WikiLeaks New Strategy

Voice of America News online reports that WikiLeaks is following a new strategy in document release.

WikiLeaks has journalists that do journalism and they have won awards in journalism, but VOANews claims that WikiLeaks is "portraying itself as a news organization." It may not be a news organization, but it is definitely a source for news and information.

There is a lot of controversy saying that only a few of the reported documents are being published.

VOANews points out that Julian Assange, creator, thinks that WikiLeaks is a "journalistic institution" :

In a posting this week on the website CommonDreams, Assange said that WikiLeaks has invented a new type of reporting that he calls "scientific journalism" in which people can read a news story, then click online to see its veracity.


The strategy seems to be the gradual release of documents rather than releasing the documents all at once - which makes sense. There should not be complaints about this - people should want to know what the government is covering up.

VOA News continues:

Former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin says officials do not like surprises, and they are getting new ones every day.

"The fact that this is dribbling out, if you're in government now you have to wonder, 'What's next, and what am I going to have to cope with?' And it's likely to come at a bad time when you already have your hands full," said McLaughlin. "So it's another volatile factor in a world that's already too volatile."

The arrangement between WikiLeaks and the news organizations publishing the material - Le Monde in France, El Pais in Spain, the Guardian in Britain, and Der Spiegel in Germany - is unusual. It links media organizations to a group that is under what U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calls "active, ongoing, serious investigation."


Well it is easier to click through and see a document accompanied with an article rather than have to post it all in a physical newspaper - so maybe this is where web journalism can really be kicking into gear - just thinking about the future of journalism.

Beyonce ad banned in Britain

Is this ad for her Beyonce's new fragrance, Beyonce Heat, too much? Evidently it's too much in Great Britain...

GOP suddenly pro-Earmark (or is that pro-Pork, perhaps?)

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, during the last time Republicans controlled Congress (which started in 1994, based on the "Contract With America") there were about 1300 earmarks for nearly $8 billion - at a time when we had a budget surplus under the Clinton administration. Then by the final year of GOP control a decade later (2005) their were 10 times as many earmarks totaling over $27 billion, and a record budget deficit - which the elite pundits are still trying to blame on Obama.

You can learn more about the man the Democrats call the “Prince of Pork” -- GOP Congressman Hal Rogers (KY-05) -- as he takes over chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee by reading various articles online; he's brought so much money for Kentucky that they've renamed the former Daniel Boone Parkway the Hal Rogers Parkway.

Citizens Against Government Waste named Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) their "Porker of the Month" in August, somehow without mentioning the word nepotism.

“Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) August Porker of the Month for sponsoring legislation that could give federal funding to his daughter’s nonprofit organization, which promotes overseas wildlife protection for cheetahs.”

It's probably a coincidence that his daughter is the Grants Administrator of the Cheetah Conservation Fund.

But there's good news.  This sort of spending (millions to a fund based in Namibia) won't lead to bigger government. It's just $5 million a year to a non-government agency based overseas.

Look, I'm not saying conservation and cheetahs aren't important, it's just a question of priorities.  The GOP voted down a one-time payment of $250 to Senior Citizens... but that's another story.  My point is, it's about priorities, and once they capture a majority naturally the GOP priorities have changed to ensure their donors will help them get re-elected.

At least they haven't flip-flopped on tax-breaks for the rich.

I know, right?

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, political strategist, and photographer who recently worked as the Campaign Manager on the Madore For Congress campaign in Minnesota's 2nd District. He contributes regularly to a host of other web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

Carl Crawford and Red Sox

ESPN online reports that Carl Crawford has made a seven year, $142 million deal with the Boston Red Sox.

It's ironic that Red Sox have been known to complain about the spending habits of the Yankees, but now Crawford will be the first player in Red Sox history with a contract with "an average annual value in excess of $20 million."

The Boston Globe online reports that Crawford was high in demand by various teams such as The Angels, Yankees and Rangers.

