Has Islamaphobia Swept The USA?

NMA.tv looks at the current wave of anti-Islamic sentiment sweeping across America.

Alan Howe – Google is evil

Here’s the latest illogical rant from the Herald Sun’s Alan Howe.

Gullible Google

* Alan Howe

* From: Herald Sun

* December 13, 2009 8:26PM

I READ the other day that Google’s unofficial slogan is “Don’t Be Evil”. Really? Its search engines consort with some of the worst humanity has to offer and, via Google, anyone can witness the most pungently unattractive aspects of life: murder, accidental death and sexual perversion are just the start.

Asked to put together some music for a kids disco party, I ventured through Google – to find out what music might be popular with girls aged about seven, using the obvious key words. I won’t be doing that again.

Google’s chairman is Eric Schmidt, an aggressive fellow given to lecturing other media whose imperfect track records nonetheless shame what can be found using his services. You reckon he’d pay attention to detail.

Instead, he repeats lazy cliches. He was at it the other day discussing the “current crisis in the print industry”.

“A traditional technology struggling to adapt to a new, disruptive world,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “It is a familiar story: it was the arrival of radio and television that started the decline of newspaper circulation. Afternoon newspapers were the first casualties.”

Radio came to Australia in the 1930s; television arrived with the 1956 Olympics. By September 1989, Victorians were buying about 750,000 newspapers a day. Twenty years on, with almost ubiquitous news services, TVs on every corner and in every shop, iPhones, BlackBerrys and PCs at work and home, and Google lifting, for free, newspapers’ content from across the globe, we’re buying even more newspapers daily – not to mention the millions hitting the Herald Sun website.

Schmidt says: “We have to embrace what users want … “

Couldn’t agree more.

Yes, this doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Alan seems to not realise that Google is a search engine and did not publsh the dubious articles that he discovered. He also does not seem to realise that Google does not plagiarise the Herald Sun website but gives out links to it. Unfortunately this just proves that he really hasn’t any idea of what he is talking about and just regurgitating the illogical ramblings of his boss, Rupert Murdoch. (Because Murdoch doesn’t like people going to the H/S web site and reading the content but not paying for it, or at least clicking on one of the advertising links, as that way he does not make any money.) Yep, Rupert doesn’t like you going to his website and reading all that content for free. As soon as he can find a way to charge you for going to his website without you being pissed off about it he will do so!

I also have to comment on Howe’s assertion that print media is not in trouble at the moment. Circulation is down from what it was a decade ago because people can no longer want to read about what happened yesterday by purchasing a newspaper, but they want up to date news that they can get at the click of the button. The circulation of the H/S is up 0.1% from a year ago, but The Age’s readership has dropped by 1.5% in that twelve months. The H/S circulation has remained stable for most of the last decade at around 550,000 readers but in the early 1990s this was around 600,000 readers. (In the 1960s The Herald had a circualtion of 500,000, when our population was 1/2 of what it is today!) Traditional newspapers have over the last decade focussed less on actual news and more on ridiculous gossip and outlandish opinion pieces, two trends that have copied from the internet.

Obama Hates Charlie Brown

I know that it’s fun to think that Australian politicians are stupid but compared to some of their American counterparts ours are really quite intelligent. Take for example Arlington, Tennessee Mayor Russell Wiseman who became very crabby because President Obama made an address to the nation to announce that he was escalating the war in Afghanistan. The ironically named Wiseman was so incensed about this that he wrote on his Facebook page…

“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it….w…hen the answer should simply be ‘yes’….you obama people need to move to a muslim country…oh wait, that’s America….pitiful.”

He further followed that diatribe up with…

“you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be
different…”

I find it laughable to think that President Obama would be checking the TV Guide especially to make sure that his announcement would pre-empt the Charlie Brown special because he’s a Muslim, even though it is well known by everyone except Southern rednecks that Obama is a Christian. I think he needs to have a therapy session with Lucy. Good grief!

Greatest 100?

MX newspaper is perhaps the stupidest media outlet on the planet. This free Murdoch newspaper aimed squarely at Generation Y, which fills it’s pages with idiotic opinions, the twitterings of Z-list celebrities and press releases and advertisers buy-ins trumped itself on Monday with an opinion piece by Jane Watkins, who claims that she ‘puts the squeeze on pop culture’. Watkins took aim at Triple J’s Hottest 100 countdown of all time, that was held six months ago, because the list was full of male dominated classic rock. She then wrote how refreshing Music Max’s Hummingbird 100 countdown of the top 100 songs by female artists of all time, not just because it was a list of great female artists, but because many of the songs were released in the last five years.

Watkins spoke about how all genres of music were featured in the list, not just rock and roll, and cited some of the artists such as Lady Gaga, Fergie, Katy Perry, Rihanna, M.I.A., Taylor Swift, Paramore and La Roux who made the list as a reason why Max’s list is more relevant than the Triple J one. I just wonder if Jane Watkins is really that idiotic that she thinks that and of those artists belong in a list of the top 100 songs by a female OF ALL TIME. To me this list is a complete and utter failure not just because these artists were featured but because there was not a single song from Janis Joplin, one of the greatest icons of popular music.

