During August, I had a poll running on this website in which I invited visitors to vote for the name they thought best suited to the small nation-state in the Middle East commonly known as ‘Israel’ since its inception in 1948.

Here are the results:

I didn’t ‘push’ the poll by actively urging people to vote. That invites the Hasbara crowd to fly-by in a rage, like a swarm of angry wasps. So I just let nature take its course.

Now, I’ll admit to some bias. I consider this website is visited by a selection of the smartest people on earth. My dog (rumoured to have an IQ of 250+) assures me most material here is crafted, like fabulous tropical flowers, to attract the most discriminating pollinators.

Therefore I shall take heed of this poll-of-the-well-informed and follow the popular will. Personally, I voted for ‘Rothchildistan’ – but in hindsight the democratic process has yet again come up trumps.

What acronym should I use for the ‘Jewish Apartheid State in Palestine’? Is it JASP – or JASIP? Should that be put to the vote as well?

Nelson Mandela was released long ago: FREE MARWAN BARGHOUTI!

On a more serious note, the vote that’s really needed to sort this tangle is the vote that’s never allowed to happen: that’s a one-vote, one-value poll of all people associated with the land of Palestine in recent times, whether by birth, direct descent or immigration.

I haven’t visited this blog myself for a while.

The long and short of it is that after a technical glitch broke my flow in early August, I ended up feeling like a holiday from blogging.

So I took a few weeks off.

One of the joys of solo blogging is there’s no-one to fire me for indolence. It’s the freedom to slack off. In a highly evolved society, this would probably be recognized as a human right.

Every day is holy

Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent more time contributing to discussions on other websites. I’ve been quite active on independent Australian blogs such as Crikey and New Matilda. Both are serving a useful role, broadening the political debate in Australia, providing somewhat greater choice of material and opportunities for participation.

Judging by these two ‘alternative’ web media, a significant shift in consciousness is underway in terms of the key topics discussed on this website. But it’s a long slog. Here are a few of the recent articles on which I posted comments:

Articles on the Crikey website

• Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, the true story by Bob Ellis
• Costello’s ABC attacks should be addressed (Crikey Editorial)
• Warnings of a second economic shock wave by Richard Farmer
• No-one forced Grech to concoct an email by Bernard Keane
• Our parliament sabotages our future by Clive Hamilton

Articles on the New Matilda website

• Oil Talks, And The Dying Scapegoat Walks by Alex Mitchell

Four days ago, on Tuesday morning, I made my previous post. It was Part One in what was intended to be a popular series running during Cairns’ Big Week – a week with Prime Ministers and other luminaries from the South Pacific visiting and just a whiff of Terror in the air…

In cyberspace, no-one can hear you scream

Within an hour, I’d managed to stuff up my Wordpress blog – not so badly it broke altogether, but enough to make it near impossible to do new work.

It turns out to have been a faulty plugin issue. I never suspected it might cause trouble, but it did. Once found, problem fixed.

Back to blogging. There’s been incessant chatter about Terror this week, by Terror Chatterers far and wide. It’s been a Terrifying week – another landmark in the annals of true-blue Australian Terror.

Don’t relax! Watch this space.

One and a half posts per day is not too stressful.

Today I came across Peter Russell’s Life Expectancy Calculator, which has cheered me up considerably.

Although I was born in the 1950s, it estimates my virtual age as an encouraging 39.6 and reckons I have another 13,700 days to live. Disappointing, of course, to be regarded as mortal at all by a faceless computer application – but that still seems like quite a lot, at least from a 2009 vantage point.

Peter Russell's Life Expectancy Calculator

I may retire from blogging at the age of 90, depending on whether Fidel Castro is still at it. Even though the Cuban health care system is superior, I still think I should be able to out-blog the old fox. Stress over the Bay of Pigs and decades of cigar abuse must surely have taken some toll?