Red Sox Manager has called Crawford a game changer. The Globe also reports:

Crawford is Tampa Bay’s career leader in batting average (.296), doubles (211), triples (105), stolen bases (409), and runs scored (765). Crawford, who is from Houston, was Tampa Bay’s second-round pick in the 1999 draft. He had been with the organization his entire career. With Crawford in the fold, the Red Sox could trade Mike Cameron or use the righthanded hitter off the bench, as a spare outfielder, or as a designated hitter.

This deal has made many assume that the Yankees will soon be making a deal with lefthander CLiff Lee.

Wikileaks Julian Assange Arrested for Rape: Swedish Blog Has New Info

Wikileaks Editor Julian Assange (who should get a Crunchie) turned himself in to British authorities Tuesday to adress the charge of rape in Sweden in August.

As this is written, Assange is in British custody, his lawyers are fighting his extradition to Sweden, hackers have tried to take down Master Card and other websites that have rejected donation payments for Wikileaks, and we all are trying to make sense exactly what happened.

Anna Ardin

What's clear is not, really, as of the two women - y Anna Ardin (Woman A) and Sofia Wilén (woman B) - who've accused Julian Assange of raping them, Ardin is alleged to be a spy for the CIA. And the Swedish blog Daddy's: Beware The Furry of A Patient Man, contains a timeline of events with new information.

It seems that, a bit different from the Zennie62.com account where they had sex once, Sofia Wilén (woman B) has sex with Assange twice: once in the evening, with a condom, then in the morning, without a condom.

Then Wilén (woman B) went shopping to make breakfast for him.  The blog has it that they ate and joked that she may be pregnant.

But even beyond that, Wilén contacted Assange and even paid for his train ticket to ride to her place, where they had sex that night. In short, Wilén was quite the agressive party in this case.

The problem is that between Anna's alleged CIA ties, Sofia's eagerness to bed Assange, and Anna's tweets that she later tried to destroy, but have been found and revealed it looks like a massive set-up attempt on the Wikileaks whistleblower.

The Twitter Tweets of Anna

The two tweets Anna posted and took down were found by Rixstep.com, and reveal a person in Anna that, the blog said, did not complain of rape or molestation by Assange and that "Anna really liked Julian."  Here they are:

Julian wants to go to a crayfish party, anyone have a couple of available seats tonight or tomorrow? #fb'

And...

Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world's coolest smartest people, it's amazing! #fb'

The blog also leaves open a window in that just exactly how Anna Ardin and Julian Assange came to meet is not clear. It reads "Julian Assange arrives in Stockholm. He is invited by Anna Ardin (Woman A) of the Brotherhood Movement, an adjunct of the Social Democrat Party." But how did she come to be the person who contacted him?

More questions than answers.

Is this a CIA set up, or two women pissed off with a guy who they both wanted, or both?

Stay tuned.

Academy News: Live Shorts, Academy on Twitter, Countdown to Oscars

In this latest installment of Academy News, news from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 10 "Live Action Shorts" have advanced in the Oscar review period, AMPAS has a Twitter account, and this weeks starts the "Countdown to Oscar Night In America."

Live Action Shorts

Out of 76 pictures, 10 have moved to what could be called the semi-final round before between three and five are selected as nominees for the "Live Action Short Film" category at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards.

The next step is for The Short Films and Feature Animation Branch Reviewing Committee, which looked at all 76 movies  during special screenings in New York and LA, to have their branches in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco hold their screenings. That will happen in January 2011, with the nominees to be named January 25th, with the other Academy Awards nominations at 5:30 AM. Here are the films:

Ana's Playground, Eric D. Howell, director (StoryForge, LLC)
The Confession, Tanel Toom, director (National Film and Television School)
The Crush, Michael Creagh, director (Purdy Pictures)
God of Love, Luke Matheny, director (Luke Matheny)
Na Wewe, Ivan Goldschmidt, director-producer (CUT!)
Seeds of the Fall, Patrik Eklund, director, and Mathias Fjellstrom, producer (Direktorn & Fabrikorn)
Shoe, Nick Kelly, director, and Seamus Byrne, producer (Zanita Films)
The Six Dollar Fifty Man, Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland, directors (Sticky Pictures Ltd.)
Sma Barn, Stora Ord (Little Children, Big Words), Lisa James Larsson, director and Andreas Emanuelsson, producer (Bob Film Sweden AB)
Wish 143, Ian Barnes, director, and Samantha Waite, producer (Swing and Shift Films/Union Pictures)