Here is the complete list. (Colour highlighted text shows which songs do not belong in the list)

HUMMINGBIRD 100 FEMALE SONGS OF ALL TIME

1. Respect – Aretha Franklin
2. Pink – So What
3. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive
4. Abba – Dancing Queen
5. Madonna – Like a Prayer
6. Lady Gaga – PokerFace
7. Bangles – Eternal Flame
8. Fergie – Big Girls Dont Cry
9. Blondie – Heart of Glass
10. Madonna – Like a Virgin
11. Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse Of The Heart
12. Katy Perry – I Kissed a Girl
13. Madonna – Vogue
14. Rihanna – Umbrella
15. Beyonce Knowles – Single Ladies
16. Lady Gaga – Just Dance
17. Gwen Stefani – Holla Back Girl
18. TLC – Waterfalls
19. Roberta Flack – Killing Me Softly
20. Alanis Morrisette – You Oughta Know
21. Bette Midler – Wind Beneath My Wings
22. Pink – Dear Mr. President
23. Nancy Sinatra – These Boots Are Made For Walking
24. Beyonce Knowles – Crazy In Love
25. Diana Ross – Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
26. Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love
27. Roxette – It Must Have Been Love
28. Blondie – Call Me
29. Beyonce Knowles – Halo
30. Tina Turner – Whats Love Got to Do With It
31. Fleetwood Mac – Go Your Own Way
32. Alanis Morrisette – Ironic
33. No Doubt – Don’t Speak
34. Cyndi Lauper – Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
35. Fergie – Glamourous
36. Pink – Funhouse
37. Whitney Houston – I Will Always Love You
38. Destiny’s Child – Bootylicious
39. Bangles – Walk Like An Egyptian
40. Aaliyah – Try Again
41. Christina Aguilera – Lady Marmalade
42. Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes
43. Destiny’s Child – Say My Name
44. Irene Cara – Flash Dance
45. Bic Runga – Sway
46. TLC – No Scrubs
47. Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights
48. Sinead O’Connor – Nothing Compares 2 U
49. Carly Simon – You’re So Vain
50. Toni Braxton – Unbreak My Heart
51. Rihanna – Disturbia
52. Madonna – Papa Don’t Preach
53. Roxette – Listen to Your Heart
54. Christina Aguilera – Genie In A Bottle
55. Kate Miller-Heidke – The Last Day on Earth
56. Toni Basil – Mickey
57. Kylie Minogue – Can’t Get You Out of My Head
58. Salt N Pepa – Push it!
59. Shakira – Hips Don’t Lie
60. Alicia Keys – Fallin
61. Tracey Chapman – Fast Car
62. Destiny’s Child – Independent Women
63. Dusty Springfield – Son Of A Preacher Man
64. Pink – Who Knew
65. Cyndi Lauper – Time After Time
66. M.I.A – Paper Planes
67. Lily Allen – Not Fair
68. Portishead – Glory Box
69. Sarah McLachlan – Angel
70. Alicia Keys – If I Aint Got You
71. Tori Amos – Cornflake Girl
72. Aretha Franklin – (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
73. Pink – Get the Party Started
74. Carole King – I Feel the Earth Move
75. Alanis Morrisette – Hand In My Pocket
76. Amy Winehouse – Rehab
77. Gwen Stefani – What You Waiting For?
78. Berlin – Take My Breathe Away
79. Cranberries – Zombie
80. Lily Allen – F**k You
81. Sia – Breathe Me
82. Roxette – The Look (Most of the song is sung by a bloke!!!)
83. Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance With Somebody
84. Pink – Sober
85. Belinda Carlisle – Summer Rain
86. Regina Spektor – Fidelity
87. Blondie – The Tide Is High
88. Paramore – Decode
89. Pink – Just Like A Pill
90. Lesley Gore – It`s My Party
91. Lauryn Hill – Doo Wop (That Thing)
92. Taylor Swift – Love Story
93. La Roux – Bulletproof
94. Roxette – Joyride
95. Christina Aguilera – What a Girl Wants
96. Beyonce Knowles – If I Were A Boy
97. Dolly Parton – Jolene
98. Etta James – At Last
99. Regina Spektor – Samson
100. Rihanna – Take A Bow

That’s a pretty horrendous list. As I said the omission of any Janis Joplin songs automatically makes the list a complete FAILURE. This list is a complete trainwreck and the more that you look at it the worse it gets. No Supremes or Nina Simone or Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holliday or Bjork or the Pretenders or Joan Jett or Patti Smith or Joni Mitchell or Martha and the Vandellas or the Go-Gos… I could go on and on about the great female artists who were left off the list for horrible pop idols like Rihanna, Lily Allen, Leona Lewis and Katy Perry.

Drugs Are Bad… Mmmkay

It is amazing some of the stuff that you can find on Youtube. This is a 1960s anti-drug short film that is hilarious, almost as bad as the anti-drug films from the 30s and 50s.

Maybe I should drop some acid, as I’ve always wanted to talk to a hotdog. Perhaps I’d need to be jacked up on marijuana first though?!