If this is the case I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight

I am in fact a generally cheerful sort of person, filled with faith in my fellow man and hope for a better future.  I believe that one man can make a difference and that if everyone works together we can build a future for our species that stretches beyond the boundaries of this failing planet and into the great beyond.

Don’t dig out the John Lennon classics, just yet mind you..

No success can become lasting, without the tempering that comes from harsh criticism, no greatness achieved without the burning desire to overcome imperfection.

If we are to succeed as a species and circumnavigate the treacherous potholes on the road to our brighter future, then we must be willing to address our failings head on and strive to become better humans.

It is for this reason today, that I would like to address with you some small issues that have recently come to my attention, particularly surrounding the previously mentioned issue of the taking up of causes,  average attention spans and a general misuse of the mediums which many of you have erroneously deduced to be effectively employed for the greater good.

If you will allow me one more disclaimer before I cut to the proverbial chase: While I have long harboured suspicions regarding these issues I am not here to today, my friends, to deal in opinion and speculation.  I have in fact come, bearing statistics.

Our friends over in the Googleverse, where all Internet traffic must eventually pass through, are kind enough to maintain a comprehensive statistical engine which is free to all-comers to examine and gain a deeper understanding of what it is that people are actually doing with their time on the Internet.

One of the quick features one can access is the Hot Trends list, which maintains the top 100 search traffic generators

I would draw your attention first to the opening point of our investigation, June 12 the day the story broke about the usurped Iranian elections.  As you can see the election results managed to gain a spot at number 46 on the list, just beaten out by Facebook vanity urls, which was clearly a more pressing social issue, vanity urls also appeared higher up the list under a different search phrase, no other topics pertaining to Iran made the top 100.

Fast forwarding through the rest of June this apparently hot cause, in fact causes barely a flutter on Google’s hot trends beyond the 14th.  on the 17th the search terms green now and green again peak briefly, however there is almost certainly a crossed line here with environmental

issues that is skewing the results and there is again not so much as a flutter about Iran in the rest of the list.

Finally, on the 20th the story seems to gain a little traction in the global attention span contests, coming in at number 7 with ‘neda iran’, however this attention is short lived.  The very next day the hot list is invaded by Shiloh,Pepin, the mermaid girl and Iran and it’s rapidly failing neda (it means voice) slip down to position’s 86 and 100.

The next day sees Iranian girl shot holding on at position 75, however for the majority of the searching world coverage of the US Open, and watching Weeds Season 5, episode 3 are far more pressing concerns.

On the 23rd traffic spikes nicely again, seemingly brought about by a new batch of videos entitled ‘Iranian woman shot’.  I’m sure that I shouldn’t be disturbed by the fact that video footage of the deaths of innocents grabs your attention spans far more effectively than any actual discussion of the political situation unfolding – you’re watching because you care, right?

By the 24th it seems that most Googlers have had their fill of morally obligated snuffing and the woman shot videos predictably begin to fall off the charts again.

and then on the 25th day, Michael Jackson died.

So tell me again, how much you care about the plight of the Iranian people?

Do you sometimes feel an emptiness in your life, that even your FriendFeed can’t seem to fill?

You add the friends to your wall every day,  send hand-picked e-gifts on all the right occasions, take up the latest quiz challenges from your friends and LOL along with the group when everyone comes out as Yoda.

But you can’t get rid of that nagging feeling that you should be doing something more meaningful to contribute to society, that perhaps your life doesn’t have any real substance?

Well let doubt nag you no more my digital acquaintances. You too can make meaningful contributions too society from the safety and comfort of your computer nook.

Fear not the beating sun on your brow from a day of sixties style placard waving.  ‘No tear gas no baton charge’ will be required for your anarchist street riot.

Not even the 1980’s ‘care with cash’ yuppie method, or ‘my witty grunge t-shirt will change the world’ are things that you need to endure any longer, because now you can make a difference in the world, just by tweeting.

Simply pick up on the latest causememe, retweet it to your followers and sit back in awe of your own abilities my friend, because you have just changed the world a teeny tiny bit.  It all counts right?

Don’t believe me?  Just watch in about 6-8 weeks those twitter powered Iranian protestors will have overthrown their oppressive government and will owe their eternal gratitude to you and everyone else in the Twittersphere who helped make this possible by keeping their meme alive.

Joining Facebook causes, commenting on blogs and forwarding emails are also valuable contributions, if you’re willing to go the extra mile – remember people those Iranians need you to help keep their click up if they’re going to get through this mess.

Thank you social media for once more making the world a better place.  Without you society would almost certainly collapse back into that biblical sort of chaos that inspires the gnashing of teeth, bad ‘gravel hair’ days and a revival in sack cloth fashion.

I am in awe.

Friends of popular Intertubes user Ron_K45 are fearing the worst after this picture of him appeared on twitpic today.  Ron_K was a private user who kept to himself and never gave out his Facebook, or email.  Ron kept up to date with numerous followers on Twitter and was also a lolcatz enthusiast. He was well loved in the canhascheeseburger community, where he regularly posted about the antics of his RL companion – a black and white tabby known as ‘Mr Socks’.

We suspected something might be wrong a few days ago, reported a fellow lolcatter, when Ron’s didn’t post an update on the series he’d been doing on Mr Socks vs his stuffed nemesis ‘Woolydog’.  “Ron never missed a regular post in all the years we’ve known him.” he explained.

We started to get really worried when we did a twitter search on him and found that his last tweet had read. “I can haz chest pains?”

“Yesterday this picture popped up out of nowhere on twitpic under Ron’s account – all we can think is that Mr Socks must have taken it by accident”.

Ron’s followers have been tweeting about nothing else since the picture appeared, but no-one has the faintest idea of where to find him in RL.  Poor Mr Socks don’t has fudz! #sadkitty has registered over 300 retweets in the last 4 hours.

The lolcatz community are holding a best caption poll for his final image to honour the memory of their dear friend.

If anyone recognizes Ron_K45 from this image and can provide us with any details about his RL whereabouts please send us a tweet.

The heavily sequined show is the birthplace of European pop cheese and has a traditional following in the gay community, with the inclusion of Graham Norton as this year’s British commentator firmly securing it’s status as a high point on the ‘camp calendar’.

It’s not completely clear if this is something that was taken into account by this year’s Russian hosts who dropped a considerably large sum of dosh into the event with the hopes that it would improve their image in the international community.

If it was part of their plan, they certainly didn’t get the buy in of Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, who must have been frothing at the thought of the satanic gay hordes of Europe descending on his manly city.

Mother Russia, to be fair, does not have a history of tolerance for anything (except large amounts of neat Vodka and cigarettes made of pure tar). Homosexuality was outlawed under the Bolshies and firmly labelled as a ‘western decadence’ – A good Comrade is a straight Comrade apparently. With the deconstruction of the Communist doctrine , rather than undergoing the mass liberalisation some might have expected, Russian society has almost reset itself to 1917 with the Orthodox Church heavily influencing government policy on civil liberties.

It’s no surprise then, that when a few very brave members of Slavic Pride and some very silly western gay rights activists took to the streets in an unauthorised protest on the day of the contest Yuri wasted no time in knocking back a dozen vodkas and then sending in the riot squad to remove them with extreme prejudice.

Peter Tatchell, a veteran activist and one of the people arrested complained of having his arm twisted behind his back, quite honestly he got off lightly considering the fact that a year or so back when he was involved in a similar incident the Russian police tied their shoelaces for a bit while some skinheads gave him a right kicking.

It’s not that I don’t sympathize with the cause, but for the most part the Russian gay community themselves aren’t all that keen on parading it out in the street so why as liberated westerners are we so obsessed with the need to tour the world systematically kicking in the door on social taboos in every other culture we encounter?

The contest itself went off with little incident. Russian snipers up on the balconies held their fire as the Georgian contestants nervously performed their entry entitled ‘We don’t wanna Put in’, the German entry had to be persuaded to have their ‘dancer’ keep some of her kit on during the performance and Lloyd Webber played piano for Jade Ewen – sadly without any earth tremors abruptly closing the lid and fulfilling a lifelong fantasy which I share with Roger Waters.

Top honours where taken by Norwegian fiddler Alexander Rybak with his entry entitled ‘Fairytale’. A sentence so full of innuendo I’m really having to bite it back here. 

“Why did they (the Moscow police) spend all their energy stopping gays in Moscow when the biggest gay parade was here tonight?” Rybak asked the press during a later interview.

“Is this your daddy?”

One of the things you can rely on life to do is give you parents. One mother, one father sperm and eggs – it’s a time honoured recipe for keeping the planet full and if that’s not how you got here I probably need to increase my dosage again.

One of the things you can’t rely on is what your parents are actually going to do with you when you arrive.

Some of them will buy you bicycles, some of them will buy you cars, some of them will get drunk and run over your bicycle with their cars.

