You've probably heard of Al Jazeera before; most likely with followed by the words Osama Bin Laden if you're watching the news media in the United States. For some reason Al Jazeera has a mysterious label placed upon it of being a radical propaganda spreading news organization with tied to those spooky freedom hating terrorist. Truth is, Al Jazeera started as a devision of the BBC World News Service back in 1996 to deliver news to the middle eastern region. The network faced with censorship demands by the Saudi Arabian government, and was shut down after two years of operation.
Many former BBC World Service staff members joined Al Jazeera, together they introduced a level of freedom of speech and of the press on television that was previously unheard of in many of these countries. Al Jazeera presented controversial views regarding the governments of many Persian Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar; it also presented controversial views about Syria's relationship with Lebanon, and the Egyptian judiciary.
Prior to September 11, 2001, the US government had lauded Al Jazeera for its role as an independent media outlet in the Middle East, US officials have since claimed an anti-American bias to Al Jazeera's news coverage. As the station first gained widespread attention in the West following the September 11th attacks, when the network broadcasted videos in which Osama Bin Laden justified the attacks. This led to significant controversy and accusations by the United States government that Al Jazeera was engaging in the fore mentioned propaganda on behalf of terrorists. Al Jazeera countered that it was merely making information available without comment, and indeed several western television channels later followed suit in broadcasting portions of the tapes.
On November 13, 2001 during the US lead invasion of Afghanistan a missile strike destroyed Al Jazeera's office in Kabul. Nigel Parsons, managing director of Al-Jazeera's English service said the channel's viewership is growing in the U.S., despite the service being shunned by major cable or satellite providers in the country who say there is no market.
"We are even making inroads in the United States, not only via cable and satellite," Parsons said at a branding forum in Singapore. "Our service is available via broadband ... we now have tens of thousands of subscribers in America, dispelling the notion that Americans aren't interested in foreign news. They must be, they're fighting two wars."
Parsons also said a distribution tie-up between the network and YouTube has been "an astonishing success," with almost 100,000 viewers downloading videos every week, and many of them from the United States.
Al-Jazeera could not immediately provide exact figures on U.S. online subscriptions and YouTube viewers. YouTube Inc. is owned by Google Inc.
In America, one of the few cable companies in the country to offer Al-Jazeera in its cable packages is city-owned Burlington Telecom, which serves 1,200 households in Vermont's largest city. The channel is also on the air in Houston, Washington, D.C., and parts of Ohio.
Learn more:
http://english.aljazeera.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera
Thanks to Sharonb for originally sharing this video.
The Obama-Biden campaign whats you to know the truth about their tax strategy and are providing this widget on their website. Our family will supposedly save $500 over the current administrations tax plan. To be fair they also provide you with your estimated saving under the McClain-Palin administration.
Okay so anybody who has ever shared more than fifteen minutes of conversation with me has probably come to the realization that I am a technology maniac. To an degree we all are, ("we" because you're obviously reading my blog). We can't escape the ever improching technical advances in our society. For the most part it has prolonged the lifespan of our species and made life generally more enjoyable. But when does convenience turn into obsession? This is probably where those under age fifty are tuning me out and the elders start to agree, but don't get me wrong. I was the first generation (the Nintendo generation) to be born with a joystick in my hand. I did more studying of Zelda maps and strategy guides as a child then my grade school geography books. This isn't my point either. Let's fast-forward twenty-two years later and examine the pro's and con's of technology in our lifes and ask ourselfs "Are we obessed?"
Warning: This post may offend people sensive to um, well... dead people.
Discovering who you ask. Yes, Mallory isn't exactly a household name in the states. George Mallory was an English mountain climber who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s. However on the third expedition, in June 1924, Mallory and his climbing partner disappeared somewhere on the upper Northeast ridge during the final stage of their attempt to first persons to reach the tallest peek of the highest mountain in the world. The pair's last known sighting was only a few hundred metres from the summit. Mallory's ultimate fate was unknown for 75 years, until his body was finally discovered in 1999.
The 1999 expedition was the second attempt ever at searching for the missing climbers. A first attempt in 1986 failed due to bad weather and the death of a Sherpa before reaching the actual search area on the mountain on concept of a exploration team was revived when a marketing director of a publishing company in Harrisburg, PA, presented the concept to mountain guide Eric Simonson. Simonson counts among the most experienced organizers of Everest expeditions, besides having a strong interest in mountaineering history. The BBC expressed interest in filming the documentary of the search and partnered with various other corporations i.e PBS-Nova, ZDF, as well as outdoor equipment companies like Lowe Mountain Sports, Mountain Hardwear, and others. With financing in the bag the exploration began.
