.com

This is so mindboggling it defies commentary. Up until the 1st of July of 2008, Nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist by the United States.

Bush Removes Nelson Mandela from Terror Watch List
By VOA News
01 July 2008

U.S. President George Bush Tuesday signed a bill that allows Nelson Mandela to enter the United States without special clearance.

The measure officially removes Mr. Mandela and his African National Congress from a U.S. terror watch list.

The former South African president may now visit the United States without the U.S. secretary of state having to certify that he is not a terrorist.

Mr. Mandela was placed on the list because of his work with the African National Congress (ANC), which fought to end white minority rule in South Africa.

Mr. Mandela spent 27 years in prison for his work with the ANC to fight apartheid rule in South Africa.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner turns 90 on July 18.

Un.

Be.

lievable.

Eric Clift on how to go from representative to participatory democracy.

You can find them at http://youtube.com/user/blogdiva

They're not the bestest quality but you can get a good sense of the excellent presentations by the likes of Van Jones, Mark Pesce (who I've already written about), Brian Behlendorf, Craig Newmark and others.

If you don't know who is Mark Pesce and/or have never heard of HyperPolitics, go read the whole lecture on his blog RIGHT NOW!.

Then come back and watch the videos that, albeit incomplete and a bit jerky, really give you a good idea of how incredibly important is Mark's framing of community development as it happens through mobile technology and the web.

Mark Pesce : Part 1 - Hyperpolitics, American Style

Mark Pesce : Part 2 - Hyperpolitics, American Style

Mark Pesce : Part 3 - Hyperpolitics, American Style

Mark Pesce : Part 4 - Hyperpolitics, American Style

Now, let me tell you what's turned me on about Mark's presentation :

What I most appreciate about his concept of Hyperpolitics is that it doesn't take the importance of human evolution out of the development and/or demand for new mobile and networked communication technologies. It's not that he "biologizes" our technological progression.

What he does is to look at the internet, at social media, at mobile phones not as triumphs of a transhuman, and a-historical capitalism. What I get out of Pesce's work is that our advances in media technologies are human, all too human expressions of our individual and collective need for communication, community and self-expression.

We need to understand media technology and their use in politics as an extension of a primal need to bond and yet be distinct. It's by understanding that primal need and how we humans have historically scratched that itch that we can then posit what the future may hold with these new ways of communicating, socializing, organizing and just simply being through media. And it's how we can then learn how to parse the truly innovative from, ahem, the bullshit (in re : Wikipedia and the Obama campaign).

WATCH IT!

READ IT!

DISCUSS IT!

I have to admit that I don't go to a lot of technology conferences. It's not that I am not interested, on the contrary, I'd love to be able to attend each and every one of them. The problem is that I am in the situation that many other bloggers (especially women and people of color) are trapped in : We don't make enough money out of blogging to be able to afford a conference budget.

It's not just the airfare and hotel and the conference fee. As a working mother who is self-employed and has 2 children, traveling to conferences is not only absolutely prohibitive if I do so out of pocket. It's the emotionally draining logistics of who's going to take care of my children while am away. Unfortunately, in a city like New York not having family available or a nanny on payroll is a HUGE child-care liability.

So the few conferences I get to go am either paid to go because I am on a panel or I get to go to them because they're local enough (meaning a train ride away).

Outside of RootsCamp NYC (which happened 2 years ago) and this year's PodCamp NYC, there's not much for free or affordable the techie and geeky at heart here in NYC. Well, at least not much new to me because if I were to include some of the stuff happening at Eyebeam, well, yeah, that's geeky enough.

Which is why going to PDF is such a joy.

I get to see a lot of colleagues with whom I would otherwise would never get to have face to face time unless I went all the way out west. People like Tara Hunt, Mary Hodder, the infamous and yet enjoyable Jason Calacanis and Robert Scoble, Cheryl Contee, and the inimitable Robert Greenwald.

Then there's others that I seem to bump into no matter what like Craig Newmark, Joe Trippi, Elizabeth Edwards (who was in video but not in the flesh) and Arianna Huffington.

One of the best women presenters in the geekosphere : Zephyr Teachout

From the East Coast, well, I always get to play (or smack upside the head) at these conferences with people like Deanna Zandt, Noel Hidalgo, Ben Smith, Jeff Jarvis, Jay Rosen, Bob Fertik, Heather Holdridge, Nicco Melle, Ruby Seinrich, Morra Arons, Harish Rao, Lynn D. Johnson, Tracy Russo, Nancy Scola, Joshua Levy, Roberto Lovato, Nicola Wells, Ari Melber, Scott Heifferman, Chuck DeFeo, Zephyr Teachout, Zack Exley , Andy Carvin, Bob Cox, Ed Cone and the PDF crew.

I missed Shireen, Baratunde, Jon Lebkowsky, Aldon Hynes, Chris Rabb and Christian Crumlish. I don't remember if Steve Garfield was there, which is weird because he always makes it to PDF. And I know I kept missing Jason Barnett, David All and Patrick Ruffini. Damn!

I met a lot of people and honestly, am going to have to go through cards to remember their names but Lisa Votino, Megan Morrissey, PB Ranter and Erin Hoeftig come to mind.