Incidentally, I encountered this gem via Suraci’s feisty blog, which seemed to be down for a few days. I’m relieved the Mossad haven’t got him. Russell’s calculator has its limitations and didn’t ask about whether one maintains a blog that gets up the nose of Israelis

Will Barak Obama still be on Twitter in 2050?

If I eat wisely, exercise and keep my stress levels under control, I may well find out.

I’m thinking of renaming this blog ‘A Street’ before anyone else grabs the name.

Why? Because I slavishly follow trends. Right now, there’s an evident trend underway to call blogs by the name of a Street. One-letter street names are at a premium.

J-Street: having some success in shifting US policy aware from hard-core Zionism

It started with J-Street – a fine new initiative in which some liberal-minded Jewish Americans combined to provide the USA – and especially its Jewish community – with a more fair-minded and peaceful policy alternative to the one-eyed Israel-right-or-wrong approach of the USA’s mainstream Jewish/Zionist Lobby.

J-Street is well worth a visit if you haven’t seen it before.

Rather predictably, this has put the ultras of the Zionist movement out of sorts. Recently some of them launched ‘Z-Street‘. It’s at the far end of the Zionist spectrum. These are folk who probably think Ben Yahoo is a softie. They’re among the most extreme, ultra-nationalist Jewish-supremacists on the face of planet earth.

Z-Street: Zionist extremism unplugged

As a passionate proponent of free speech, I naturally support their right to expound their ludicrous bigoted views on their own blog. Why not? Any normal person will find Z-Street so absurd that it will surely help erode the Zionist project from within.

Regrettably, almost the entire mass media debate about Israel in ‘western’ countries such as Australia is located somewhere between J and Z on the alphabetic spectrum.

As a Twitter neophyte I’m still learning about the strange new universe of Tweets, Followers, Following – and the weird ‘Trending Topics’ list on the right hand side of my page.

Some things remain utterly mysterious.

Stephen Fry: super-human Twittering powers

I looked up Stephen Fry, a celebrated Twitterer famous (in part) for his many followers. As of today there are 666,355 of them. That is a lot!

But what really amazed me was how many Twitterers Stephen Fry is following. According to today’s statistics, he follows 54,877 other Twits!

How can Fry possibly find the time? Does he have a small army of assistant Twitterers to predigest Tweets that show up on his page – and report on the Tweets he really needs to know about?

Or is there a technological fix that enables Master Twitterers to read hundreds of thousands of Tweets per day?

Locating a Stash: Today's Trending Topic for the Twittering masses

This morning I noticed Find Marijuana has been a Trending Topic for several hours. After it reached No 1 my curiosity finally got the better of me.

I clicked the link to arrive at a page of seemingly random Twitterers, all tweeting away merrily about what a giggle it is that Find Marijuana has become a Trending Topic.

How in Twitter’s name did that happen? Is it a genuine expression of random global whim? Has a network of mischievous Twitterers conspired to bump the topic into the top ten?  Could it be a gigantic surveillance operation by the combined drugs squads of participating nations?

Desperately Seeking Rupert

From one twit to another...

More and more of my friends and associates have begun Twittering. They don’t ‘use Twitter’. They Twitter. When I realized this, I grasped they’re on to something big, like Google.

So in recent months, I’ve watched TV segments about Twittering, sat through an introductory Twitter audio-visual – and read Twitter analysis in the press.

Until next week, however, I’ve never actually Twittered myself. So far, next week hasn’t arrived.

I think I have a basic grasp of the Twitter concept, but I’m not sure. It seems too easy to be true – and too daft to be worth doing. But perhaps I haven’t really understood what it’s all about?

Tweets connect twits

If I’ve got it right, the idea is to say things, up to 140 characters long, about what you’re up to. You follow other peoples’ Tweets. They follow yours. Twitterers aren’t supposed to be too ‘heavy’. Keep it light! Little bits and pieces about what you’re up to – mixed with the occasional link and flash of inspiration.

Is that right?

If so, I’m really not sure why it might be worth sinking more hours each week I don’t have spare into yet another bottomless pit for screen-based attention. But perhaps it is?

