Spanish politicians have criticised a video by the Young Socialists in Catalonia in which a woman simulates an orgasm while casting her vote.Although Socialist equality minister Bibiana Aido wins the day:
Both Socialist and opposition politicians have attacked the campaign video.
The equality minister called it "misleading" advertising.
In the video the young woman gets increasingly excited as she votes for the Socialist Party in this month's regional elections in Catalonia.
It concludes with the phrase, "Voting is a pleasure", after she puts her voting slip in the ballot box.
The leader of the conservative opposition Popular Party of Catalonia, Alicia Sanchez-Camacho, said the video was an "attack on the dignity of women".
"If it was true, electoral participation would go up greatly, but I think we are dealing with a misleading advert."[BBC News]
Politico Pro’s expected staff of forty journalists will provide “high-impact, high-velocity reporting on the politics of energy, technology and health care reform” for political and policy professionals.It kinda sounds like they'll be doing what they're already doing, but with bigger words -- or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they'll use acronyms without defining them, since the readership will be assumed to be "in the know."
The most vociferous critics of Microsoft and the overall proprietary software industry describe the anti-piracy crusade as a sophisticated dog-and-pony show. They say the software makers tolerate a certain level of piracy because they would rather have people use their products — even if counterfeit — than pick up lower-cost alternatives. At the same time, the critics say, the software companies conduct periodic raids to remind customers and partners that playing by the rules makes sense.We get caught up in the thing that is prohibited -- whether it's illicit narcotics (as opposed to controlled substances) and prohibited forms of media copying -- and instead it would behoove us to look at the boundaries between what is forbidden and what is allowed. That boundary tells us more about ourselves as a society than how many joints we smoke or songs we download for free.
“It has always been in Microsoft’s interests for software to be available at two different prices — expensive for the people that can afford it and inexpensive for those that can’t,” Mr. Eben] Moglen[, a Columbia Law professor,] says. “At the end of the day, if you’re a monopolist, you have to tolerate a large number of copies you don’t get paid for just to keep everyone hooked.”
Throughout three programs this week, Mr. Beck has portrayed Mr. Soros, a billionaire investor and philanthropist, as a “puppet master” who is “notorious for collapsing economies and regimes all around the world” and whose “next target” is the United States. Citing Mr. Soros’s statements about the decline of the dollar, Mr. Beck said, “Not only does he want to bring America to her knees, financially, he wants to reap obscene profits off us as well.”Doesn't this all sound familiar? Deriding a sub-section of society as being the puppet master financiers constituting a fifth column that wants to destroy the country from within. Really? Not setting off alarm bells at all?
Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, took issue with Mr. Beck’s depiction of Mr. Soros as a “Jewish boy helping sending the Jews to the death camps,” calling it “offensive” and “horrific.”
Television drama should say more about the world we live in today and not rely on costumes, irony and pastiche, according to the award-winning screenwriter Jimmy McGovern. The television veteran behind the uncompromising hit shows Cracker and The Street is calling for dramas that reflect reality and have a strong point to make.Hey hey hey -- I like Dr. Who.
"Why write drama that doesn't matter?" he asked this weekend. Commenting on the high viewing figures for costume dramas such as ITV's Downton Abbey and the popularity of arch adventure shows such as Dr Who, McGovern said he believed the best writing took itself seriously, as well as taking its audience seriously.
"Why have a BBC complaints unit in the first place? They tell me, 'Jimmy, it is in case you offend anybody,' and I say, 'I am a writer. That is my job.' Just imagine if it said on my headstone that I had never offended anybody – I would turn in my grave."That? That is just awesome.
[John] Pike[, director of the U.S.-based security analyst group globalsecurity.org] said he didn't understand why the military had not recognized the contrail of an aircraft. "The Air Force must ... understand how contrails are formed," he said. "Why they can't get some major out to belabor the obvious, I don't know."I'll tell you why: because they know exactly what it is, and they're not telling.
Here’s the message for Scott Brown that I gleaned from last week’s election: Scott, run for president.Oh. My. God.
Mr Ellsberg turned himself in, willing to be held accountable for what he has done. He faced charges—eventually dismissed—under America’s Espionage Act. In contrast, WikiLeaks distributes its servers to take advantage of whistle-blower laws in Sweden, Belgium, Iceland and America. Mr Assange enjoys the protection of several liberal democracies, but is not really accountable to any of them.In essence, Assange is doing to the Pentagon's data what Mark Zuckerberg is doing to yours: grabbing it, doing what he likes with it, and then claiming it's no big deal because it's a new digital age.
What is more, Mr Assange seems unwilling to reflect on the risks of what he is doing. Amnesty International has complained that documents in WikiLeaks’ release on Afghanistan were not sufficiently edited, and thus likely to endanger Afghans who had worked for the coalition. Even such supporters as Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic member of parliament, has expressed disappointment over how the documents were released. Mr Assange disagrees, saying that nobody needed protection as a result of the release—citing, of all sources, NATO in Kabul. In contrast, Mr Ellsberg is more self-critical and concedes, for instance, that the publication of the Pentagon Papers actually had no effect on the war in Vietnam.
News media experts say that an attack-the-press strategy can make sense as a pure political play. While polling has shown that majorities of Republicans and conservatives have long harbored suspicions about the news media, there has been a surge in negative feelings among Democrats and liberals.No, no, no guys -- it's afar simpler explanation: it's not institutions, it's you. They explained this to you at the Rally to Restore Sanity the day before you published this:
The biennial Pew Research Center poll on public attitudes about the news media found last year that much of the growth in negative perceptions about the media has been driven by Democrats. For the first time last year, a majority of Democrats, 59 percent, said that reporting from news organizations is often inaccurate. That figure was just 43 percent in 2007.
Michael Dimock, an associate director at Pew, said this reflected a tendency by Democrats to shift part of the blame for their recent misfortunes on the press. But he said he also believed it was about something broader: a mistrust of large institutions.
“Whether it’s the press, whether it’s government, there has been this lowering of credibility in a lot of institutions in America,” Mr. Dimock said. “You name it. It’s hard to find a group or institution that isn’t being viewed more skeptically these days.”
Posts