The Axis of Political Journalism Evil : José Antonio Vargas (Washington Post) and Ben Smith (Politico.com)

Finally meeting Leighton Woodhouse of Brave New Films was a treat; but meeting Jose Antonio Vargas was an extra special treat because I got to terrorize him --he knows what for and now he owes me big time (mwahaha!)

Anyhow, I love being there the two days and I actually feel like the panel I was in --on local political blogging-- was actually quite productive. A lot good questions from people with agita over how to measure success on a blog that may not have massive traffic numbers. It was good because we really were able to parse out influence from popularity and offer actual markers of success for other people to gauge their own work and make it better. And yes, I'll blog about that soon.

Ok, now on to the videos --yes, I was able to get some good video clips.

BRB

This is what I would do if I had several thousand dollars to spare these days :

1. I would have wire clothes hangers, like the ones dry cleaning stores us, and I'd covered them in dark blue rice paper with the blue and logo of the McCain campaign.

2. The tag line under the logo? "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."

3. A second design option would have his fateful words about how he would change the Supreme Court of the United States with the judges like like Roberts and Alito or his dear friend Chief Rhenquist.

4. If I had more money, I'd hang a Supreme Court Justice looking robe from several hundreds of them and deliver them to each and every one of the high-profile Democrats, whereas politicians or funders, who are being assholes about supporting Obama.

Plain and simple message : You support McCain? Kiss equal rights for women away.

I say this because there's a "Unity" rally between the Obama and Clinton camps happening right now in New Hampshire. Mark Ambider has already reported about how there's a group called "Democrats for McCain" who will be attending the meeting.

Ambinder and others have already also reported how a meeting called by Senator Clinton in Washington DC between her high rollers and Obama had some of them grousing about not feeling it for the candidate. And now Washington Post has an article where they talk about the so-called "Pumas" who are saying "no to Obama" and have a douchette by the name of Diane Mantouvalos as their leader :

Diane Mantouvalos is an anger-shaker. The night before Clinton announced the suspension of her campaign, Mantouvalos was at home in Miami checking posts on her blog and sensing a mood that went beyond disillusionment, beyond sadness, beyond "I'm upset and bummed out." As co-creator of Hireheels.com, which describes itself as "a forum of power chics for Hillary," Mantouvalos hangs out on the sassy edge of the blogosphere. Feeling more empowered than embittered, the public relations consultant wondered: "Wouldn't it be great if we could thread all of these disparate factions and form one coalition?" A brassy coalition of rebels.

On June 8, the evening after Clinton conceded the Democratic presidential contest to Barack Obama, Mantouvalos organized a conference call with some 40 bloggers, political activists and other hardened loyalists of the New York senator's, in what became "a jam session of very intense opinion" -- about the party, its leadership, its presumptive nominee, the media. Five hours later, Mantouvalos, age "north of 35," had built a new Web site, JustSayNoDeal.com, which has become a clearinghouse for the renegade forces that are now confounding Democratic Party officials and Obama campaign operatives.

It doesn't stop at Diane. No, that would be too sensible. We also have Christi Adkins, co-founder of Clintons4McCain.com :

"I think he is dangerous. I think he is unvetted and unqualified," said Adkins, an independent who said she voted for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. She is the kind of woman McCain and the GOP are targeting. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina has been a point person in this effort, recently holding sessions with women in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

And Robin Murray as well:

Their goal was to stop Hillary Clinton by any means necessary," said Robin Murray, an Indianapolis therapist and social worker whose nine-minute YouTube video, " Mad as Hell/Bitch," detailed examples of sexism in the campaign and became a visual anthem for many feminists.

Given that she is a supporter of abortion rights and holds other beliefs that are at odds with McCain's, Murray was asked why she would consider voting against her own interests. "Whether it's appropriate or whether it will work doesn't matter at this time," she said. "The vote is a protest vote -- be it if I vote for McCain, if I don't show up, or if I write in Hillary's name." Added Murray: "I view it in a holistic way. It says, we will not be controlled and manipulated by these singular issues in order to cast a vote that we feel is deceitful, negative, there is just no pretty way to say it -- they cheated."

Really? I have two words for Diane, Cristi, Robin and their ilk : Fuck you.

I'm tired of these fauxminist women who think they can get away with this white woman anger bullshit. You think Obama cheated or that he is dangerous? Then let me show you graphically the dire consequences of your arrogance.

Actually, my first idea for this hanger is this one:

As you can see, not only was I willing to make this about Clinton supporters, I would have doused every single hanger in fake blood, just to make the point even more graphic. Yet I've decided to not go there and make this about all women, regardless of party, voting against not just their interests and for reproductive slavery.

So to all you so-called angry fauxminists who are too blind to have seen how horrendously mismanaged was Senator Clinton's presidential campaign, shut the fuck up. If you can't even give the woman the dignity of having been the commander in chief of her own campaign, if you are so stupid you don't understand the actual management and political dynamics that led to her failed bid, then look at that hanger as the symbol of your lost reproductive rights and therefore EQUALITY under the law.

And to the real feminists, prepare for the real war because the real misogynists happen to carry vaginas like you and me.

I don't even want to think about the consequences of this.

Today the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved a measure to alow anybody with $50,000 or $100,000 to create whatever Top Level Domain (TLD) they want. Although this may spell doom for URL speculators, for small new media owners like myself (aka, bloggers), this may spell trouble.

Imagine a big media company buying up ".culturekitchen" to peddle international cookbooks. Now I have to not only take them to court, but hope to win and have them surrender to me my trademarked URL.

