Can anyone give me a short, easily understood explanation of "podcasting" - what it is, how it works, what's the advantage?
I've read the term a lot lately, and guess it's related somehow to the iPod, but I thought an iPod was something to carry music around in.
No, I don't have one. Yes, I do have a vcr and dvd player/recorder, and can program them. I obviously can use a computer. Other than that, I'm not much interested in the latest technology; what I already have is paid for. I'm trying to get a handle on this for a possible work project.
I know there are a lot of Ranters who know about these things - thanks for your help.
Barbara
(mods - if this is inappropriate, please delete)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/06/2006 17:08 ||
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I'm all in favor of the occasional techno-thingy on Rantburg. The folks here are generally knowledgeable, relatively courteous, and probably pick up some of the more interesting oddities out there more than not.
Just today I learned about "bookmarklets", and got some that might be appreciated. In 2005, learned about RSS--which is a major help in contributing to Rantburg.
I'm sure there's a bunch more that exist but get missed out of sheer luck. Podcasting, for example, which is new to me.
I e-mailed the link to work - I'll look at it there.
(You may wonder why I didn't go to Wiki myself. It's not that I don't trust it - exactly - but I'd rather someone who actually knows something tells me the info there is OK.
Who, me - paranoid? Why do you ask? ;-p )
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/06/2006 19:12 Comments ||
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Georgetown University was built with a Catholic and Jesuit identity. This bit of information is proudly displayed on the schoolâs website. But like Bethlehem in Israel, that identity is quickly being lost to a radical strain of Islam, as a counter-terror symposium has been abandoned and a pro-terror conference has been confirmed. Indeed, one of Americaâs most prestigious universities appears to be under siege.
Fearing violent reprisal from militant Muslim members of their student body, the schoolâs conference center rejected an educational symposium being hosted by Americaâs Truth Forum (formerly the Peopleâs Truth Forum), a non-partisan, fact-based organization whose sole mission is to educate the American people on topics of national security. In this case, the subject matter to be discussed involved the âUnderlying Roots of Terrorism: The Radical Islamist Threat to World Peace and National Security.â
The official statement from the General Manager of the Georgetown University Conference Center (a.k.a. Marriott Georgetown) was as follows: âYour event is too controversial to be held on the property. This decision is based upon business considerations, as the event would call for heightened security since protestors might be attracted from both the student body and off campus. Iâm concerned that these protestors might block the main hotel entrance, leading to confrontations with hotel guests and/or room cancellations.â
While the counter-terror symposium was shunned, an organization associated with violence has been awarded a forum. From February 17 - 19, the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM), an activist group that has expressed its willingness to work with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, will be holding its âFifth Annual Divestment Conferenceâ on Georgetown Universityâs campus. At past events, shouts of âKill the Jewsâ and âDeath to Israelâ could be heard amongst the crowd. And according to a news report, during PSMâs last conference, when a resolution to condemn terrorism was voted down, âthe delegates erupted in cheers.â
When PSM announced its event, itâs interesting to see who they sent a press release to. A site that devotes a page to the release, Palestine Monitor, is said by one source to be a âPRO-TERRORIST SITE.â This is easy to understand, as the website contains numerous pages glorifying the Intifada (uprising) against Israel. Another location that prominently displays the press release is Ramallah Online, a hate site that equates the Jewish Star (Star of David) with the Nazi Swastika.
Not wanting to anger its on-campus insurgency, the university has remained hush about the event. The consideration of a small matter of money may also be on Georgetownâs mind. The PSM conference is coming on the heels of a $20 million donation to the school, given by a fairly effluent Saudi sheikh, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. This is the same sheikh who had previously donated $27 million to a telethon that raised money for the families of suicide bombers. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
01/06/2006 20:31 ||
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Time to yank the "Catholic" label off, and suspend the Jesuits.
Pakistan's largest, but least populated, province of Baluchistan has much in common with the fate of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Kashmir, which Pakistan has kept in subjugation since 1947 without giving its people civil rights or letting them have a national identity.
