Civil Unrest Riots In Egypt: 99ers - Is USA Next?

After watching days of civil unrest riots In Egypt, the 99er Nation asks: Is USA Next?

Clashes erupted as Egyptian authorities tried to prevent demonstrations in Cairo where protesters chanting “liberty” and “change” assembled to demand the end of President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Rallies began yesterday at points across the city of 17 million but violent protests throughout Egypt have continued for days.

Authorities restricted internet and cellphone access and detained senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition group, before nationwide demonstrations were scheduled to begin. Four French journalists were arrested on Friday in Cairo, France’s Foreign Ministry said.

Among the Egyptians on the streets of central Cairo was Mona Abdelaziz, 30, who holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and earns a living by selling tissues by the roadside.

“The country has gone to ruin,” Abdelaziz said. “Everything is expensive. How will my son marry, get an education, set up a household? There are no jobs, only for a select few. We have no hope.”

We have no hope. Sound familiar? Those millions in the 99er Nation have no hope these days. No jobs, no income, nowhere to turn and no hope of things getting any better anytime soon.
In fact a recent YouTube video By a certain Congress woman in Texas echoes the lack of urgency among members of Congress when it comes to saving the 99ers.

NOTE TO CONGRESS: We cannot wait until March for you to begin to debate what you will do to save our lives. WAKE UP as what is happening in Egypt can happen here.

Quote of the Day - by Bud Meyers: "They're rioting in Egypt because a vast majority of the people are living on $2 a day. Yet the 99ers are living on less, so why aren't they rioting?"

Well Bud, I can’t tell you why it has not happened here yet or what it is finally going to take for the 99er Nation to get out of their homes and take to the streets to fight for their right to live, but I feel strongly it is just a matter of time before they do.

I hope Mr. Obama is paying attention. However in his speech on Friday on the violence in Egypt, though Obama di say: “Govt MUST be responsive to their citizens” it is clear he just does not get it that our government is NOT being responsive to America's own citizenry.

Friday’s speech prompted me to Tweet the President and many members of the media as well as Congress the following - @barackobama YES American Govt MUST be responsive to their citizens SO WHY do you ignore the #99ers??????????

NOTE to the PRESIDENT - pay very close attention to what is happening in Cairo and Alexandria Egypt today Sir - it is about to erupt right here in America.... and YOU & CONGRESS have no one but yourselves to blame.

When times are bleak and the news is full of sorrow, I simply must unplug and find something to laugh about. The video below is a hoot and hopefully it will bring a smile to your face.

[The donation button below is for Paladinette. If you like what I write please donate so I can keep on fighting for the 99ers! Thank You!]

Squirrel Funeral For The World's Greatest Squirrel - Be Kind To Animals

A squirrel managed to get into our indoor - outdoor den while we were away. A few days after we returned, the poor lost thing turned up dead in a corner of the room. Since it's more outdoor than in, and has a screen door, it must have entered in hybrid way that I didn't anticipate. At any rate, it seems to have electrocuted itself in our house, then froze during the great Georgia freeze of two weeks ago.

So, I thought it appropriate to give it a burial and funeral, and make a vlog of it.

The reason is simple: all too often we are exposed to images of people shooting animals. The latest example being Sarah Palin shooting moose in Alaska, then rubbing America's nose in it. It's helping to producing hard attitude among us, where we don't care about life. It's a horrible message to send to our kids.

So I made a place in a remote part of our yard, named the squirrel "World's Greatest Squirrel," buried it while it was in the double-wrapped plastic bags and with an air chamber in the smaller one, and had a ceremony.

What's a wee bit bothersome are some of the video comments on YouTube. Without sharing them, I'll just say this modern habit of coming up with a stupid argument to justify heartless acts - from the use of guns to racial discrimination - is getting beyond the pale.

I'm sick of it.

Life, in all forms, is to be celebrated. Just because we hunt for food doesn't mean the animal being hunted wants to be in that position. Moreover, we're conditioned to think that animals don't "think," but really how the hell do we know, anyway?

Some of us don't seem to think either.

So, this is my bid to right things. Yes, I'm a meat eater. I'll admit that. But also use meat alternatives when they're available. And just because I eat meat doesn't mean I have to want to hunt or not feel sad if an animal is killed, especially on my property.