As a small media company (culturekitchen is incorporated), we're screwed. Who has the money to buy their blog's trademarked name or for that matter, to sue a richer company that, may buy up your blog's trademarked name knowing you won't be able to take them to court and fight for your rights?

For small new media entrepreneurs like bloggers, this could spell disaster.

On a more positive note, domains in Asian and Arabic languages have been approved. What I am wondering about it is whether they are also going to recognize Romance language spellings with characters with special notation such as ñ, ü or é.

Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Mothterfucker
Tits

An amazingly simple legacy of free speech, civil disobedience, philosophy of language and culture criticism all wrapped up in the guise of stand up comedy.

New York City to me has rarely been to me the voice of Woody Allen or Seinfeld. New York City has always been the voice, the "tawk" and the raunchy wit of George Carlin.

Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Mothterfucker
Tits
Fart
Turd
Twat

To celebrate George Carlin as a champion our civil rights and the integrity of the US Constitution I give you thee the original stand up skit that went into the Supreme Court Decision of FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION v. PACIFICA FOUNDATION, 438 U.S. 726, 98 S.Ct. 3026 (1978).

read more

Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Mothterfucker
Tits

An amazingly simple legacy of free speech, civil disobedience, philosophy of language and culture criticism all wrapped up in the guise of stand up comedy.

New York City to me has rarely been to me the voice of Woody Allen or Seinfeld. New York City has always been the voice, the "tawk" and the raunchy wit of George Carlin.

Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Mothterfucker
Tits
Fart
Turd
Twat

To celebrate George Carlin as a champion our civil rights and the integrity of the US Constitution I give you thee the original stand up skit that went into the Supreme Court Decision of FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION v. PACIFICA FOUNDATION, 438 U.S. 726, 98 S.Ct. 3026 (1978).

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT
The following is a verbatim transcript of "Filthy Words" prepared by the Federal Communications Commission.

Aruba-du, ruba-tu, ruba-tu. I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss words and the words that you can't say, that you're not supposed to say all the time, [']cause words or people into words want to hear your words.

Some guys like to record your words and sell them back to you if they can, (laughter) listen in on the telephone, write down what words you say. A guy who used to be in Washington, knew that his phone was tapped, used to answer, Fuck Hoover, yes, go ahead. (laughter)

Okay, I was thinking one night about the words you couldn't say on the public, ah, airwaves, um, the ones you definitely wouldn't say, ever, [']cause I heard a lady say bitch one night on television, and it was cool like she was talking about, you know, ah, well, the bitch is the first one to notice that in the litter Johnie right (murmur) Right. And, uh, bastard you can say, and hell and damn so I have to figure out which ones you couldn't and ever and it came down to seven but the list is open to amendment, and in fact, has been changed, uh, by now, ha, a lot of people pointed things out to me, and I noticed some myself.

The original seven words were, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.

Those are the ones that will curve your spine, grow hair on your hands and (laughter) maybe, even bring us, God help us, peace without honor (laughter) um, and a bourbon. (laughter)

And now the first thing that we noticed was that word fuck was really repeated in there because the word motherfucker is a compound word and it's another form of the word fuck. (laughter) You want to be a purist it doesn't really--it can't be on the list of basic words.

Also, cocksucker is a compound word and neither half of that is really dirty. The word--the half sucker that's merely suggestive (laughter) and the word cock is a half-way dirty word, 50% dirty--dirty half the time, depending on what you mean by it. (laughter) Uh, remember when you first heard it, like in 6th grade, you used to giggle. And the cock crowed three times, heh (laughter) the cock--three times. It's in the Bible, cock in the Bible. (laughter) And the first time you heard about a cock-fight, remember--What? Huh? naw. It ain't that, are you stupid? man. (laughter, clapping) It's chickens, you know, (laughter)

Then you have the four letter words from the old Angle-Saxon fame. Uh, shit and fuck. The word shit, uh, is an interesting kind of word in that the middle class has never really accepted it and approved it. They use it like, crazy but it's not really okay. It's still a rude, dirty, old kind of gushy word. (laughter) They don't like that, but they say it, like, they say it like, a lady now in a middle-class home, you'll hear most of the time she says it as an expletive, you know, it's out of her mouth before she knows. She says, Oh shit oh shit, (laughter) oh shit. If she drops something, Oh, the shit hurt the broccoli. Shit. Thank you. (footsteps fading away) (papers ruffling)

Read it! (from audience)