Pakistan calls the Gilgit-Baltistan region its Northern Areas but flatly disowns it when courts, including the Supreme Court, ask why the local people are not given their rights. True, Gilgit-Baltistan has not been shown as Pakistan's territory in the country's successive Constitutions and its areas. But Pakistan treats it as a colony, or worse. Islamabad controls its economy, natural wealth and all spheres of life.
One difference between Baluchistan and Gilgit-Baltistan is that while the former was annexed by Pakistan through persuasion and massive land and air military action in 1948, the Gilgit Scouts had revolted against Maharaja Hari Singh's rule under the instigation of the British and freed the present Gilgit-Baltistan region on November 1, 1947, and handed it over to Pakistan for temporary administration. According to the 1993 order of the High Court of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, his arrangement became defunct after the promulgation of the 1974 Provisional Constitution. Accordingly, the administration of this region was ordered to be handed over to POK or "Azad" Kashmir, as Pakistan calls it. Within less than 18 months, the High Court's order was vacated by the POK Supreme Court in an appeal filed by Islamabad.
In Baluchistan, the Khan of Kalat was forced at a darbar held in Sibi in 1948 to accede to Pakistan along with states of Mekran, Kharan and Lasbela. These four states were merged into a Baluchistan States Union of which the Khan of Kalat was made the Khan-e-Azam. The other part of Baluchistan, called British Baluchistan, was controlled by the then Governor-General, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, through an agent who was only answerable to him and not to the Cabinet. Jinnah's presence at the Sibi darbar helped the agreement with the Khan of Kalat but his (Jinnah's) death later in the same year left the work half-done.
In other words, Baluchistan's annexation was complete but its assimilation into Pakistan had not started because the post-Jinnah Muslim League leadership was devoid of a national vision and too preoccupied with petty intrigues. The Khan of Kalat had become impatient and when Pakistan was moving towards the military rule through a maze of political crises, he revolted against Pakistan saying he had been put under unfair pressure and misled at the 1948 Sibi talks. Khan surrendered after a military action.
He might have been encouraged to raise the banner of revolt by bitter protests that were raging through Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) against the imposition of the "One Unit" scheme that joined Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP and Punjab into one province named West Pakistan. On the one hand, this scheme tried to rub off cultural and linguistic identities of constituent provinces of West Pakistan and on the other, it snatched away their right to the natural wealth of their respective provinces.
To the people of Baluchistan, it does not matter whether Pakistan has a military or civilian government. Either way, they are treated as a conquered people who cannot claim equal rights, human rights or right to the natural wealth of their province. Like Gilgit-Baltistan, Baluchistan is low priority for the national media. Their grievances, deprivations, injustices and suppression of rights are blacked out or played down. They are suddenly reported by the media when the locals' protests became violent and the military action takes place. To the common man in Punjab, these are law and order problem regions where Army action is justifiable. The British treated the people of Gilgit-Baltistan as criminal brutes and dealt with them with an inhuman law called Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR). Pakistan, too, dealt with these people with FCR until Bhutto abolished it.
Unlike Gilgit-Baltistan, Baluchistan has a provincial Assembly and elects its representatives to parliament. But Baluch cannot use these representative forums to effectively air their grievances. This is sad that the people get idea about the problem of Baluchistan only when the Army starts a crackdown to suppress their protests. Gilgit-Baltistan has so-called Northern Council, which had its first political party-based elections in October 1994. The next elections took place in November 1999.
But every time the Pakistan-based parties - the PPP and the Muslim League - emerged as the main parties. Though this council is called a legislative body, it cannot legislate and its members do not freely debate the problems of their areas because of the fear of intelligence men. Moreover, the Chief Executive is not a local person, but Pakistan's Minister of Kashmir Affairs. This region, too, comes into news when the locals' protests are met with the Army's might. Both regions have a high rate of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment among young people.
(The writer is Director, Institute for Media Studies & Information Technology, YMCA, New Delhi & formerly Editor, UNI)
Posted by: john ||
01/06/2006 17:39 ||
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From Jewish World Review, by Caroline B. Glick
Wednesday night ushered in a new era in Israel's political history. As we watch and worry as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dangles between life and death, one thing is absolutely clear. Sharon's massive cerebral hemorrhage on Wednesday night spelled the end of his political career. Sharon will never return to lead the State of Israel. He will never make a full recovery.
