Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The naked truth about women in Russian politics

 

I recently saw this clip posted to Digg's Video section and it brought some thoughts to mind about the state of politics in our country my Canada.  These women in Russia, are more or less qualified to be in the positions that they are in, but if they we were to be over here in Canada (or the US), how would we react?  Would we take them seriously or just objectify them because they are beautiful women?

I'm thinking that we wouldn't take them seriously.   Recently up here in Canada, we had a politician by the name Belinda Stronach,  that even though she was  involved in running Magna International (one of the world's major auto parts manufactures), many men were more interested in trying to get a date with her because they found here "hot", then her leadership abilities.  Whether you liked her or not, she was a smart women.  Maybe a little ambitious, but smart.  And I'm thinking if another women came along that was remotely attractive she would receive the same treatment, unlike her male counterparts.

By now you are probably thinking that there is a double standard as it comes to women.  Which there is.  But I find that it gets thrown around a lot as an excuse for bad behaviour.  Which brings me to this video.  It seems that these women politicians feel that they are having a double standard applied to them, and I don't think that there is one.  In their cases, they have appeared nude in major publication, something that I feel is below the level someone that is a leader in a country.  Call me old fashioned, but I still feel that our leaders should be people that we can all look up to as good examples of the morals and principals that our socieity holds to. 

Now these women and some other people might say that these pictures are artistic.  But I don't buy it.  No one buys "Maxim"  for its artistic value.  I feel that when some says their pictures are "artistic" after posing nude in a publication like Playboy, they are only making an excuse for what they are doing.  Which is sad since in Politics we never hear of the male leaders taking off there clothes for magazines.  So what is it about women, that makes them feel that they have to go naked to be popular?  Until women stop posing nude for these magazines, etc.  I don't think they will be ever be taken seriously when they enter office.  Then again, maybe I'm wrong and we will see males following suit.  Just imagine if George Bush posed for Playgirl.  Would he win over more women voters?  I guess we will never know.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

The Negotiating Table

 

This is a kind of funny video that was done by Seth Macfarlene (the creator of "The Family Guy")  about the writer strike negotiations.  I though creative, I wonder if it is a good idea to portray the Producers as a group of animal puppet. Since when the writer strike ends, he and the rest of the writers are going to have to go back to work with these guys that they have spent months making fun of.  In any case I hope this strike ends soon.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Bird Poops In Mouth

Saturday, January 19, 2008

CONAN vs COLBERT (Jan.18)

 

This is Hilarious.

Star Trek XI Teaser

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Should Laws Protect Virtual Property?

With our lives being increasingly moving online, I've been left with the question of whether or not governments should be passing laws to protect our online property.   Especially, as we consider recent events.

For anyone that has been on Digg in the last couple of weeks you would have read the story of David Airey. How he went on vacation to India and found out that  someone had stolen his Domain for his business' website, using a vulnerability in gmail, and held it hostage for money. In the case of David he was able to get back his domain thanks to the Digg readers getting involved. But if they had not he would have had to go to court and gotten them to freeze his account, as his service provider Go Daddy wasn't going to return account without him going though the courts. Now in the real world, if someone steals your house you would call the police and they would investigate, but online it almost seems like a no mans land right now.  Where there is no set state of Law. Then again,  maybe in the case of David he would have had to go to court to dispute his case in the real world as well,  given the fact that the hacker, using David's e-mail address, actually followed Go Daddy's policy for transferring ownership of a domain over to someone else.

Another incident that happened recently online was that one of the host (Randy Deluxe) from The Instance World of Warcraft Podcast had his World of Warcraft account stolen from him by a hacker (probably using a key logger), who liquidated his characters and mailed all of his money(gold) and items to someone else on the server.  Which is kind of crappy, but this hacker (or cracker to be specific) also, liquidated his guild bank,  which contained money and items from not just him but other players in his guild also.  So not only do you lose control of your account, but he had to explain to all of his guild members why he emptied the guild bank.  

Now someone might be reading this and saying why should we protect virtual property since it isn't real?  Because there is real value to that property and when it is stolen (I believe) that psychologically it probably has the same effect that theft in the real world causes.  For David it was his business that was stolen from under him,  and thus his livelihood.   For Randy Deluxe, it was hours of his time that he spent on his characters to collect items and gold that was wasted.  Time that if measured could be turned into real dollars and cents based on what he feel his time is worth.  

In the future, we might primarily socialize and do business online.  At lest that is the way that we are heading.  So I feel that it is important to protect what is already up there. Then again,  maybe you disagree.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Happy New Year

Hey Everyone.  I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy New Year.  I hope that you have fun where every you are going and I hope to see you in the New Year.