Shit! (laughter) I won the Grammy, man, for the comedy album. Isn't that groovy? (clapping, whistling) (murmur) That's true. Thank you. Thank you man. Yeah. (murmer) (continuous clapping) Thank you man. Thank you. Thank you very much, man. Thank, no, (end of continuous clapping) for that and for the Grammy, man, [']cause (laughter) that's based on people liking it man, yeh, that's ah, that's okay man. (laughter) Let's let that go, man. I got my Grammy. I can let my hair hang down now, shit. (laughter) Ha! So! Now the word shit is okay for the man. At work you can say it like crazy. Mostly figuratively, Get that shit out of here, will ya? I don't want to see that shit anymore. I can't cut that shit, buddy. I've had that shit up to here. I think you're full of shit myself. (laughter) He don't know shit from Shinola. (laughter) you know that? (laughter) Always wondered how the Shinola people felt about that (laughter) Hi, I'm the new man from Shinola, (laughter) Hi, how are ya? Nice to see ya. (laughter) How are ya? (laughter) Boy, I don't know whether to shit or wind my watch. (laughter) Guess, I'll shit on my watch. (laughter) Oh, the shit is going to hit de fan. (laughter). Built like a brick shit-house. (laughter) Up, he's up shit's creek. (laughter) He's had it. (laughter) He hit me, I'm sorry. (laughter) Hot shit, holy shit, tough shit, eat shit. (laughter) shit-eating grin. Uh, whoever thought of that was ill. (murmur laughter) He had a shit - eating grin! He had a what? (laughter) Shit on a stick. (laughter) Shit in a handbag. I always like that. He ain't worth shit in a handbag. (laughter) Shitty. He acted real shitty. (laughter) You know what I mean? (laughter) I got the money back, but a real shitty attitude. Heh, he had a shit-fit. (laughter) Wow! Shit-fit. Whew! Glad I wasn't there. (murmur, laughter) All the animals--Bull shit, horseshit, cow shit, rat shit, bat shit. (laughter) First time I heard bat shit, I really came apart. A guy in Oklahoma, Boggs, said it, man. Aw! Bat shit. (laughter) Vera reminded me of that last night, ah (murmur). Snake shit, slicker than owl shit. (laughter) Get your shit together. Shit or get off the pot. (laughter) I got a shit - load full of them. (laughter) I got a shit-pot full, all right. Shit-head, shit-heel, shit in your heart, shit for brains, (laughter) shit-face, heh (laughter) I always try to think how that could have originated; the first guy that said that. Somebody got drunk and fell in some shit, you know. (laughter) Hey, I'm shit-face. (laughter) Shit-face, today. (laughter) Anyway, enough of that shit. (laughter)

The big one, the word fuck that's the one that hangs them up the most. [']Cause in a lot of cases that's the very act that hangs them up the most. So, it's natural that the word would, uh, have the same effect. It's a great word, fuck, nice word, easy word, cute word, kind of. Easy word to say. One syllable, short u. (laughter) Fuck. (Murmur) You know, it's easy. Starts with a nice soft sound fuh ends with akuh. Right? (laughter) A little something for everyone. Fuck (laughter) Good word. Kind of a proud word, too. Who are you? I am FUCK, (laughter) FUCK OF THE MOUNTAIN. (laughter) Tune in again next week to FUCK OF THE MOUNTAIN. (laughter) It's an interesting word too, [']cause it's got a double kind of a life--personality--dual, you know, whatever the right phrase is. It leads a double life, the word fuck. First of all, it means, sometimes, most of the time, fuck. What does it mean? It means to make love. Right? We're going to make love, yeh, we're going to fuck, yeh, we're going to fuck, yeh, we're going to make love. (laughter) we're really going to fuck, yeh, we're going to make love. Right? And it also means the beginning of life, it's the act that begins life, so there's the word hanging around with words like love, and life, and yet on the other hand, it's also a word that we really use to hurt each other with, man. It's a heavy. It's one that you have toward the end of the argument. (laughter) Right? (laughter) You finally can't make out. Oh, fuck you man. I said, fuck you. (laughter, murmur) Stupid fuck. (laughter) Fuck you and everybody that looks like you. (laughter) man. It would be nice to change the movies that we already have and substitute the word fuck for the word kill, wherever we could, and some of those movie cliches would change a little bit. Madfuckers still on the loose. Stop me before I fuck again. Fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump. Easy on the clutch Bill, you'll fuck that engine again. (laughter)

The other shit one was, I don't give a shit. Like it's worth something, you know? (laughter) I don't give a shit. Hey, well, I don't take no shit, (laughter) you know what I mean? You know why I don't take no shit? (laughter) [']Cause I don't give a shit. (laughter) If I give a shit, I would have to pack shit. (laughter) But I don't pack no shit cause I don't give a shit. (laughter) You wouldn't shit me, would you? (laughter) That's a joke when you're a kid with a worm looking out the bird's ass. You wouldn't shit me, would you? (laughter) It's an eight-year-old joke but a good one. (laughter)

The additions to the list. I found three more words that had to be put on the list of words you could never say on television, and they were fart, turd and twat, those three. (laughter)

Fart, we talked about, it's harmless. It's like tits, it's a cutie word, no problem.

Turd, you can't say but who wants to, you know? (laughter) The subject never comes up on the panel so I'm not worried about that one.

Now the word twat is an interesting word. Twat! Yeh, right in the twat. (laughter) Twat is an interesting word because it's the only one I know of, the only slang word applying to the, a part of the sexual anatomy that doesn't have another meaning to it. Like, ah, snatch, box and pussy all have other meanings, man. Even in a Walt Disney movie, you can say, We're going to snatch that pussy and put him in a box and bring him on the airplane. (murmer, laughter) Everybody loves it. The twat stands alone, man, as it should.

And two-way words. Ah, ass is okay providing you're riding into town on a religious feast day. (laughter) You can't say, up your ass. (laughter) You can say, stuff it!

(murmur) There are certain things you can say its weird but you can just come so close. Before I cut, I, uh, want to, ah, thank you for listening to my words, man, fellow, uh space travelers. Thank you man for tonight and thank you also. (clapping whistling)

And a big WTF!

