Year: 2004

Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes.

Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4. Supremacy of the Military
5. Rampant Sexism
6. Controlled Mass Media
7. Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14. Fraudulent Elections

[Details: Rense]

Now, doesn’t that remind you of a certain regime a certain Mr. Bush is leading?

MSN to Tempt Bloggers with Traffic and Ads

After Google opened up their AdSense program to bloggers, MSN seems to be following in it’s footsteps.

Susan Mernit blogs that MSN Network GM told Mark Glaser how Microsoft might work with bloggers in the future…

“If you’re a blogger, MSN might come to you and say, ‘We want to distribute you. We’ll send you traffic and we want you to run these ads on your site, and you’ll get a share of revenues on that. That’s probably an offer that many bloggers are going to be interested in because they don’t want to have to invest in creating that kind of infrastructure, and they would value the traffic.”

This is very interesting news.
Anyway I’d like to know how MSN are planning on sending traffic to bloggers?
Will they be playing around with their search engine so that bloggers who are in their program get listed high in the search results?

[Via: Mental Mayhem, Micro Persuasion]

Yusuf Islam Wins Peace Prize

The singer once known as Cat Stevens — branded by the United States as a potential terrorist risk — has been awarded a peace prize in Rome for his humanitarian work.

Mikhail Gorbachev presented Yusuf Islam with the “Man for Peace” award at the opening of a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

The former Soviet leader kissed the singer on the cheeks and praised him for standing by his convictions despite personal hardships.

[…]

The British musician was expelled from the United States in September after authorities diverted his London-to-Washington flight to Maine to remove him, saying he was suspected of ties to terrorism.

[…]

The musician is the founder of Small Kindness, a charity to raise money for children and families suffering from poverty and war in the Balkans and Middle East.

He has also donated money to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and to the fight against AIDS in South Africa.

Source: CNN

How extremely ironic.
The thought that this man of peace was not allowed to enter the US because of suspicions that he has ties to terrorism is just so ridiculously stupid.

Yasser Arafat has passed away

Yasser Arafat, Palestinian Authority President and leader who fought for his people’s cause for decades has died in a French hospital after a lingering illness. He was 75.

Secretary-general of the Palestinian presidency, Tayib Abd al-Rahim, confirmed the death.

His body will be flown to Cairo for a ceremony on Friday and then to the West Bank city of Ramallah for burial the same day.

The speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Rawhi Fattuh, will be sworn in as Palestinian Authority president on an interim basis until elections are held after 60 days.

Yasser Arafat was a great leader, a symbol for resistance and will power, a man of principle, a man who lived and died for a great cause and a man of peace.

It’s so sad to see such a good man pass away.

Today, like everyday, we are all Palestinians, and we all mourn this man we have grown to respect and look up to throughout the years.

May you rest in peace Yasser Arafat.

Lara Fabian : A Wonderful Life

These past couple of days i’ve been listening to Lara Fabian’s second english album A Wonderful Life, and WOW, it’s simply breathtaking.

Lara’s voice is one of the best female voices out there, and she’s been belting out the most amazing ballads and songs in both English and French.

I became a fan ever since the first song I heard by her, which was “Je T’Aime”.

She has perfect control over her powerful voice and a beautiful taste in music.

This album is another masterpiece in her collection of great works, a true musical delight for the ear.

My favourites songs on this album are: Unbreakable, Conquered, I Guess I loved You, I Am.

I totally recommend this album to everyone who is into this type of music.

Next Space Prize

Anyone who wants to follow in the shoes of Burt Rutan (Scaled Composites) and win the next big space prize will have to build a spacecraft capable of taking a crew of no fewer than five people to an altitude of 400 kilometers and complete two orbits of the Earth at that altitude. Then they have to repeat that accomplishment within 60 days.

While the first flight must demonstrate only the ability to carry five crew members, the winner will have to take at least five people up on the second flight.

And one more thing. They have to do it by Jan. 10, 2010.

Those are just some of the rules that govern who wins the $50 million “America

Firefox 1.0

Finally, version 1.0 of the Firefox browser was released today.

After playing around with all it’s releases, I officially moved to Firefox as my browser of choice over a month ago and have been enjoying it fully ever since.

It sticks to the standards, offers all needed features and accepts skins and extensions which extend it far beyond a browser.

My installation currently notifies me when I get an email in my GMail account, it gives me the weather forecast for Tunis for the next 3 days, has a built-in ftp client, feed reader, calendar and web developer kit.

It’s definitely the best and coolest browser on the internet today.

I only use Internet Explorer at work for testing purposes because that’s what most people still use but honestly, compared to Firefox, IE should rot in hell just like Netscape should have done before it.

Download your copy of Firefox 1.0 and have fun surfing again.

Arabic-style handwriting cancels flight

Midwest Airlines canceled a flight ready to take off for San Francisco after a passenger found Arabic-style handwriting in the company’s in-flight magazine and alerted the crew.

The plane, carrying 118 passengers and five crew members, had already pulled away from the gate at Mitchell International Airport on Sunday evening. It returned to the gate, the passengers got off, security authorities were notified, all luggage was checked and the aircraft was inspected. Nothing was found.

The passengers were put up in nearby hotels and booked on a Monday morning flight.

The writing was in Farsi, the language used in Iran, said airline spokeswoman Carol Skornycka. She said she didn’t know exactly what the writing said but was similar to a prayer, “something of a contemplative nature.”

So now not only do they start a problem because they don’t like how someone looks, but they’re ready to turn around a plane just because someone scribbled on an inflight magazine in a language that looks like Arabic?!
I think this is really stupid!
I truly can’t believe it’s gone this far!

[Source: USA Today]
[Via: Mental Mayhem]