Who Really Invented the Blog?

Although they've never claimed credit for it, I think that Amazon.com really invented the blog when they created their customer review function. Now Amazon has introduced comments to the customer reviews.

With Amazon's customer reviews feature millions of people finally had an easy way to express themselves on a forum where someone might actually read what they had to say. This is especially true if you read the reviews of controversial books or ideologically loaded polemics like Ann Coulter's or her counterparts on the left. You'll see that people who clearly haven't read the book are using the user friendliness of the review feature to vent their spleen and argue with each other.

Amazon prohibits embedding HTML in reviews, but I've seen plenty where people include urls as part of their screen name.

Now that Amazon has added the ability of readers to comment on another's review, it may only be a matter of time before they allow reviwers to include hypertext, images and sounds to their reviews. Perhaps the next step after that will be the ability to place advertising in your review for a small fee.

CNN Spews Neocon Propaganda

Any doubt one might have that the mainstream media are conduits for corporatism and neocon political propaganda and therefore have a conservative bias were dispelled Wednesday and Thursday by CNN's coverage of Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez at the United Nations.

Wednesday, I watched coverage of Chavez's speech on Lou Dobbs' show. As they showed part of Chavez's speech they placed a subject title next to the CNN logo: LEFTIST MENACE.

Thursday night, Anderson Cooper's story repeated all the same things we've been hearing about Ahmadinejad and Iran. He denies the Holocaust and says Israel should be destroyed, he lies about Iran's nuclear program, he hates America, he presides over a repressive government that denies its citizens democracy.

I have no problem with analyzing the prejudice or falsity of Ahmadinejad's statements. What I vehemently object to in the coverage of Chavez and Ahmadinejad is the complete lack of a comparative and historical context.

Why are Ahmadinejad and Iran hostile toward America? One reason is that the United States overthrew Iran's democratically elected leader Mossadegh and replaced him with the Shah, who ruled with the help of his secret police. Another reason is that we assisted Saddam Hussein against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. George W. Bush selected Iran as one of the three members of the "Axis of Evil," and we've already toppled one of the three. Since then, Bush and Condoleeza Rice have continued to rattle sabers at Iran, supposedly because of their nuclear program.

Given the historical context and past relations between Iran and the US, what would you do if you were Ahmadinejad? Wouldn't you feel threatened?

CNN and the rest of what the right term the MSM are the conduits for this administration's demonization of any leader we don't like who's country holds large reserves of oil and who defies the United States.

All the same bullcrap rhetoric that was used to justify the war in Iraq is being recycled for the coming war against Iran. Ahmadinejad and Iran's leaders are working on developing nuclear weapons and deny their people democracy. Right now those are the talking points.

The reality is that Iran is ten years away from a nuclear weapon, and it would mean their destruction if they ever used one against us. The principle of deterrence which worked against the "Evil Empire" of Russia, who had thousands of warheads aimed at us, should certainly work with Iran.

As for lack of democracy in Iran? Don't make me laugh. Bush and the neocons don't really care about democracy in the Middle East.

Look at Pakistan. There's an Islamic country led by a general who took power in a coup. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, they nurtured the Taliban and still allow them to take refuge in their country. Musharaf recently struck a deal where he agreed not to molest the Taliban in part of his country. After Pakistan's nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan was found to have given nuclear secrets to North Korea and Iran he was sentenced to a wrist slap of house arrest.

But Pakistan is our "valuable ally in the war against terror."

What a bullcon.