We know that Barack Obama is a control freak when it comes to his image (the suits just tells you all you need to know). But honey, this is getting friggin' ridonculous. I mean, they have in Latin, "Yes We Can" (Vero Possumus).

I keep reading that as "Very Possum", so that's how "too much" that seal is.

My question is, who's the semiotician in his PR and communications team.

H/T Dave Winer, via Twitter

Image Courtesy of BarackObama.com at Flickr.

The whole backstory to the AP vs. Rogers Cadenhead fiasco is already posted at the Media Bloggers Association site. Go read it. And here's Rogers version, by the way.

In discussing all the whisper campaign unleashed by the enemies of Barack Obama, I mentioned once to some fellow bloggers that The Rumor is The Smear. You don't have to have evidence of a tape of Michelle Obama backing cookies in the shape of a sickle and hammer. The Rumor is the Smear.

With The Rumor alone you can destroy an opponent with never having to demonstrate a shred of supporting evidence. The Rumor calls the rather strong heard-instinct in Americans. The Rumor is like a Siren-song and whomever creates the strongest Rumor, will be able to command the attention and control the point of view of the majority of the herd around them.

The Rumor taps into this country's collective need and penchant for psychopathic collective hysteria. Remember the Salem Witch Trials. Enough said.

Bloggers and now many journalists, have started gaming audiences with "The Rumor". Larry Johnson exponentially exploded his traffic with his dishonest "pro-Clinton" smear and rumor campaign against Michelle Obama. Perez Hilton has created a media empire around the rumors and innuendos he creates about the celebrities he covers. Truemors, Guy Kawasaki's latest project, is exactly based on the idea that people like the internet only for the entertainment factor of information, especially if the rumors are true (get it?).

Rumors may be sometimes fun but most of the time, and especially in politics, it is used as a weapon. In the blogosphere it is the strategy du-jour by many screaming mimis. It's incredible then that people like Michael Arrington and, of all people, Cory Doctorow have taken the pill and joined The Rumor machine.
[UPDATE : Cory Doctorow updated the post with Mary Hodder's corrective post.]

[ OMFG! I just caught Jason Calacanis passing on the fucking smear through Twitter. I just chewed him out and told him Mary Hodder and Jay Rosen and I have been all over this one. OMFG! He just took it back, I love him!

Do you understand now why The Rumor can be The Smear? It only takes a few influencers to move the The Rumor and you indeed end up smeared with all the lies people want to attribute to you (or you candidate or his wife). ]

I can't believe all these guys would want to jump in the smear bandwagon hitched by the likes of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, Teresa Nielsen Hayden. A rumor started, by the way, by a pro-AP journalist who seems to have a penchant for bashing bloggers.

Is it a coincidence that the one who reported this "guidelines meeting" works for one of the members of the Associated Press, the New York Times? Is it any coincidence that then the rumor is corroborated by an AP article?

Here's more from Mary Hodder :

AP: AP to meet with blogging group to form guidelines
NYT: The Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs

Note that the NYTimes article says this which is the misleading paragraph:

Mr. Kennedy said the company was going to meet with representatives of the Media Bloggers Association, a trade group, and others. He said he hopes that these discussions can all occur this week so that guidelines can be released soon.

Media Bloggers Association, per the reporting by Culture Kitchen, did not say they were "representing all bloggers" to get some sort of policy worked out with AP, but rather, at Rogers' request, are representing *his case only,* in order to deal with the 7 C&D notices AP sent him.

The NYT (in implying) and AP in it's headline and throughout the article outright, completely misunderstand this, and lead readers to misunderstand that there is even an institution that can "negotiate for the blogosphere."

When you get the mediation that the MBA offers, that mediation is for you and your blog and/or bloggers alone. It's not for all other bloggers. It's not for "The Blogosphere", whatever it means. It is for only you, yourself and your blog. That's it. Period.

The Associated Press and The New York Times need to post corrections or retractions ASAP. It's dishonest to have implied that what ever is negotiated for Rogers is in any way applicable to all bloggers.

See also :
AP have their legal vampires chasing bloggers. I blame Hilary Rosen.

More about the AP copyright takedowns against Rogers Cadenhead

Netroots' bloggers boycott of Associated Press is working

Fighting for our right to inquiry, creativity and dissent

EXCLUSIVE : Robert Cox answers some questions about his coming meeting with AP

We need to keep the focus on Rogers Cadenhead and Fair Use

I would have subtitled this video "America's New Civil War".

From the production company :
The New York Times and the Washington Post have recently reported on the "System of Neglect," namely, the state of immigration detention center conditions. As told by her sister June Everett, watch the story of Sandra Kenley, a 52- year-old grandmother, who after living in the U.S. legally for 33 years, was subjected to these very conditions and died in immigration detention.

Fox News had Michelle Malkin on yesterday discussing some thing or another having to do with the dark-skinned Filipina's attacks and demonization of presumptive First Lady Michelle Obama. So what does the Fox News editorial team do during the conservative racist baiter's time on TV? They put a banner right under the news bit that read : "Outraged Liberals : Stop Picking on Obama's Baby Mama".

As Oliver Willis says quite correctly, why not call her a N***r and get it over and done with it? Why not just turn Fox News into what it really is, a race-baiter's dream machine?

Kevin Hayden says' the channel should be fined by the FCC a minimum of $325,000 for publishing hate speech. Even though I agree with Stefania this proves the extreme right is scared shitless at the prospect of seeing the Obamas in the White House, it's still utterly wrong and those bastards should pay every time they pull this shit.

Yet what's most important about all this mess is the other Michelle. La Malkin. Why do you think Fox News has on their payroll a dark-skinned Filipina who is not only their quite giddy and willing cover for the racist rants you pass as news, but also something of a news maker herself?

Michelle Malkin seems to be racist Pygmalion who has been molded by her husband, Jesse Malkin. Two years ago four bloggers documented what many people were wondering at the time about the increasingly prolific Malkin : That MichelleMalkin.com and most probably Michelle Malkin the syndicated journalist and columnist and
are not Michelle Malkin but the woman, her husband, Jesse Malkin and maybe indeed a small team of interns and researchers.

That nowadays she has people guest blogging at MichelleMalkin.com is a complete turnaround from the early days. Michelle Malkin in 2006 had just given birth and was slugging across the country interviews and book readings all the while writing a syndicated column, making TV appearances and peppering her blog with about 6 posts a day. Every day. Including Sundays. And she would do this and boast about how she didn't have nannies, how she didn't have interns or assistants working for her. She was the super brown woman, spokeswoman for anti-immigrants and white supremacists at large.

It's why finding out who really is Michelle Malkin the author became so important. Was this a xenophobic genius or is she a front for a larger right-wing juggernaut?

The authors of Malkin Watch and Liberal Avenger wrote an important piece called "Ghost Blogging". Professor of Law, Eric Mueller, who notoriously fisked (the) Malkin racist and anti-immigrant manifesto, "The Case For Internment", had noticed the writing pattern as well and went even as far as to say (after being attacked for attacking Malkin's racist screed) :

Of course, when a female, nonwhite blogger condemns rather than defends the Japanese American internment, or argues for protecting rather than trashing immigrants' rights, or takes the opposite side of just about anything Malking writes, it's really not so attention-grabbing, is it?

Gee. Could that have anything to do with why Malkin gets so much attention on the right?

In other words, Michelle Malkin has always been "Michelle Malkin & Co", most specifically, Jesse Malkin doing most of the writing with Michelle as the front of the operation.

Which is why having Michelle Malkin at the center of this "baby mama drama" is so important. Ever the opportunists, "Malkin & Co." seeks out race baiting opportunities the way sharks seek blood in the water : If it is something "Malkin & Co" can profit from, she and her husband run to it and unleash the racist wurlitzer on her blog. By the way --do you know that the multi-tasker Michelle Malkin is also CEO of HotAir.com, a conservative new media company?

Back to the topic : In the recent months MalkinCo. has zeroed on Jeremiah Wright and Michelle Obama. Malkin's mission? To paint Jeremiah Wright as the leader of a black KKK while painting Michelle Obama as an extension of Jeremiah Wright. Which by default would paint Barack Obama as a sort of racist Manchurian candidate that will attack his own grandmother because he just can't wait to wipe the country clean of people who don't look like him.

By having Malkin at the center of the "Obama Baby Mama" drama, Fox News can get away with one more day of cashing in on extremist propaganda, all the while attacking the presumptive first African American President and First Lady of the United States.

Michelle Malkin is being paid from many different fronts : think tanks for her books, advertising for her blogs, Fox News for her appearances, Knight-Ridder for her syndicated column, to prove that if she repeats racist speech, it is not hate speech at all but a political opinion.

Well, if there were ever a better time to take down Michelle Malkin, this is it. She is ramping up the race baiting spewage. I wouldn't have it past any of her followers to take her words as license to unleash their violence against the Obamas or any of their associates.

I've been thinking a lot about virality and what is making the videos in this election cycle so important in terms of cultural and social significance. To me they are working as "zeit geist machines". These videos are not only capturing the spirit and mind of our particular moment in time. They act as portals into the way we are creating spirit and memory right here and right now.

It's why Hillary 1984 started the Democratic Party's nomination race. It clearly defined the front-runner to beat. It clearly made the case for voting against her. Yet look closely at that video and you will see that the choice of voice-over quotes, along with the whole branding metonymy, was giving us the reasons why Democrats were ready to have Hillary loose the nomination. In making the case for "Change" it was showing us the inner workings of that meme.

In other words, "Hillary 1984" became the defining meme of the primaries.

Now we have "I Am Voting Republican" and I have to say that this was emailed and twittered so many times this morning I immediately smelled a trend.

Once I watched it, I could see why it is the defining meme of the 2008 general elections :

1. It clearly defines the candidate to beat
2. It clearly states the reasons to vote against the candidate.
3. It uses the cognitive power of satire to deliver the "bad news" in a positive way.
4. It has burned through the "first-adopter-sphere" like wild fire.

And just as I was about to hit "publish" it occurred to me that the meme is perfect because it's what alleged Clinton supporters have been saying all along : that they'll vote republican (or for McCain) if Obama wins.

This video is brilliant because it captured a meme, it replicated and it turned it upside down not only as a response to the meme itlsef, but as a magnifying glass augmenting the logic behind the disgruntled voters' logic.

This is post is adapted from "Is this the first viral video of the 2008 Presidential elections?", techPresiden.com

In the immortal words of Team America, fuck yeah! This has got to be one of the best "get out the vote" initiatives I've seen in a long time.

Via Digg and Twitter and cross-posted at Booman Tribune.

PS : I think we've found Brave New Films' new competitor!

Can't this man just say, "I'm not interested in being VP, thanks so much" and just leave it at that? Why does he have to give any ammunition to the Obama haters by saying shit like this?

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Ohio Governor Ted Strickland – who has often been mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick for presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama – said Tuesday that if asked, he would “absolutely not” join the party’s presidential ticket this fall.

Strickland, who backed Hillary Clinton during the primary season, told NPR’s Michele Norris that he was taking himself out of the running. “Absolutely not. If drafted I will not run, nominated I will not accept and if elected I will not serve,” he said, in an interview on NPR's All Things Considered. “So, I don’t know how more crystal clear I can be.”

Obama lost the Ohio primary to Clinton.

The swing state governor, who has endorsed Barack Obama, dismissed the idea that all potential running mates deny interest in the job. “No, I don’t think they all say that. I’ve heard people say, ‘you know, if I was asked, it would certainly be something I would have to consider.’ That does not mean that I am any less committed to helping Barack Obama become the next president,” Strickland said in an NPR transcript of the interview, which is scheduled to air Tuesday night. He is scheduled to join Obama on the campaign trail in Ohio this Friday.

Now, you'd think that people would understand that professionally, it would be absolutely STUPID for John Edwards to run once again as VP to anybody. That's why people like me are clamoring for him to get the Attorney General post.

So what do Hillarytons have to say about this? That it's proof Obama is mediocre and is being reject by the party establishment.

Uh, yeah, right, because all those superdelegates that helped nominate him are not.

Fucktards.

By the way, Strickland was one of Clinton's staunchest supporters. I guess someone just shat on the plate that's going to feed him for the next four years.

Had they not miscegenated, you wouldn't have the pleasure of reading us every day.

That's my mom holding me outside Mt. Sinai
Hospital. If you live uptown, you can see that's
the old exit on 5th Avenue and 101 Street.

That's my dad and me, outside my mother's
parents house in San Germán,
Puerto Rico, right before my first birthday.

That's me, eating my first cake on my first birthday ever.

So yeah, even though this is totally off-topic, it's my birthday bitches. Show love

Okay, am going to admit it : Am a really shallow person. For years I wanted to have a baby just because of this picture.

That's me 41 years ago eating my first birthday cake.

I thought, if I can be that adorable, I obviously can spawn some cute kids. And I did : my kids are indeed indecently adorable.

I know, am shallow and self-centered, but so fucking what.

It's my birthday!

I was having a short discussion the other day on Twitter about sexism and it seems that Natasha Chart over at MyDD, that bastion of feminism, has taken it out of context to make a point about sexism.

Lovely.

This is the comment I left :

So let me get this straight : You take a comment that was part of a whole conversation about how our culture imposes the tyranny of homogeneity instead of respecting difference and looking at diversity as an asset and you twist it to prove a point about sexism?

that conversation was about how aggressiveness and violence are not necessarily nature. that as a mother of two boys and someone who has taken care of many of my friends girls, i can see how their energies can by nature, be vastly different.

the issue is of holding male energy as the standard of what is good and by assertion, female energy being bad or weak. just as how whiteness is held up as the standard and everything that is not "white" then becomes diminished, poor, disadvantaged, underdeveloped, or plain old not good enough.

but you took that one quote and you built a whole post about how everything about this campaign was sexist attacks that cost Clinton the nomination.

we've had this conversation before online and am going to say it again, it's not the reason why. there's 100 reasons, none having to do with sexism, that cost Hillary Clinton the nomination.

get over it.

and, by the way, this link was sent to me. if you're going to quote me, have the tact next time of emailing me the link.

i take cause with how you present my words here.

there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING wrong not wanting to [be] like men and finding power in that.

I had to use Summize to go back on the twitts of yesterday and find the conversations I was having. I can identify 6 different conversations all revolving around different discussions of sexism.

One of them was with Shannon McKarney of EcoChic, who had this to say :

I wrote that piece last year+believe it more strongly now. Women have to become more "male" to be successful

That's where the whole discussion of homogeneity vs. difference started. That's where I ssaid that I strongly disagree with women needing to be like men to be successful just as I strongly believe this to be one of those sticking points for a lot of feminists of color.

The whole discussion of women vs. men pits oppressed people in many communities of color against each other. Yes, colored men can be sexist and even ruthlessly misogynistic but is that the root of our problems or is it a symptom of a larger structure of violence and exploitation that women and men of color need to unite against?

That's the reason why male vs. female at least from this radical woman of color is bullshit.

It's is also one of the reasons why, after being pregnant with two boys, bringing them to the world and raising them, I've come to accept and respect male and female difference --natural or otherwise-- as necessary to the fabric of humanity.

One of the points I was making was that American culture is about creating the fantasy of homogeneity and it's the reason why it becomes tyrannical against difference and diversity.

So for example, boys and girls are treated as if they were inadequate versions of each other. We as a culture do not have a concept of Ying and Yang and so we don't respect female and male energies for what they are. So when girls are pushed to be boys, what they tap most of the time is negative energy ---much in the same way, by the way, boys also go negative when they are pushed to be more female.

Maybe it's an issue with language and we need to speak of it differently. Exactly because contrary to Morgainne's comment, we've come to look at difference as opposite where the only relationship is e "either/or". Whereas in Taoism difference or Ying and Yang is actually about doing away with either/or and accepting life as a current, a flow with no beginning or end but with vast resources and ecologies within it.

So that's why when I said :

girls in trying to have the same kind of intensity and manic energy of boys become aggressive and sometimes violent.

This part of the conversation was augmented by my exchange with Rjt12 in the following exchange :

Rjt12: @blogdiva when girls behave aggressively it is called aggression, when boys behave thus it is called 'intense'. gender is culture.
about 21 hours ago · Reply · View Tweet

blogdiva: @Rjt12 totally agree with that comment
29 minutes later · Reply · View Tweet

Rjt12: @blogdiva but how do you agree while saying girl/boy "energies" are different?
14 minutes later · Reply · View Tweet

blogdiva: @Rjt12 i think they're different but [that doesn't] mean there's a judgement to that difference. the issue is that in our society different = bad
14 minutes later · Reply · View Tweet

I wasn't pointing to female energy as less than male. I was pointing to it as different and in trying to make it as male, that's where negativity comes into play and that's why sometimes, as far as my observations of girls and boys, they become violent --because when we tell them they need more of this or that, we're rejecting them as less than what they are.

And quite frankly, nobody has a monopoly on extroversion, aggressiveness or even violence.

For one, I do think that girls are more outgoing and aggressive in getting what they want and need from a very early age and are taught, especially in schools, that it is wrong. Boys are often thought of aggressive and violent and that's another meme I don't believe in.

Testosterone is very real and anybody who has lived in a house full of men will know that those spurts of testosterone can sometimes be manic. But it's not always manic in a violent way. It's actually very rare to see a boy who is actually violent to the point of hitting people with the purpose of hurting them.

And this brings me to a study about chimpanzees I read some time ago.

I read a few articles years ago on how female chimpanzees will join the males in war raids. In gory detail one of the studies described how females will focus on killing the opposition's babies and females, especially the pregnant ones.

The reason?

Well, obviously, so that the males of their tribes can rape them and claim genetic dominance. Yet the most important reason is purely political for them. There is such a thing as an "Alpha Female" and she will do anything and everything to destroy her competition to retain her power. And since the her coterie have resolved themselves to stay put as second bananas, they will help the "queen" do whatever it takes so they can retain their access to power.

For political or social reasons hominids will do whatever it takes to retain power. Nowhere in the study, by the way, was there any discussion about loss of resources or land or any identification of the reasons for these raids and this outright hunting for infants and pregnant females.

Yet it proves my point that violence is inherent to humans. It's not an either/or based on gender or sex. And it's the reason why I believe that when we force our kids to be a certain way, especially when we're basically telling them that they're not good enough as they are and for who they are, then we'll see push backs and we'll see them do so in a negative and sometimes violent manner.

Girls ought not be taught to be more like boys because what we're telling them is that female power is not good, it's weak, it's worthless.

That's where this conversation was going and that's why I closed it by saying, "i love myself as a woman because i am powerful as a woman.".

It's an assertion I haven't come to easily exactly because for years I thought I needed to be like a guy to be successful. Yet once I discovered how degrading that version of "female empowerent" is, I stopped using it. It's been truly liberating for me to say "I'm a woman, so fucking what".

That and turning 40 two years ago this Tuesday helped immensely --after 40 you really don't give a damn

Yet, to go back to the issue of sexism : It's a frame for explaining the Clinton loss that I totally reject. As said, there are 100 reasons why she lost that have nothing to do with sexism.

Even better : I do believe this country is ready for a woman president. The problem is that that woman is not today's Hillary Clinton.

I came in just in time to watch Hillary Clinton give her endorsement to Barack Obama. It was an interesting speech. She never talked about losing, she talked about the disappointment of not getting the nomination. She also didn't talk about Obama's legitimate win, she only mentioned his victory.

I was on Twitter writing about the speech and I have to say I am relieved she finally said the words a lot of us wanted to hear 2 months ago : that is time to come together and support Obama.

I thought it was gracious and I also noticed that she kept on repeating at the end "we need to help elect barack obama our president" , almost as if she repeated it seven times herself she would truly and honestly embrace it.

I was also taken aback by her late realization that she became a woman who ran for president as opposed to being a candidate who happened to be a woman. I've always said that Hillary Clinton never struck me as a feminist, but as one of the millions of middle class white women who benefitted from the equal opportunity policies that came after the Civil Rights and Women's Rights movements.

Yet this campaign seems to have made her a born-again feminist :

"I am a woman, and like millions of women, I know there are still barriers and biases out there, often unconscious, and I want to build an America that respects every one of us," she said. "We must make sure that women and men alike understand the struggles of their grandmothers and mothers."

It was really refreshing to hear her say that this country needed to work for women's equality. It's amazing, because as the Senator of New York I had never, ever heard her utter those words.

So am going to say "Thanks Hillary" and leave it at that, for now because the hard part just begun --after a brutal campaign that she waged by attacking Obama as the least prepared of the two, there's just no amount of campaigning she can do that'll take those words back.

One of the illest songs to come out of this campaign.

Not only is NAS remixing Barack Obama's victory speech, he's thrown the immortal Tupac.
Download it here.

By the by, what do you think about the cover of NAS' album?

H/T To dnA over at Too Sense and XXL.