Whatever one's views of Sharon's policies and the quality of his leadership, no Israeli can feel anything but sorrow at Sharon's abrupt demise. A nation's sudden and dramatic separation from its leader is never a good thing. It is all the more debilitating when the leader in question is as popular and powerful as Sharon.
There will come a proper time to inquire into the reports we received about Sharon's health in the three weeks that passed since the premier suffered his initial stroke. Those questions will no doubt focus on statements by his spin doctors attesting to his good health and on the media's refusal to ask hard questions about Sharon's ability to continue in office after that first stroke. But now, as we enter the post-Sharon era, those questions are beside the point. The task that now besets our political leadership and the Israeli people as a whole is to focus on the country's present challenges â for they suffer no delay.
Without a doubt, the greatest challenge facing the State of Israel today is Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Until Wednesday night, the rumor-mill running between Jerusalem, Washington and the capital cities of Europe was full of reports that Sharon planned to order an Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear installations just before our general elections at the end of March. There was nothing new in these rumors. Similar ones have been making the rounds for over a year now. In autumn 2004 for instance, it was whispered that Sharon would order such an attack on the day of the US presidential elections in November 2004. This past spring it was claimed that Sharon would give the order during the IDF's withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria. And now, for the past two months or so, rumors have circulated that Sharon was planning a strike to destroy Iran's nuclear installations just ahead of the elections on March 28.
There can be no room for doubt. The need to conduct a military strike against Iran's nuclear program increases with each passing day. The threat that Iran's nuclear weapons program constitutes for Israel is the most egregious example since the Holocaust of what happens when states and societies where anti-Semitism is of a genocidal nature are allowed to acquire the means to attack the Jews.
Israel's experience, like the experience of the Jewish people throughout its history, has taught that such anti-Semites seek out opportunities to use their acquired means to kill Jews. And now, against the increasingly tangible threat that Iran will soon acquire nuclear capabilities, Israel finds itself in an election season marked by political uncertainty and instability.
Even in the absence of domestic political chaos, any Israeli plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities is today hampered by two things. First, the anti-Semitism that is endemic in the Iranian regime is equally endemic throughout the entire Muslim and Arab world. Were Iran to carry out tomorrow President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's promise to complete Hitler's work, such an act would no doubt be met with glee throughout the Arab and Muslim world.
As well, Iran has been able to advance its nuclear weapons program in large part due to the vast increase in anti-Semitic sentiments throughout the Western world. Over the past five years, the notion that there is something acceptable about murdering Jews and seeking to destroy Israel has met with increasing acceptance among large swathes of European society and the ranks of the international Left. Today, as Israel enters the post-Sharon era, it is hindered by unprecedented diplomatic weakness, largely as a result of the prevalence of Western anti-Semitism and its concomitant demand that Israel do all it can to appease its enemies.
For Israel to be capable of carrying out an attack against Iran's nuclear installations it will need to receive US and NATO backing for the move. The majority of international security analysts agree that Israeli fighter bombers en route to Iran will need to fly over Iraqi airspace and may even need to refuel in Iraq. Turkish bases may also be necessary. Given this, Israel is today in dire need of leadership capable of handling some of the most sensitive and monumental diplomacy in its history â even if such leadership were only able to convince others to carry out the attacks in our place.
The genocidal anti-Semitism that lies at the root of Iran's quest to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons is also the source of Palestinian-led terror war against Israel. Yet, unlike the case of Iran, whose wherewithal to match its desire to destroy Israel with actual military capabilities has been uninfluenced by Israeli actions, the Palestinians' terror capabilities have been vastly expanded as a direct result of Israeli policies.
Today, as the Palestinian Authority has ceased to operate in any coherent manner; as the Egyptian border with Gaza has been open for terror traffic for three months; and as Hamas has emerged as the most prevalent force in Palestinian politics and society, it is impossible to deny that Sharon's decision to withdraw Israeli forces from Gaza and northern Samaria has vastly empowered Palestinian terrorists. Today the Gaza Strip has become one of the most active and dangerous bases for jihadi terrorism in the world.