And that's not supposed to happen.

We can draw the line. We should draw the line.

It's the civilized thing to do.  

Mark Zuckerberg, Jesse Eisenberg and Andy Samberg On SNL (Video)

NBC just released and posted the video from the Saturday Night Live (SNL) opening monologue featuring Jesse Eisenberg, Andy Samberg, and Facebook Founder, President and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

As you may know, Jesse Eisenberg plays Zuckerberg in the six-Oscar-nominated movie The Social Network. Andy Samberg is an SNL cast member who commonly plays Mark Zuckerberg. There was much speculation that Mark would not show up on tonight's SNL episode, but he did.

Kudos to NBC for getting the video compressed and uploaded so fast. The show's not even over!

As a note, the Oscar voting period closed on January 19th, so it's far too late for this show to have an impact on Academy Awards voting.  The Oscar best picture has already been selected by the 5,744 voting members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), it's just a matter of counting the votes before the ABC telecast on February 27th.

Mark Zuckerberg And Jesse Eisenberg On Saturday Night Live

Mark Zuckerberg did it. He appeared on Saturday Night Live just about five minutes ago. After much media speculation today, the founder, President and CEO of Facebook appeared alongside the actor who portrayed him in The Social Network, Jesse Eisenberg.

The segment started off innocently enough, with Eisenberg coming out to a good audience ovation and explaining that he's really not who he appears to be - he's actually confident. And much different than the person he plays in The Social Network. That would be Zuckerberg.

Then SNL Actor Andy Samberg comes on stage saying that he's Mark Zuckerberg. As that's happening, the real Mark Zuckerberg is back stage with SNL's legendary producer Lorne Michaels. Mark explains that he should be out there because "I'm the real guy."

Cutting to the next scene, Eisenberg and Hader continue talking about which one played Zuck better, when Mark comes out on stage. Hader leaves almost immediately after explaining that the pairing of the two of them, Mark and Jesse, is "awkward."

So it's just Zuckerberg and Eisenberg. After some conversational dancing, Mark says he was "impressed" with Jesse's interpretation of him in The Social Network.

For a guy who's not an actor, Mark did an OK job of saying his lines. Look, he was stilted , OK. A bit robotic, to say the least. But give him credit - major props - for coming on the show and making it a memorable classic.

Stay tuned for the Twitter report!

YouTube And Facebook Beat Old Media At Davos

YouTube and Facebook beat Old Media at The World Economic Forum at Davos!

An amusing but, for Old Media journalists, horrifying tweet on Twitter by Matthias Lüfkens and re-tweeted by Randi Zuckerberg appeared today:

Davos Moment: Journalist to Minister: Can I interview you? Later, I am doing @YouTube and @Facebook first. :) #ouch #WEF

That underscored how far media has come away from the days when print journalists held sway in the trenches of what we now call content development.  In fact, in these times when a person can use a Flip Video Camera or a smartphone with a Qik app that permits live stream video production, it's down right funny to watch someone try to interview a person with just a pen and paper.  If I were the interviewee, I'd worry about being misquoted.

Today, people want to see the subject much more than they want to read someone else's interpretation of what the person said.  YouTube, Facebook, and Qik provided heads of state and business with quasi-instant access to hundreds, thousands, and millions of people.  Print media can't match that at all.

Julie Schenecker Shoots Mouthy Children

People Magazine Online reports that Julie Schenecker, wife of US Army colonel Parker Schenecker, has admitted to police in Tampa that last Thursday night she killed her daughter and her son:

She first shot son Beau, 13, twice in the head with a .38 caliber pistol for "talking back" as she was driving him to soccer practice in suburban Tampa, according to the arrest affidavit.


 The police report says she then drove to her $448,000 family home and shot her daughter Calyx, 16 – a high school cross country running star – in the face as she sat studying at the computer.


Reuters Online reports that her 48-year-old husband is stationed at Central Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa and was out of the country on duty when he found out about the killings.

Oakland Councilmember Jane Brunner Wrong On Chief Batts

Oakland City Councilmember Jane Brunner (District 1 - North Oakland) is unfortunately just plain wrong in her comments on Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts, and shows why many say there has been a "leadership void" that Oakland's elected officials have not effectively filled.

