Peter Beinart on The Colbert Report

The Crisis of Zionism

I found Peter Beinart's appearance on The Colbert Report to promote his new book quite compelling. His views on the state of Israel are pretty standard liberal views but I like the way he frames them. Instead of getting overly emotional or flirting with anti-semitism, seems to have struck a middle ground where he looks at the consequences that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have for Israel's own democracy. Israel rightfully prides itself as America's closest ally and as the only democracy in the middle east but decades of occupation of Palestinian/Arab lands has created a dissonance in which parts of the country are "freer" than others which cannot last.

I think I may have to actually read this book. TV shouldn't come with home work....

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Peter Beinart
www.colbertnation.com
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My Guide to Social Networking

Admittedly, this is mostly tongue and cheek but I think I'm onto something here.

• Gentlemint: Pinterest for guys.
• Pinterest: Tumblr for ladies.
• Tumblr: Twitter for kids.
• Twitter: Facebook for ADHD types.
• Facebook: Like MySpace only much less awful.
• MySpace: Like Google Plus only it was actually successful for a while.
• Google Plus: Blogging for people who don't know what a blog is.
• Blogger, Wordpress, and other blogging platforms: Online diaries for people who don't know HTML or what a .plan file is.
• .plan file: An online diary for people who were sick of getting flamed on Usenet.
• Usenet: The original and best ever social communications platform for the Internet. Like the rest of the Internet it followed the typical path: created by nerds for nerds, then all the "cool" people joined up, and then regular folks joined up. Then it fell to constant infighting, frustrations, and people started leaving for the next big thing. And finally nothing but spam and porn. While many people continued to use it, it hand lost its relevance in much the same way that MySpace did. It's a little hard for me to be too snarky about Usenet, since I used it and loved it for so much longer than these other networks.

Enjoy your future folks, it's going to look a lot like the past....

SuperPACking

SuperPACs Are Bad Until You Need Their Money for Your Reelection Campaign.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Colbert Super PAC - Nancy Pelosi's Ad & Barack Obama's Super PAC
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Steve Ballmer, Apple Fanboy

So I was reading on Slashdot, as I often do, when I came across this:

Uploaded with IntrinSic.us

Suddenly it all made sense. Windows 8. Microsoft's seeming lack of direction and failure to innovate recently. Pretty much everything that had gone since Bill Gates retired. Steve Ballmer is secretly an Apple fanboy who is unwittingly sabotaging Microsoft from within. Yes, it all makes sense now.

He Says While Posting On His Blog

Here's something a gadget geek like me doesn't want to encounter on his travels on the Innertubes:

Study Finds Growing Up WIth Gadgets Has a Downside: Social Skill Impairment

The first thing that popped into my head reading this was, "But I didn't grow up with a lot of gadgets and I have terrible social skills." But I'm a gadget geek now. So I can't help but wonder if the reverse is more likely to be true. That is, perhaps poor social skills are part of what drives children to enjoy gadgets in the first place.

The Daily Show on SOPA

You could face as a website, up to five years for streaming ten pieces of music.

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When did Congress turn into Ogre?

What kind of douchebag steals other people's copyrighted work anyway?

Damn you Bob Newhart!

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The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
KO Computer
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Colber SuperPAC Transfer Activated!

I believe I have a pure cash erection.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Indecision 2012 - Colbert Super PAC - Coordination Resolution with Jon Stewart
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Stephen Colbert on the New Hampshire Primary

Ah, perspective.

Remember, The Magna Carta was written by angry, rich men who believed their leader was an illegitimate usurper.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Indecision 2012 - New Hampshire GOP Debates - Moderate Extremes
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How the Sausage Doesn't Get Made

The thing that I love about The Daily Show is the way it just has a knack for encapsulating everything that frustrates me about the absurdity of politics. Last night for example....

Look at it Stewart! Look at it! This is how the sausage doesn't get made!

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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So Where Do I Go From Here?

I haven't written much lately. Well, at least not on this blog. My Tumblr blog on the other hand has been fairly active by comparison. And of course I'm extremely active on on Twitter, somewhat less active on Google Plus, and I keep in touch with my family through Facebook. So where does Blogger fit in? In the past it was a no-brainer to put whatever I wanted on my blog but now there are so many more choices, many of them more convenient and faster than blogging. Twitter is amazing in this respect and Tumblr fills the gap nicely when Twitter falls short. Tumblr even holds its own nicely against Blogger in terms of longer form writing, something I never really did much anyway....

So here I am with my old blog writing a post wondering if it will be my final one.

Although the new revamped interface for Blogger does look cool once you get used to it. Maybe I'll play around with it a bit....