Remarkably it only took the group 45 minutes to discover the corpse of three climbers from more recent expeditions. It became apparent that the area was an catchment of sorts for anything or anyone falling down the North Face from the Northeast Ridge.
One of the exploration members was returning from the lower western rim of the basin, when he spotted a blue-yellow object fluttering in the wind. He traversed over for closer examination. As he happened to look over his right shoulder, he suddenly saw "a patch of white, that was whiter than the rock that was around and also whiter than the snow." It was another corpse - but not from recent times.
A bleached-out heel, a nailed leather boot, natural fibre clothing - all this indicated that it must have been there for a long time. It was 11.45 a.m. the body was lying face-down on a sloping ledge, head pointing uphill. The upper torso was firmly frozen into the gravel that had accumulated around it over the years. The clothing consisted of several layers of cotton, silk, wool, flannel and canvas.
The head was covered in a fur-lined motorcycle leather helmet, the right leg still wore putties, three pairs of woollen socks, and a nailed leather boot. Most of the clothing on the back was missing, shorn away by the wind.
The exposed skin was bleached white by the sun, looking like marble. Only where it had been covered the skin showed a yellow-brown colour, the bare hands were almost black in places. Large parts of the buttocks, right thigh, and the abdominal cavity had been pecked by birds.
Everything pointed to a fall. The right tibia and fibula were fractured above the boot top, the lower leg bent at a sharp angle. The right elbow was either broken or dislocated. Closer inspection revealed cuts, abrasions and bruises along the right side of the body. The torso was tangled in a length of broken climbing rope. The rope had squashed the rib cage and probably broken some ribs on the left side. The posture of the body, with its arms stretched out over the head, looked as if the climber had tried to self-arrest. But who was it?
The team then searched the body's clothing for any camera, personal effects and means of identification. Eventually they turned over a piece of the collar and a clothing label became visible. It read George Mallory.
Learn More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mallory
http://www.affimer.org/hemmleb4.html
Okay so obviously girls must play video games right? Who wants Barbie dolls when you can have live out cyber Barbie fantasies in the World of Barbie MMRPG or the redlight district of Club Penguin Underground. That being said, have you ever glazed the software aisles of mega discount department stores to see what rubbish titles developers are creating to entice fem tots. When I saw My Little Pony my initial thought was somebody must have dropped an dvd from the nostalgic
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I don't really listen to Adam Corolla much, frankly after the Man Show was thankfully yanked off the air I thought he pretty much dropped off the face of the earth. No disrespect, his style of comedy just never appalled to me, however the man is blessed with the gift of gab -- so in the tradition of washed up television personalities turning to radio for an income i.e. Steve Harvey. Adam Corolla signed a contract with 97.1 Free FM of Los Angeles. At that brings me to the subject of this post. Back on April 10th Corolla interviewed the late Isaac Hayes on this call-in program, Hayes appear to be incoherent, stuttering, and obviously in an impaired state of mind. Corolla tried his best to conduct a proper interview. However when the interview started heading south because of Hayes inability to verbalize a complete thought Adam and his cronies relentlessly teased Isaac. All this a mere four months before Isaac Hayes death.
You can listen to the complete unedited interview fiasco here.
Now, the post-mortem "disrespectful" memorial segment to Isaac Hayes. I wouldn't consider myself a fan of Hayes, but I respect the work the man has accomplished in his career, he's certainly had more of a successful career than Adam Corolla. Needless to say, Corolla hasn't made a new fan here.
My scream-a-piece is on the left, Victors is on the right.
As hurricane Ike prepared to slap into Texas like Tina, panic over supply demand caused a run-on-the-pumps throughout much of metro Atlanta, driving prices up sharply as much as two dollars per gallon in some areas. The governors office received over five hundred complaints of price gouging by station owners and the local media began a campaign over the weekend shining a spotlight on his honest filling stations looking to turn a quick buck.
As damage estimates continue to arrive it largely appears the oil refineries in the stricken region only received minimum damage, although it may take up to two weeks before any lost refinery capacity is restored. Gasoline prices in Atlanta are expected to remain about the national average for at least another week.
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