This is what Cecily Burt quoted Councilmember Brunner as saying in The Oakland Tribune regarding why Batts elected to try and leave Oakland:

"I don't even know if that is the reason. We don't know if there are other issues, it's not clear...He is very popular, we think he is a good chief, but in my opinion, he needs to want to be here. And if there are things that are preventing him from wanting to stay, he needs to be in the room to have that discussion...If he's going to stay, he needs to work with us as a team."

No. Councilmember Brunner has it backwards.   It's her job to make sure working conditions are excellent for a person who is essentially one of her employees.

To ask the employee (think about that) to lobby for improved working conditions says little good about the employer.  The employer is supposed to take responsibility to improve working conditions for the employee.

And she wonders why Batts would consider leaving?

Chief Batts has talked to the media (including this blogger several times), to local officials, and to anyone who would listen regarding the Oakland Police financial situation and the need to improve it.  But it's Jane Brunner's job, as one of the Oakland Councilmembers who hired Batts let alone as a senior member of the Oakland City Council, to set up a meeting such that the Brown Act is not violated, and determine what problems there are and pledge to help him solve them.

That's what leaders do and Jane's certainly capable of doing that.  In fact, I'm surprised she'd allow herself to express such weakness.

Complaining about Batts in the media was the wrong action to take.   I understand what she's saying, but it didn't come out the right way.  Politically, it was better left unsaid.

Chief Batts is not some one to fear, and anyone who might paint him in that way, as someone that a person needs to "stand up to" - thus calling up age-old American white fears of black men - should be ignored and shunned.

That aside, Councilmember Brunner's job one is to set up a direct dialog with Chief Batts, and stop waiting for others to do it.

That's what leaders do.

Oakland News: Oakland A's, Chief Batts Back, KPFA Ratings Drop

A lot of Oakland News presented from bed in Georgia, where this blogger's keeping Mom company and working.

First, a big thanks to my long time friend and Oakland's new District Four (Montclair - Oakland Hills) Councilmember Libby Schaaf, who nomninated bloggers Rebecca Saltzman, Jonathan Bair, Aimee Allison, Debbie Richman and Echa Schneider, and me, Zennie Abraham for the "Making Democracy Work" award. It's a high honor to be considered in this way.

I'm particularly happy with the blog and vlog work everyone did during the Oakland Mayors Race last year. The sum total was we got out a lot of information about the candidates, disagreed on some, and contributed to the community in a big way by fostering discussion.

On the day of the award I'm going to be in New York City for the NFL Draft, so I'm going to ask Susan Mernitt of OaklandLocal.com, another great Oakland blog, to attend and represent me. Susan's done a great job in building a local media brand from scratch and creating some work for local bloggers, so I'm going to share my award with her.)

Second, and on the matter of Oakland bloggers, Aimee Allison of OaklandSeen.com and the now-cancelled KPFA Morning Show can say she was responsible for 16,000 monthly listeners to KPFA. Why? Because that's how many listeners the Berkeley-based Pacifica Foundation legend of a dysfunctional media company lost in just one month.

The latest radio ratings delivered thank to Rich Lieberman via email reported a lot, but what jumps out is way down in the chart: KPFA had 120,700 listeners in November, and 106,500 in December, and an even worse 104,000 during the Holidays.

So, for all of the back-and-forth yada-yada about budgets and costs and personalities and politics, the business that is KPFA is suffering. Care to bet on if listenership dips below 100,000 at some point? Maybe KPFA need to have Aimee on interviewing Oakland Police Chief Batts.

Because he's back.

And it's a good thing for Oakland, and reports about rank-and-file officers not supporting him are just a load of horse mess. A plant of news by a person who was out for no good, done where that person believed it would be shared. It's false. Don't believe it. Oakland cops have Batts back, now the Oakland City Council has to show him some skin.

(It's also great to see Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and Chief Batts together, as covered by OaklandLocal.com.)

Third, and on the matter of "skin," if California Governor Jerry Brown gets his way and sacks California Redevelopment Agencies (which I still assert is a really dumb idea), there may not be a new ballpark for Oakland at all because skin will be harder to come by. (And I use the term "dumb" because Jerry's a smart guy; using that term is the only way to get it in his head that he's going in the wrong direction here.)

