http://theamericancritic.com/categories/rss/Other_Discursive_DialogueLatest Articles Posted on The American Critic Filed Under Other Discursive DialogueLatest Articles Posted on The American Critic Filed Under Other Discursive DialogueWikiLeaks, the site that offers a "public service designed to protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public," I thought it was a cool idea. But now I'm wavering. In the references section of this article is a CNN story on how military documents released on Wikileaks could be endangering the lives of troops and foreign civilians. The story also expresses that the FBI will be involved in investigating the how the documents leaked.

Bottom line, some documents are sensitive, and therefore not shared, for a reason. The line has to be drawn somewhere in terms of what can be shared and what can't. A Hollywood story, that's one thing, but leaking on your country's military operation, that's quite different.

I haven't done any research yet on what options the government has in this situation regarding WikiLeaks. If it were in China, we know what the hell they would do.



Anyhow, this is America, where we perpetually must perform the balancing act on what's free speech and what isn't. But because this is America, it's also where we can say, affirmatively, that Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, deserves an ASS WHIPPING ---


]]>Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:06:26 PDT1280448386

*AMBER ALERT* Somer Thompson
]]>Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:37:43 PDT1256060263 I wish that those who are advocates of looser guns laws would spend some time on the South/West side of Chicago, where school children are getting murdered, five since the school year started. I admit that these are lower income areas, high in crime, gang violence, but does that make it ok? is it all the parent's fault? or those we are less fortunate? Fuck guns, if your hunting great, use one. if you need a gun to feel safe, then I say your a fucking loser. yes, that means all you NRA loving pieces of shit. Mayor Daly, please bring a federal task force in and clean out these gangs. Chicago has one of the toughest gun laws in the nation, and yet their is still gun violence. that being said I still feel far safer here in Chicago than I did when I lived down south and could purchase a gun. What's that say? And for those of you about to retort that I don't spend much time in the bad places in Chicago, I say Fuck you, you don't know shit.
It's really sad that Erin Andrews, ESPN's sideline reporter, and a damn good one at that, can't simply be a woman and do her job. some sick, twisted loser videotapes her changing in her hotel room and I read on the internet that she brought it on herself. That's bullshit, pure and simple. It amazes me how many sick fucks are in this country. but it shiuldn't, There were plenty of you misguided losers who voted for W, and that makes me sick.
My thoughts on Health care? I say Obama should have just said fuck you and ordered the public option put in. Why shouldn't all Americans have a right to health care? Why is it all about the people who got it? Socialist? maybe, but who cares? Are we not all Americans? there is way to much of a gap between the haves and the have nots. There are already so many socialist programs in this country. To me, watching those town hall debates, people were more into screaming back then actually reading and learning what it was all about. To quote Rep. Frank, "what planet do you currently spend your time on?"Loved it! I also agree with Arlen Spector when he said he never seen America so angry. And he's right. there's a huge divide in thinking here. Having had the experience to live in the south and now a big mid western city, it really amazes me how different we are. those of you who read me should have no trouble knowing which way I lean.
Well those are some of my thoughts, I know It's been awhile since I posted, and I can only imagine what the right wing zealots are saying on this site. bunch of losers. Also, please don't tell me that you think I'm angry, I just call it like I see it. Truth is, I'm as passionate about what I believe as you right wing fucks are. Don't like the name calling, to bad, use your gun on me, I know that's how most of you gun toting douchebags feel like you got a pair of balls.
until the next time,
Ryan the Great
]]>Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:24:24 PDT1254932664

Google is donating 10 million dollars to implement user-submitted ideas focused on improving some aspect of the world. The ideas have already been compiled into to projects, and now it's time to vote on them.

Check it out and vote now on an idea (any e-mail address can be used to vote).

After voting, add a critique on what you voted for and why. You may find it quite challenging to pick just one project.







Source: http://www.project10tothe100.com/]]>Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:13:46 PDT1254262426
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

Ronald Reagan "[\quote]]]>Sat, 23 May 2009 12:13:37 PDT1243106017Here's the article.

This news caught me by surprise since I'm someone that views CNN.com daily. I think the idea of paying for news access poses many problems.

What will this new pay requirement bring about? I'm thinking it will cause volunteer news sources to emerge, with concepts similar to that of Wikipedia. However, how will we ensure the integrity of such journalism, and there are likely to be difficulties faced in gathering news without the financial baking of a large corporation and government. For example, try getting an interview with the Taliban or gaining access to a highly controversial business fraud case.

Consider that most of our society is uniformed to begin with. Now image the consumer types that paying for news will create:

--The uninformed: A person that cannot afford a news site subscription

--The biased: A person with a single subscription to one source

--The informed: A person that can afford many subscriptions

If news will be subscription-based, then what is the point in having "fair and balanced" news? Patrons of a particular source won't, to be frank, give a shit if it's fair or not. They will just want news from the same source they're accustomed to. They may even want an increase in bias.

By hampering free access to various sources (unless one can afford it) we will more or less have information armies---media companies that essentially brainwash society with different perspectives or dare I say ideologies. What ramifications could this state have on government of society and elections? Essentially the most popular media sources would determine the voting results.



Another point to consider is that pay-for-news may further define the social classes and may even cause the gaps between them to widen.