Academy On Twitter

After this blogger's badgering last year, AMPAS is finally on Twitter!  Hooray!  The Academy is at @TheAcademy and needs more followers!  As of this writing it has just 2,607 Twitter followers.  This is where stars like  with massive Twitter followers and who should be named hosts should chip in, like Ellen DeGeneres @TheEllenShow and Lady Gaga @ladygaga, as well as the Oscar Hosts Anne Hathaway @hathaway_anne and Janes Franco, who needs a new Twitter page.

Countdown to Oscars

Finally, it's just 80 days to the 83rd Annual Academy Awards on Sunday, February 27th, and 50 cities will host special charity events.  While there are a number of events held in a given area, only one will be selected as the official "Oscar Night In America" party for that metropolitan area.

Stay tuned.

Urban Meyer: Resigns From Head Coaching Position

Urban Meyers has stepped down as head coach for the Florida Gators. During his six season career as the Gators head coach Urban Meyer led the team to 2 national champions and 2 SEC titles. His resignation was a surprise and disappointment for many. It is unclear whether or not the resignation will have a severe impact on the schools recruiting. Ray Drew, an athlete from Thomas County Central, who was considering Florida stated that “I’m somewhat disappointed that it happened this late in the process. I’m not going to say it X’s them out but that’s a problem. That’s a big problem.” Urban Meyers doesn't seem to be worried about any significant problems for the school. He was quoted as saying, in regards to the recruiting issue, that "Florida is Florida. Florida will always be Florida.......I talked to a handful of [recruits] already and I’ll talk to a bunch of them tonight and tomorrow,”

John Bobst aka The Force of Nature

Go to to check out my comics, humor and creative writings, songs and to purchase my zines.

Aretha Franklin: Diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer

The 68 year old Aretha Franklin has been experiencing problems with her health recently but has chosen not to divulge any details as to her condition.  Aretha Franklin cancelled all tour dates and public appearances on doctors orders and divulged last week that she had recently undergone surgery.

Reports by family members and friends have indicated that the singer has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  No official statement in regards to her medical condition have been made by Aretha herself or her representatives.  Aretha did make a statement in regards to her surgery saying that "The surgery was highly successful. God is still in control. I had superb doctors and nurses whom were blessed by all the prayers of the city and the country. God bless you all for your prayers!"  

A prayer vigil for the Queen of Soul was held last week December 1st.  Fans and gathered downtown in Motown to pray and show their support.  

John Bobst aka The Force of Nature

To check out more of my work visit www.theforceofnature.net  

I've started a comic strip and once school is out I will try to update it daily.  You can also find humor, creative non-fiction, my music, and my zines there.  

Michael Arrington outs Google's Marissa Mayer as user of Foursquare

During this interesting and wide-ranging interview at LeWeb in Paris, and between TechCrunch Founder and Editor Michael Arrington and Google VP Marissa Meyer, Arrington outed Meyer as a user of the location-based mobile service Foursquare. It's a competitor to Google's Latitude service, which Arrington says is "pretty bad."

Beyond that exchange, which starts at the 9:30 mark in the video, Mayer talks about her new role with the search giants in consumer product development, and something she's working on called Contextual-Based Search, as well as the Nexus S, containing the latest and fastest version of the Android Operating System, called Gingerbread.

In CBS, information is "pushed" to you based on your location and browser used. Just how it will work, the UI, or "User Interface," is being developed.

Meyer uses the talk to promote a ton of Google products, as well as the over explanation that "social is important" to Google. Michael kind of "busts" Meyer here, because Google has had more failures than successes in the social category. But Meyer makes it clear that Google wants to get it right.