(Oh. I discount San Jose as a media creation because a number of journalists don't want to get their heads around the complicated legal and business issues standing in that city's way, not to mention the MLB Major League Agreement. So when Columnist Mark Purdy or anyone with the San Jose Mercury News starts yappin about a stadium for San Jose, Laugh. Hard.)

Other Oakland Stuff

On the Libby Schaaf info train, she's having her first office hours at various Oakland District Four cafes, to help them with business. A cool thing. Here's the schedule: Dimond: First Thursday of the month, 9am at Caffe Diem, Laurel: First Saturday of the month, 9am at World Ground Cafe, Redwood Heights: Third Saturday of the month, 10:30am at Cafe Galleria Melrose: Fourth Wednesday of the month, 3:30pm at Melrose Library, Montclair: Fourth Sunday of the month, 9am at the Farmers Market.

And on the matter of lawyers, as Libby is one...

Dan Siegel, a good guy who's currently on the other end of the legal issues around Oakland Gangs and against another good guy, Oakland City Attorney John Russo, is the target of a movement to get him kicked off the KPFA Board for being an advisor to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan.  Seriously.  The reason, according to Matthew Hallinan, was that it amounted to a "political appointment," and Matt's ready to go to the "matt" of court to protect Dan and maintain SaveKPFA's majority on what's called the "Local Station Board."

And...

Doug Boxer has resigned from the Oakland Planning Commission.  Mayor Quan will appoint a replacement.

And...

Mayor Quan needs to stop playing political games with the Oakland City Attorney's budget.  Hiring outside counsel is expensive, so stop forcing the office to do it by cutting the budget.  Quan needs to walk away from this one.

YouTube New Ideas Week: Is YouTube For Kids Like Totlol?

YouTube invited TechCrunch' Jason Kincaid to their offices to show what they're working on and how they roll out the new products during what is called "New Ideas Week." There are two new creations of note: one called "YouTube for Kids" and the other for the kind of "Qik-like streaming" I did at CES 2011, except that I actually used Qik.com.

But "YouTube For Kids" reopens a really thorny issue that, when re-consumed, causes one to wonder why YouTube would re-open a matter in such a way as to run the risk of placing it in a bad light. As a YouTube Partner, I'm not comfy about what I'm about to present. Blogging about this is not fun, but it's got to be done, and now.

The Brief Story Of Totlol

The December 29th 2009 TechCrunch featured a blog post by Erick Schonfeld called "The Sad Tale Of Totlol And How YouTube's Changing TOS Made It Hard To Make A Buck."

Totlol was a platform created by Developer and Entrepreneur Ron Ilan, that consists of videos from YouTube that were created by parents for kids. Cool, except that Ron created Totlol using YouTube's API (Application Program Interface), and Erick reports that Google "just happened" to change YouTube's Terms of Service (TOS) to prohibit the creation of something like Totlol or any system using its API for commercial use on the same day that YouTube featured Totlol on it's Google Code widget.

In other words, Google stepped in at the time and said, "OK, now no one can make something that makes money using our product that we didn't create ourselves." On the face of it, that would seem to not impact Totlol, which was first created in 2008. Right?

Well, not exactly. The change in the YouTube TOS hurt Ron's ability to make money because he could not place ads on Totlol anymore. He asked for permission from YouTube, but got no response at first.

Then a YouTube rep did reach out to Ron in June of 2009, and tried to understand how to avoid such a situation in the future as well as "What types of business models would we need to support in order to make this worth a developer’s while?," but nothing benefiting Ron came of the meeting.

In an account that is no longer available online, even in its cached version, Ron explains what he thinks was "up" at Google, according to TechCrunch:

When the YouTube API team saw Totlol they liked it. At about the same time someone else at Google saw it, realized the potential it, and - or similar implementations may have, and initiated a ToS modification. An instruction was given to delay public acknowledgement of Totlol until the modified ToS where published. Later an instruction was given to avoid public acknowledgement at all.

