Whatever happened to Osama bin Laden?

Osama bin Laden seems to have gone from Most Wanted Man Alive to Care Factor Zero. President Bush, after swearing to bring bin Laden to justice, admitted some years ago that bin Laden was not a priority. But this interview with the late Benazir Bhutto is very interesting...

On 2nd November 2007, less than two months before she was assassinated, Benito gave an interview with David Frost where she talked about the people wanting to stop the democratic process in Pakistan, and her fear that they were involved in the previous assassination attempt against her and would try again. Six minutes into the video, Bhutto claims that bin Laden has been murdered. Frost didn't bother to question her about this: either he considers the murder of bin Laden old news, unimportant, or he's simply losing his mojo as an interviewer.



Bhutto clearly felt that she was at risk of assassination from Pakistani government forces. It's not clear why al Qaeda would have assassinated the opposition leader, if indeed it was al Qaeda: arguably they could have been motivated by pure misogamy, or perhaps they prefer having an anti-democratic military strong man in power.

Of course, this assumes that al Qaeda really was behind her assassination. It's not clear that al Qaeda is anything more than a convenient bogey-man for the US and Pakistani governments. It wouldn't be the first or the last time that a supposed revolutionary or terrorist group had been infiltrated by so many government agents that in fact there were no revolutionaries left in it. Once a government, or even part of a government, starts defining itself in terms of opposition to shadowy criminal figures, the temptation is very large to create such convenient scapegoats.

Technical Virgin

The things that offend people, or that people are afraid will offend people (not necessarily the same thing!) often astounds me.

In 2006, actress and mother Melanie Martinez was sacked from her job of host of the PBS television program "The Good Night Show" because of two 30 second videos she had made over five years earlier. The videos, for the now-defunct "TechnicalVirgin.com" website, were send-ups of public service announcements for abstinence-only sex education.

Here are the two videos:

Boys Can Wait



Also viewable here.

I Have A Future



I'm amused (in that "have to laugh or else I'd cry" way) by this comment defending PBS:

But I think in her case she openly lied to her employers. Every job interview has that "prior history" question where if you did anything that would effect your job, it's best to say it then.

"Every" job interview? I've been to a couple of dozen job interviews (some of them were even successful) and I've never been asked if I'd done something that would make me morally unsuitable for the position. And for all we know, she did disclose the videos when she was hired. But if she didn't, it doesn't follow that she lied -- far more likely she just never imagined that they could possibly be an issue.

Refuse to be terrorized

As the clock ticks over to 2008, now is the moment to say enough is enough. It is time to refuse to be terrorized any longer. Repeat after me:

I am not afraid.

Watch this video:



or see it directly on YouTube.

(While I like the video's message very much, I fear that the dry recitation of statistics and facts will not grab people's emotions in the same way that fear-mongering does. But I am encouraged by the fact that there are people who are refusing to be terrorized.)

And from here:

I am not afraid of terrorism, and I want you to stop being afraid on my behalf. Please start scaling back the official government war on terror. Please replace it with a smaller, more focused anti-terrorist police effort in keeping with the rule of law. Please stop overreacting. I understand that it will not be possible to stop all terrorist acts. I accept that. I am not afraid.

Thanks to Bruce Schneier and Bex from the Argonist. See also what the terrorists want.

Secular Party of Australia

Thanks to PZ Myers:



Or see the Secular Party of Australia on YouTube.

Why the writers are striking

Thanks to Bek for pointing this out to me:



Or go here to see it on YouTube.

I've often said that there are copyright thieves and pirates, and most of them work for the studios. I for one have all but stopped watching television. I have my DVD collection and *cough* off-site backups, and while I'm sorry that the strike will interrupt Heroes and Battlestar Galactica, I support the strike whole-heartedly.

Something to think about

(My first ever YouTube clip. Thanks to Les the Stupid Evil Bastard.)