Finally, we are treated to a cool demo of the Nexus S, and its amazing maps app.

If you want to read a good blog transcript of the entire talk, check out TechCrunch here.

Journalism 101: Nikky Raney's Actual Notes

This video shows my actual notes. These are the notes from interviews I have done so that viewers can get a look and see a sneak peek of how I take notes and all that good stuff. After this, I will be transferring all those notes from interviews from that notebook to word documents. This will be lots of fun - Luckily I type 120 words per minute. The only problem could be deciphering certain chicken scratches and deciding whether or not each note is essential to be typed up and included - it may end up being perfect in the end result. Enjoy.



"Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits -- a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage." Hunter S Thompson

Originally posted at The Future of Journalism

Blogging, YouTube, and Video-Blogging for Dollars

If you've ever wondered how one can make money blogging and video blogging, this 30-minute, three-part video series I stumbled over a few minutes ago can give you some guidance.

On March 24th, 2009, I was a guest of Christina Marie on her show SF Live. The subject was "Blogging, YouTube, and Video-Blogging for Dollars," but in truth, I just came up with that title, because we didn't have one for the show. The video says "Political Focus" but that wasn't our objective at all.

Here, I talk about how you can get started in blogging, and what a blog is. Christina and I then talk about how to make money with blogging, the Google AdSense ad platform, blog sponsorship, and affiliate marketing.

Then the focus shifts to video-blogging, and something called The YouTube Partner Program, which I've been a part of since 2007.

At the time I just started the TV show The Blog Report With Zennie62, and was fresh off an incredible year where my work was featured on CNN many times.

The video information, even thought it's just over a year old, is a little dated. 12 Seconds.tv just shut down a month ago. And this was before I started blogging with different news websites, in addition to Zennie62.com. So I have more advise that works well for a new video.

Is this self-promotion, too? YEAH, of course it is! And you should learn to do it yourself; this economy's not going to improve any time soon, and whining about what others are doing is not going to make it any better. You have to get out and become a doer yourself, not a complainer. You think Google doesn't promote itself? Ha! You should have seen Google VP Marissa Meyer at LeWeb talking about the firm's newest products!

But I digress.

Here's the video set:

Part One:



Part Two:



Part Three:

Derrick Burts Gay/Straight Porn Star Tests Positive For HIV - Advocates Condom Use in the Industry

Warning: This post may be a bit too graphic for some.

It seems sort of shocking that there isn't already condom usage in the porn industry, but it's good to see that Derrick Burts, HIV-Positive porn star, is advocating for its usage. This shows a lot of maturity and shows responsibility.

The 24-year-old spoke to the Los Angeles Times regarding this serious issue. LA Times reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske writes that Burts tested positive for HIV in October after getting tested at the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation in Sherman Oaks.

Personal photo taken from CBSNEWS

Burts wants there to be mandatory condom usage in porn productions. This doesn't sound too far fetched - with all the editing software out there someone could probably edit out the condom.

Burts tells the LA Times that he believes that he contracted this virus during a porn performance with another male. Burts performs in straight and gay porn - he gave the facilities a list of all the other performers he had been in contact with so that it could be narrowed down to who he may have contracted this from.

According to the clinics no one on the list tested positive. Burts also has a girlfriend who tested negative.

When accusations were made that he may have contracted it from his personal sex life he told the LA Times:

"That's completely false. There is no possible way. The only person I had sex with in my personal life was my girlfriend."

CBS News, personal photo with girlfriend

It must be pretty interesting to be dating a man who works in the gay and straight porn industry - especially after finding out that he is now HIV positive. Sorry for digressing.

Burts says that during a gay porn shoot in Florida the performers used condoms during the actual intercourse, but there was no condom usage during oral sex.

He says that he makes $200-800 for filming a straight scene and $1,000-2,000 per gay scene. Again, thinking about his girlfriend in this situation. That must be one interesting relationship.

He gives advice:

"Making $10,000 or $15,000 for porn isn't worth your life. Performers need to be educated."

Video Below: