Of Montreal - Neat Little Domestic Life
On that note, I want to direct your attention to one more tech-related story. One thing you may not know about me is that I'm really only interested in the world of technology and gadgets when something comes along indicating that our world is finally moving in the direction of 80s/early 90s science fiction films, like freakin' sweet Japanese dome houses, phones powered by Coke, or this story that I saw today: Panasonic and LG are going to integrate Skype into their HD televisions. I'm still not going to club an elderly lady for one next Black Friday, but at least the possibility will be out there. 1984-style "telescreen" parallels aside, the only real negative I see here is that one would have to remember to put on pants before walking into the living room.
Irritating: Wal-Mart and H&M branches in Manhattan, where a third of the population is poor, take their unworn clothes and rip them apart with machines and box cutters to ensure that they aren't resold. Well, of course they do!
How embarrassing: a few weeks ago, University of Texas professor Alan Kuperman called for bombing Iran, and the New York Times published his editorial. Yeah, that sounds about right. Juan Cole, one of my favorite commentators on Middle Eastern politics, points out the faults in Kuperman's argument and takes on NYT's problematic coverage of recent events there regarding the protests and the nuclear issue. Part of the trouble, he says, is that this is kind of the way things looked before the US invaded Iraq, and we all saw how that turned out. Come to think of it, it still hasn't turned out.
It does seem a bit odd to ask, "If their intentions are peaceful, why are they building underground?" after having called upon the US to bomb Iran's above-ground nuclear facilities in practically the same breath. Cole makes this and many other good points in the piece which can be found here.
In the “stumbling block to peace” department, Israel must think all of this Iran stuff is awesome, because it’s allowing them to continue to build settlements like there's no tomorrow. This seems appropriate, because if you're most Palestinians, there really is no tomorrow. If I had a nickel for every time I read that Saeb Erekat is "playing down hopes," I'd be sitting on a pretty fat stack of nickels; it's a wonder the guy keeps his job, what with all of the despairing he has to do. Pakistan's The News International has a recent report on the (lack of) progress in the negotiations here, and here's my favorite part:
"Mutually agreed land swaps," huh? Does it strike anyone as odd that the Palestinians are consistently the ones having to "play down hopes?"Clinton backed the key Palestinian aim of creating a state along the borders
that existed before the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, but said the lines would be
modified through mutually agreed land swaps, presumably to account for some
Israeli settlements that would remain.
George Mitchell, special US envoy and antihero of the Middle East (I want your job, George), is due back in the region near the end of this month and has said that peace talks should not last more than two years. Upon hearing this, Israeli ministers remarked, "We're in no rush."
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