The inauguration is a huge national event, but to me it is just one great big party. This inauguration has more significance because of the historical ramifications, but still, is it worth the $170m price tag?
With the current state of the economy, it would have been a PR bonanza if the Obama team had scaled down some of the festivites and donated the money to a worthy cause like job training, homeless shelters or an anti-global warming initiative.
Category: Political Science & Economics
Isreali/Palestinian Conflicts on Second Life
The biggest news over the last week has been Israel’s bombing and subsequent invasion of Gaza to try to stop Hamas from firing rockets into Israel.
Israel’s response has led to outcry from countries sympathetic to the Palestinians’ plight and local protests in the Arab world, London and Florida, among other places.
Now, these same protests have made their way to Second Life. For those who don’t know, Second Life “is a free 3D virtual world where users can socialize, connect and create using voice and text chat.” Users create avatars and can live a complete “second life” online, complete with land ownership, jobs and virtual currency.
A blogger from New World News, a Second Life blog, recently interviewed the creator of Second Life Israel to see what all of the commotion was about. He found that:
“Lots of people yelling,” Beth Odets, the creator of Second Life Israel, tells me. “They were going on and on with slurring obscenities about murderous Israeli forces, etc.” She gives me a screenshot taken during the incursion, festooned with anti-war or pro-Palestinian signs, some depicting dead Arab children.
She ended up closing SL Israel to all outsides for a few days so that things could calm down. Later, she reopened it and while there has still been some protesting, many people are talking about their experiences on both sides of the conflict. This positive dialogue may someday lead to more understanding between the two sides.
Hopefully, this virtual dialogue will be a tiny step toward creating understanding and empathy between both sides of the conflict so that a solution can happen.
Creative Destruction and Congress
A company invents a lotion that absorbs and neutralizes chemical weapons “seven times better” than the current solution. The military wants to buy it to help save lives, instead of continuing to buy the inferior product. Makes sense, right?
Well, in the real world, what really happens after the military decides that it wants to buy the better product?
Companies who make the inferior solution make campaign contributions to Senators who represent the states that produce the inferior product and tell them to issue earmarks forcing the military to buy the inferior product, of course.
That’s what really happened over the last two years when Senators Clinton D(NY), Schumer D(NY)and Spector R(PA) sought out $7.6 million in earmarks, forcing the military to buy the inferior product. They also received a total of just under 100k in campaign contributions.
This type of government intervention is not only sleazy because it risks American lives, but also prevents the creative destruction that is vital to US competitiveness and creating an entrepreneurial culture.
YouTube and Terrorism
An Egyptian student studying Engineering at the University of South Florida was sentenced today for a video he put on YouTube. It showed how to make a bomb detonator from a remote control car that he bought at WalMart. He narrated the how-to video in Arabic and called the US a “vile nation.” It had been viewed “hundreds” of times.
This case shows that YouTube and other innovations like Twitter, Facebook and other web 2.0 applications are susceptible to use by people who do not have the best intentions. Just in the last week, I’ve seen articles about many popular sites and their ability to be used by terrorists.
From Wired, an article about Al Qaeda trying to “infiltrate” Facebook.
From ABC News, an article about terrorists and Twitter.
From Computer World, an article about Google’s refusal to take down, at Sen. Joe Lieberman’s request, videos of American soldiers being attacked by terrorists.
From Znet, an article about how the NSA is monitoring MySpace for terrorists.
All of these stories show the challenge of the Internet and web 2.0. They allow the good, along with the bad, to communicate faster and share more information with a wider audience. It is a challenge that we will continue to face as technology continues to evolve.