And yet, the rapid transformation of Gaza into the most active terror base in the Arab world has not led to calls by the international community, led by Washington for Israel to take the military measures necessary to destroy the emerging threat. To the contrary: The international community, led by the Bush Administration, has greeted Gaza's mutation into what Palestinians refer to as a new Somalia, and what for Israelis and Westerners in general is more comparable to Taliban ruled Afghanistan, with ever more strident demands for continued Israeli appeasement of Palestinian terrorists. The latest testimony to Israel's unprecedented diplomatic weakness in Washington came with President George W. Bush's demand this week that Israel allow Arab residents of Jerusalem to vote in the upcoming Palestinian elections - elections in which Hamas is expected to receive a plurality, if not a majority of votes.
Amid the threat now constituted by Gaza and the rising chaos in Palestinian society generally, three weeks before the Palestinian elections Israel's defense and diplomatic establishments have no answers to give. Israel has no coherent policy to speak of for dealing with the acquisition of Strella anti-aircraft missiles or Katyusha missiles by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza. It has no policy for contending with the fact that Al Qaida has now become an actor in the Palestinian areas and in south Lebanon. It has no effective policy for dealing with the repeated attacks against its vital infrastructures in Ashkelon or with assumption that the Palestinians will soon transfer their newfound capabilities from Gaza to Judea and Samaria. Israel's security brass has no policy for contending with the manifest links between the Iranian regime and Palestinian terror groups.
Our leadership's befuddlement was perhaps most sharply manifested on Wednesday by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who in a public statement laid out Israel's conditions for opening a dialogue with Hamas.
Mofaz's statement was not merely ill-advised. It was completely irrational. Hamas, like the Iranian ayatollahs, is a terror group totally committed to the eradication of Israel. This fact was brought home clearly in an Egyptian television interview given by Mariam Farahat, aka Umm Nidal, the mother of three dead Hamas terrorists on December 21. Farahat is considered a moderate Hamas member and is a Hamas candidate in the Palestinian elections.
In a transcript published by MEMRI, Farahat, who justified the murder of all Israelis everywhere as a legitimate means of jihad, spelled out what "peace" with the Jews means for Hamas. For her, "Peace means the liberation of all of Palestine, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] Sea. When this is accomplished - if they want peace, we will be ready. They may live under the banner of the Islamic state. That is the future of Palestine that we are striving towards."
This is Israel's current reality. Our main security challenge on all fronts is to destroy our enemies' ability to match their genocidal anti-Semitism with the means to kill us. And the carrying out of this task can only be accomplished by a leadership that truly understands that we are not to blame for our enemies' hatred and that we can do nothing to mitigate it.
The fact that Arab and Islamic anti-Semitism is met by and large by indifference from the West, which itself is suffering from a milder yet increasingly widespread form of Jew hatred, makes clear the third challenge facing Israel today: ensuring our economic independence. In the history of nations, there has scarcely been a case where the side with the weaker economy prevailed over its enemy in a war of attrition. Israel must ensure its economic vitality and independence in order to guarantee that our defense industries can continue to operate and that our military forces are properly equipped and trained. As well, in light of the rampant anti-Semitism in Western Europe, Israel must be capable of absorbing waves of Jewish immigration from Europe.
Today Israel is in the midst of a painful but successful process of economic liberalization and growth. The political instability that Sharon's departure has induced can threaten this process which is so vital to the future of the country.
In light of the critical challenges that Israel faces today, our current political instability places us in a difficult position. The fact of the matter is that Sharon's Kadima party without Sharon is nothing more than a patchwork of politicians who diverge on so many issues it is impossible to see it fashioning coherent policies. This is a cause for alarm. As well, the fractiousness of the nationalist camp that has been manifested by the Likud ministers' unjustifiable opposition to Binyamin Netanyahu's party leadership, is an additional cause for Israeli weakness at this critical juncture.
One of Sharon's greatest strengths was his ability to form coalitions of people from disparate backgrounds and political camps and move them forward to achieve goals that appeared impossible to attain. Now, with Sharon no longer leading the country, our political leaders must find a way to act in a similar manner. The future of the state depends on their success.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/06/2006 13:13 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