Just when we thought that the internet, our gateway to all the information we can dream of, the savior that gives all persons equal footing in terms of having a change to learn, Murdoch steps up like the Antichrist and declares that corporations intend to shatter that short-lived vision by building walls to information access.

I will bet that the trend of building walls to information access will catch up rapidly throughout the Web, no matter the nature of the Web site. It's a matter of commerce: profit or people once again, it seems.

I know that Google has presented themselves, in many lights, as a company that wants to help humanity by offering free access to many types of information. However, Google wears a mask as well. A dream of free information and the opportunity that it can provide may have just been something our generation was fortunate enough to live in momentarily, while our future generations will be the ones that pay for it.

Here is some information elaborating on potential dangers of the information revolution.]]>Thu, 07 May 2009 16:26:25 PDT1241738785The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies," Tim Flannery discusses why ant are the superior civilization of this planet, one that humans, believe it or not, or catching up to in many regard.

Some interesting facts include that ants garden (planting mushrooms), have established divisions of labor (way before Adam Smith), and strategically create strength from weakness. The definition of a superorganism is "an organism consisting of many organisms; social colony of individuals who, through division of labour, effective communication and self-organization, form a highly connected community."



The point made by reviewer Tim Flannery which prompted me to write this article is based on the fact that fire ants when mistakenly transported from South America to North American completely changed the way they operated:

They gave up founding colonies by the traditional method of sending off flights of virgin queens, and instead began producing many small queens, which spread the colony rather in the way an amoeba spreads, by establishing extensions of the original body. Astonishingly, at the same time the ants ceased to defend colony boundaries against other fire ants. As Hölldobler and Wilson put it, "With territorial boundaries erased, local populations now coalesce into a single sheet of intercompatible ants spread across the inhabited landscape." This remarkable shift was caused by a change in the frequency of a single gene.

Following this observation, Flannery then asserted:

Is it possible, The Superorganism left me wondering, that the invention of the Internet is leading to a similar social evolution of our own species? The proliferation of conflict, much of it prompted by defense of national boundaries, may make us doubt it, but other trends are occurring that give pause for thought. As we strive to avert a global economic disaster or agree on a global treaty to prevent catastrophic climate change, we inevitably build structures that, as with the ants, allow the superorganism to function more efficiently. But of course it's possible that we'll fail to make the grade—that our destructive path will catch up with us before we can make the transition to a seamlessly working superorganism.

I was intrigued by his remark because I do believe the internet is reducing cultural and other types of boundaries. Will a removal of boundaries happen overnight? No, and it could required five hundred or a thousand years. But the point is that we are certainly heading in a new direction. In a previous review of "The Post American World," done by TheGreatEscapeOf2008 lends a similar notion---namely, the world is changing. Speaking for my generation, as one that received an internet-able computer around the age of 12, I know that I gained unique experience with other cultures which my parents hadn't: I was chatting with Swedish girls on mIRC (a chat tool existing prior to AOL) when I should have been in bed.



Regardless of how insignificant those chats were, my perception of cultural and national boundaries was significantly influenced. It is no coincidence that Obama was photographed with "The Post American World" in his hand. I have discussed my take on the book in the TAC article referenced above, and although the book does line up exactly with Tim Flannery's notion of the internet being the gateway to a globalized society, both present ideas of such and plenty of food for thought to those willing to step outside the box and see the world as one peering at an ant civilization might.
]]>Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:32:36 PDT1239204756Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:34:27 PDT1238704467


The first of these features below I recommended directly to Google (using a Web form) two years ago. The latter, I suggested to a couple friends approximately 1.5 years ago via my Gmail account.

Google Inc.'s Gmail Labs has launched an experimental feature called "Undo Send" that gives users a chance to rewrite their message, correct settings or simply fix typos. "Sometimes ... I send a message and then immediately notice a mistake," said Michael Leggett, a Gmail Labs designer and the creator of the "Undo Send" feature"
OK, Leggett's team might have created that feature, but he wasn't the first to come up with it.

Gmail Labs also recently developed a feature that helps users who forget to add photo or document attachments to their e-mails. Users can turn on a "forgotten attachment detector"; if the program finds the word "attachment" in the e-mail text, a box pops up reminding the user to add an attachment. Gmail engineer Michael Davidson was celebrating St. Patrick's Day last year at a bar when he came up with a feature to help e-mail addicts. Davidson realized he was wasting valuable work time checking e-mails.
Davidson was certainly not the first to "come up" with this feature. (And can anyone attest to him being at the bar that night? lol)

The point of my article is that "intellectual property" may be a myth when it comes down to the true essence of the concept. Furthermore, I've learned from personal experience that even when you have explicitly clear legal rights to something that was stolen, it still takes money and influence to be able to do something about it.

So as for the title of the referenced article, "Where 'Undo Send' and other Gmail ideas are born," I just want to point out that it's quite misleading. Google Labs should not be viewed as the exclusive source of Google ideas; let's resist insulting the general public, for a moment. I have a friend that refuses to use any Google software because he feels that they will monitor, steal, and use the "intellectual property."

Is he right?


]]>Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:15:32 PDT1238001332Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:39:07 PDT1237311547