Now, Ron's site is down, as is any indication of criticism of YouTube, and the one bit of evidence that he created Totlol is on his Linkedin Page, which reads:

Founder / Creator
Totlol
(Internet industry)
February 2008 — September 2010 (2 years 8 months)
Totlol was an award winning, community-moderated Video Website designed for kids and powered by YouTube.

- Sole developer.
- Identified the market opportunity, defined product use cases, architecture and UI. Preformed several feedback and usability driven upgrade cycles.
- Features included access to 10s of thousands of videos, extensive personalization, an Age Optimizer for content and multiple Age Optimized Interfaces. Web application was available in custom mobile versions for iPhone and iPad.
- Drove product marketing and positioning as first website of its kind and leader of the segment. Website been featured in numerous media outlets including The New York Times, the Washington Post and USA Today.
- Distinction and awards: Google Code Featured Project, Apple Featured Web App, PC Magazine Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites, Webby Awards Official Honoree.
- Working environment: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Zend Framework, YouTube Data API, Google Data API OAuth, JS, HTML/CSS and YouTube Chromeless Player.

Judging by the timing of things, where he shut down September of 2010, perhaps some kind of settlement was reached between Ron and Google / YouTube. One hope's so. Meanwhile, TechCrunch reports that "YouTube For Kids" is...

"a fully revamped version of YouTube designed specifically with children in mind. Heckmann says that children tend to use YouTube differently than adults, and obviously there is content on the site that kids shouldn’t be exposed to. What’s worse, sometimes kids stumble across this content accidentally because of the way the site’s automated suggestions work.

To remedy this, YouTube is building a version of the site that’s been reworked to have absolutely no text, save for the YouTube logo. Videos that do appear will be based off of whitelists, so there won’t be any chance of accidentally stumbling across something unsavory or scary. At this point it sounds like the project still has a ways to go (it was initially created during a New Ideas week last summer), but it’s on the way."

One clue to the current relationship between Ron and YouTube comes from his Twitter Page @ronilan. By the looks of tweets, he's got a cordial (ie: non-flaming and re-tweeting) Twitter relationship with YouTube CEO Chad Hurley and Project Engineer Hunter Walk, who's an all-around good guy, so by appearances it seems that Ron walked away happy, the case was closed, and YouTube's working on something based on what Ron developed.

I really hope I'm correct.

Stay tuned.

Soluto CEO Tomir Dvir Talks Startup, Has Fun At The Crunchies

Soluto's a company you've probably not known of until now. It started as an idea by Tomir Dvir. who's now its CEO, and his business partner and with a boffo presentation at TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 New York City, rapidly gained fans and funders. Now, with over 1 million users in less than a year, the Israel-based company is on its way toward Tech startdom.

(What's interesting is I met Tomir and his people over lunch at Tech Crunch Disrupt, and before their Startup Battlefield presentation.  It's interesting, and yet a standard habit if you're involved in the Tech Community in the Bay Area in some way, to meet a group of people - or be involved with that group - who are unknown but have a good product idea and company around it, then watch them "hit the match stick," where that company gains in popularity, then funding, then growth.  Such is the path Soluto's on.)

You use Soluto to get ideas on how to solve problems with your PC. Tomir says the idea was to access the brains of "the Geeks" as he says, to help solve anyone's problem via crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing is giving or "outsourcing" a task usually done by one person to a group of people. The Internet provides a great foundation for crowdsourcing efforts, and Soluto's platform accesses its user base to help a person deal with their computer problem. PC World reports that Soluto actually shortens PC boot times.

I caught up with Tomir at The 2011 Crunchies, the annual Tech awards show, where, as much as Tomir's a business person, he's also a lot of fun to hang out with and talk to. A runner up at The Crunchies, Tomir said "It's like the Oscars, but more fun."

And part of the fun was the party at The Exploratorium, which provided a great backdrop to talk about his company.

On the subject of Soluto's growth, he said "It's been amazing. We passed a million downloads already. TechCrunch Disrupt was the kick start for that." And now with investor backing, Soluto has a small staff that handles its day to day operations and issues.

Soluto Coming To Mac, Android

Right now, Soluto's only for the PC and not the Mac because the PC "represents 90 percent" of the computer market, he says. But, eventually Soluto will expand to include the Apple MacBook, and he specifically mentioned the Android mobile platform, as well.  