Presumably once I sign up and start Twittering for real, nothing will ever be deleted from Twitter Central? The thought bothers me. What if I stuff up?

No. 18

A few days ago, I wrote Strange Urges, Unexpected Destinations about some of the more exotic search terms people use to find this website.

In the interests of public disclosure (not to mention search engine optimisation), here’s the list of search terms most often used by visitors to get here, in descending order of frequency:

1. jfk
2. ghandi
3. mahatma ghandi
4. marge simpson porn
5. auschwitz
6. marge simpson nude
7. dave rothschild
8. rainforest vegetation
9. ariel sharon
10. syd walker
11. j.f.k
12. barak obama “rahm emmanuel”
13. bart and marge
14. bay of pigs invasion
15. obama hope
16. bart and marge simpson
17. j.f.k.
18. kevin rudd
19. david ahenakew
20. bart and marge sex

As you can see, SydWalker.info attracts people with diverse tastes and interests.

I thought it would be interesting to compare my list with the equivalent for all web users. I couldn’t find a global top 20 – but Hitwise reports the top 10 search terms for the four weeks to 11th April 2009 were:

1. craigslist
2. myspace
3. facebook
4. ebay
5. youtube
6. myspace.com
7. yahoo
8. facebook login
9. mapquest
10. facebook.com

I always suspected my visitors are abnormally interesting.

Now I have proof.

That's why we blog - geddit?

The Melbourne Age reports Labor’s blog-watch plan hits Whirlpool of dissent:

THE Government will begin trawling blog sites as part of a new media monitoring strategy, with documents singling out a website critical of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy for special mention.

Soon after Senator Conroy praised Singapore’s Government for reducing monitoring of blogs, tender documents issued by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy reveal it is looking for a “comprehensive digital monitoring service for print and electronic media”.

The department later attached a clarification confirming the term “electronic media” included “blogs such as Whirlpool”.

Whirlpool, the only blog site mentioned, has criticised Senator Conroy’s plans to filter internet content and his handling of the Government’s $15 billion national broadband network. It is a community-run internet forum devoted to discussing broadband internet access.

Senator Conroy this month told a conference in Germany that it was a “really positive sign” that the Singaporean Government had given up monitoring blogs.

But the documents suggest the Australian Government is just about to start. Senator Conroy’s spokesman said it was “only natural” that the tender include services for monitoring relevant blogs.

Go right ahead and monitor, Senator Conroy. We’re watching you too.

Blogging: not too hard to understand

Such a shame, Minister,  that your own blogging career came to an untimely, abrupt end.

Feel free to post comments too!

___________________

Crikey! Do they pay for this pap?

Australian public intellectual, professional ethicist and censorship advocate Clive Hamilton is at it again, expounding (supposedly profound) views on the Internet and modern culture.

In a Crikey opinion piece that boils down to a whinge, Hamilton concludes:

If free speech means no more than the absence of restrictions on people using public forums to say whatever they want, and however they want, then the Internet is the promised boon. But if free speech means encouraging a free-flowing dialogue that draws the public into an exploration of alternative ideas and enriches civic culture, then the Internet is its enemy.

What on earth is he talking about?

Free speech  is the freedom to openly communicate genuinely held beliefs and opinions on any topic. It is the freedom to be honest – according to one’s own conscience – irrespective of the prevailing norms of society.

Socrates, public intellectual

Free speech – as a concept and goal – predates the Internet by millenia. In western culture, Socrates is usually considered the first major exponent of free speech. He lived a long time ago.

Each new communications technology. developed over the many centuries since, has opened up new possibilities. Free speech, in general, benefits from innovations in communications. Ideas spread faster today than ever before. Discussions – within specific interest groups – dance around the world like laser beams. The Internet has democratized access to global communications for contemporary humanity. The World Wide Web has helped ‘level the playing field’, providing hundreds of millions (and ultimately billions) of people with the opportunity to self-publish.