Posts Tagged ‘cable’

Pick ‘n Choose Channels

Sunday, April 15th, 2012

When you go into a restaurant, you aren’t usually forced to order the buffet. When buying music, you’re given the choice to get just a single track instead of the entire album. While shopping for clothes, you can buy a shirt without having to buy socks you won’t ever wear.

Yet when you order television in Canada (outside of Quebec), you have to take entire packages just to get the stations you really want. There is no pick and choose option that lets you fine tune your cable line up to meet your specific demands. (more…)

US Troops Handcuff, Execute Elderly Women and Children

Saturday, September 3rd, 2011

Wikileaks just dumped 250,000 un-redacted US embassy cables – most of which were classified – to the series of tubes we call the Internet. Out of the many stories which have already surfaced, none, so far, are more damning than one stemming from a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi.

The leaked cable provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, and then they called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence!!! Autopsies showed that all the dead – including four woman and five children aged 5 years or younger – had been handcuffed and shot in the head.

Disgusting.

Hopefully these and other leaked documents will provide the push needed to hold the key players behind this war – Bush, Cheney, Rummy – accountable for their crimes against humanity. Then, maybe the next time a problem arises, leaders won’t be quite so eager to drop the bombs.

Wikileaks Finally Resorting Crowdsourcing

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

Whistle blowers and freedom fighters extraordinaire – Wikileaks – have just released 35000 classified documents originating from U.S. embassies from around the world.

But this time, instead of slowly sifting through the heaping pile themselves, they are doing something new – opening up the classified cables to the public, letting crowdsourcing handle the brunt of the painstaking work.

The entire cache of cables made freely available online in searchable format, making it easy to scour. And whenever any intrepid investigator finds a juicy tidbit they need only tweet about it with the hashtag #wlfind to share it with the world.

Finally, Assange and his gang are embracing a bit of that transparency they so vehemently espouse – something I’ve been lamenting about since January.

Well, better late than never. Plus, with plans to expose more nations – like Israel and Russia –  to the dreaded transparency treatment, it is high time Wikileaks distributed some of their burden to the rest of us.

Israel is in the News, Again

Friday, January 7th, 2011

Yes, it’s yet another blog post lambasting Israel. No, I’m not antisemitic. I’m just anti-injustice, and what I see going on in the Middle East is an atrocity of the greatest magnitude. So to help end it I’m doing what I can to increase awareness about it.

What is it this time, you ask. Well, there’s two negative stories making rounds and they both highlight the injustices being perpetuated by the corrupt Israeli government.

The first bit stems from a leaked cable claiming Israeli border guards would block shipments from US corporations unless they offered up a bribe. News of guards looking for kickbacks seems a bit trivial, especially when compared to the second story below, but it still exposes an inherent corruption nonetheless.

The second bit of news: Israeli soldiers broke into a Palestinian home last night, killing a 66 year old man as he slept in bed. He was shot at close range multiple times in the head and body.

The Palestinian man – Suliman al-Qawasmeh – was the unintended target of the raid, as the soldiers had mistakenly entered the wrong home. The Israeli forces were supposed to find a suspected militant who had been released from a Palestinian prison earlier that day.

Well, mistakes happen. No one is perfect, right? I mean, come on… don’t tell me you’ve never been a well-armed pawn, serving some corrupt government’s ideological agenda, when you accidentally assassinated the wrong target.

No? Well, if you say so.

Clearly what transpired is an injustice to the widowed family, to the Palestinian community, even to the soldiers who now have to live with innocent blood on their hands.

All of these tragedies, of which more are coming to light every day, are happening under the umbrella of a giant pile of wrongdoings: Israel’s occupation of Palestine and the continued oppression of millions of people based solely on their heritage.

Will the dead man’s family be compensated for their loss? Will these errant soldiers be held accountable for their actions? The answer to both of these questions will likely turn out to be negative.

If the Palestinians can be held prisoner in their own homes and kept on the brink of economic collapse, what possible hope could they have to personally hold Israel forces accountable for what amounts to just another transgression?

This means it is up to us – the rest of the world with a voice – to rise up and be heard, not just for the subjugated people of Palestine, but for all of the world’s voiceless.

We must let it be known – to our governments, to the media, to anyone who will listen – that we can see these injustices as they happen, and we won’t be quiet about it anymore.

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If we’re to gain a positive from this tragedy, it can serve as another reminder of how the war on terror is inherently flawed. Rather than deepening the cesspool of extremism with the blood of more innocents, we ought to rethink the logic behind using a militarized approach in a battle of ideas.

don’t tell me you’ve never been a well-armed pawn serving, some corrupt government’s ideological agenda, when you accidentally assassinate the wrong target.