Yes, the iPhone OS too.

Stay tuned.  

Jersey Shore Season 3 Episode 5: Abusive Relationships

Jersey Shore picks up from last week with JWoww and Snooki at JWOww's place getting all her belongings. Ryder shows up at the house at Seaside and Vinny coincidently answers the door - remember now, those two smushed and Snooki walked in.

The group is planning to celebrate Ryder's birthday.

The title of the episode is "PUNCH DRUNK LOVE."

Things go insane from here - extremely insane. There's so much to comment on.

Sammi gets upset with Ronnie talking to a girl at the club, which - although having no experience with those types of clubs, why would a boyfriend be chatting with another girl in the first place? Well, whatever the case Sammi was very upset by this.

Meanwhile Vinny is trying to get with Gina, but her uncle is being a "cockblock." He compares his situation to Romeo and Juliet, ha.

Back at the house the "grenade whistle" is blown, how funny.

Image Courtesy of MTV.com

Ronnie throws Sam's belongings telling her to GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT JUST LEAVEE!
Why does it still have "Sweetheart" next to Sammi's name? No one calls her that.

Then Sammi and Ronnie fight and Ronny talks to JWoww about this. Sammi goes crazy and repeats over and over "ARE YOU FRIENDS WITH HER?!?!?" Which is followed by a nice punch in his jaw, now this clip has been analyzed thoroughly and this girl knows what she is doing. She stepped back and really went in for it - that was not just a rookie shot, that was the kind of punch that really takes some effort.

Courtesy of MTV.com

Jenni tells Ronnie that the ONLY reason SHE wrote the note to Sammi about what he did in Miami was so that Sammi would go home. Becoming friends with JWoww just like that after a fight with Sammi was not bright, especially after what went on. Big hugs? Too soon.

Ronnie cries a lot after being punched. Seriously, that punch was epic.

Meanwhile at the barbershop there is a rumor that Dean started that Deena likes to BLEEEEEP BLEEEP BLEEEP. All the "BLEEEEP"-ing was so confusing that it was difficult to understand what they were saying, but after consulting with others the general consensus is that Dean was basically saying that Deena likes to.. suck on butts... well, that was awkward to type. Yes, and then Deena saw Dean at the club after Mike confronted her at the gym and she confronted Dean and it was all just messy.

Snookie pays over $200 to get a stripper pole for the house with Vinny.

Sammi threatens to go home - she packs her bags and everything and even calls her mom.
But then she stays and she ends up cuddling with Ronnie -- talk about dysfunctional.

JWoww then offers to be friends with Sammi - oh boy, this will lead to something insane.

A common theme in this season is that it seems like there is less "smushing" or "hooking up" in reference to Situation and Pauly D. This episode Roger and JWoww got it on, and JWoww was annoyed with her puppies during that time.

Image Courtesy of MTV

The episode was epic - that punch was just, wow.

Vinny was the voice of reason saying, "You need sucky things in life to make you stronger." He also went on about Sammi's ego.

His tweets were quite hilarious and made it known that this would be quite the episode. However, this episode was not as good as last weeks, but it did have a lot of drama - violence in relationships, dysfunction; next Thursday will be another JERSDAY.

P.S. Ryder gets a birthday cake.

The vlog to accompany this post mostly deals with the abuse that went on within the episode and other thoughts:

Georgia Ban On Sunday Beer Sales May Fall Due To Economy

If you wanted to buy beer in Georgia on Sunday, known as the seat of The Bible Belt, you had to go to an Atlanta Falcons game to do it. But that may end as the Georgia Legislature considers removing the ban next week.

It's something that new Governor Nathan Deal is expected to approve into law if it passes, and it looks like it has the votes.

Why?

The economy here is at 10.3 percent and store business owners are tired of seeing Georgians hop the boarder between Georgia and Tennessee just for beer on Sunday.

The whole deal with liquor here is whacked. Some counties allow you to purchase hard liquor and others don't. If the Sunday beer ban falls, local counties and cities will have a choice regarding maintaining the law, but given the need for revenue and jobs, it's hard to see too many local municipalities doing that.

Stay tuned.