iMAC CRASHES ON TAKEOFF

Hey, folks. My brand new iMac G5 went boom So it's in the repair shop for who the hell knows how long. All my future blogs are stored there, so I won't be too actively making blogs for a few days unless I've got time to type one up on my little laptop.


GOOGLE CENSORED

As you probable know, Google and other Internet search engines have agreed to the Chinese government’s demand that they limit a Chinese citizen’s window to the net. You can’t find what you can’t see. This goes along with AOL’s seeking to charge certain clients to give them access to a faster Internet service. The Internet will soon be as corrupted as other media.

A long time ago, I was in a chat room, before I tired of their inanity, and came across a Chinese girl who could barely write English. She was at an Internet Cafe somewhere in China. We conversed a little bit, and I began to ask some questions about freedom. She became evasive and guarded and wouldn’t answer my questions directly. That was my first contact with a Chinese citizen on the Internet, and I sensed immediately the fear involved with China and the Internet.


BUSH MAKES US SAFER?

According to a recent Newsweek article (Feb. 13, 2006, p. 29)

[OPEN QUOTE] Even many young people are caught up in this wave. On the campus of Tehran's elite Imam Sadegh University, students who weren't born in 1979 talk about "the purity of the revolution and the war." ''An Islamic renaissance is starting from here;' says Reza Tawana, a third-year law student who fingers his worry beads and avoids looking women in the eye. "We are witnessing the start of a fundamentalist uprising in the region from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to Hamas, Hizbullah in Lebanon and of course Mr. Ahmadinejad in our own country." For the Bush administration, which is trying publicly to drive a wedge between the Iranian regime and the Iranian people, such attitudes present a dangerous challenge. This isn't just about nukes. Iran under pressure can use its extensive contacts in Iraq among dissidents and insurgents-and within the Shiite-dominated government-to further undermine the American position there. In today's tight market for oil, any threat to Iran's exports of crude while likely send prices toward $100 a barrel. Last week, even as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice waged a diplomatic battle to get the regime dragged before the Security Council, President George W. Bush tried reaching out to the Iranian masses "held hostage" by a small clerical elite. "We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom;' said Bush. ''And our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.” [CLOSE QUOTE]

Does anyone believe that these patriotic young people would be up in arms as they are if it weren’t for our Imperial Presidency?