Some of them will try to do this while you’re still on the bicycle, pedalling hell for leather. If this happens the key thing to remember is that you can’t outrun him so avoid any long straights that will allow him to accelerate. Try to keep obstacles between yourself and the vehicle until you can find a good spot to ditch the bike and get away on foot.

If you’re harbouring memories of a more idyllic childhood than this then spare a thought for Deborah Perez, who reminisces fondly of the tender moments shared with her old man, Guy Ward Hendrickson. Debbie and Guy would spend hours together writing taunting notes to the San Francisco PD, lovingly embroidering Zodiac symbols on his favourite hood and occasionally if the mood took him they would go for a Sunday afternoon drive and a stop off for a quick double homicide at the golf course. Debbie’s father was of course none other than the infamous Zodiac Killer, who terrorized the San Francisco area during the late 60’s and early 70’s.

The Zodiac was never caught and the identity of the killer remains a mystery to this day, as was recently dramatized in a very long motion picture in which Robert Downey Jr. got to take drugs in character.

Perez, who’s childhood traumas have been raked to the surface by the crash of the US property market, has been trying to work through her issues by holding a press conference and is shooting a documentary about her life in an effort to reach closure and begin the healing process. Her lawyer and confidant, Kevin McLean assures us that "Everyone is going to say she is crazy, but we had psychologists examine Ms. Perez," As if we would think such a thing.

Perez has also produced some hard evidence to support her claim, namely some of the letters she helped write and the glasses of Paul Stine, a cab driver who was killed by the Zodiac in 1969.

Deborah’s biggest problem however is that Dennis Kaufman, also claims his stepfather, Jack Tarrance is the real Zodiac Killer and he can prove it for just $9-99. What’s more Dennis has 16 rolls of extremely old film which have been lovingly restored by an actual university professor and fellow Zodiac enthusiast on which you can almost maybe definitely see people shapes and man lying down with a tattoo! Dennis has also uncovered a knife which Jack may have used for barbeque, or murder (hmm saucy) and just recently found a Zodiac hood complete with symbol and eyeholes hidden in the back of an old speaker.

So can anyone tell me – does knife trump glasses?

[full story]

The Holy Handprint of Grayhek

“You know if I had a buck for every time I’d seen a story like this, I’d have probably like, 50 or 60 bucks – seriously.”

Aubergines by Allah (presumably Halaal)

Stories abound of people seeing the Virgin Mary in their potato chip, or finding Jesus shaped stain on their bath tubs.  Allah, on the other hand, tends to be a little more camera shy, but he does get a kick out of writing his name on the strangest things – like this Aubergine.

You do have to admire Paul (Mr Grayhek) for putting a new spin on this one though.   As far as I can tell Paul had been deep in prayer about his unemployment, when the anointed one was kind enough to come down with a six pack  (or 3) of brewskies to talk things over and ease the burden. As the evening wore on he (our Lord and Saviour) went out back to relieve himself, ditched it over the dog kennel in the dark and left this hand print in a pile of rocks. Never one to miss a marketing opportunity and help out a buddy, he urged Paul to get straight onto E-Bay and sell the book and movie rights (because you can’t actually sell a handprint you dummy)

Carmelo Cortez can heal fevers and manifest religious figures on rose petals.  He meets regularly with the Virgin Mary to discuss his work and listen to music.

According to CNN Grayhek said he plans to use the money from the sale to pursue an unpaid internship in counselling when he graduates with a master’s degree in social work in two years. (and the more social the better).

I guess $250 bucks goes a long way these days – imagine how much could have been accomplished if he’d done a face plant.

"Last week, legislation was introduced that would create a cybersecurity adviser who reports directly to the president and who would have the authority to disconnect federal or critical infrastructure networks from the Internet if they were deemed to be at risk of attack." read more

Back in February Obama launched a review of the US national cybersecurity infrastructure
under the charge of Melissa Hathaway. Now Hathaway is set to take up the full time role as Obama’s cybersecurity adviser on the back of a set of legislation that will grant federal officials new powers to create and enforce data security standards for government agencies and the private sector.

Most significant in this legislation are a set of shiny new presidential powers that will allow him to declare a state of cybersecurity emergency, giving him the ability to shutdown public, or private networks, or portions thereof in the interests of national security.

Now if you’re like me, possibly you only paid attention to the warm fuzzy parts of Obama’s Internet campaigning and heard him make stirring speeches about net neutrality and protecting civil rights online and just possibly you fooled yourself into thinking that here at last was a man in power, who understood the Internet we grew up on – the one where you could do and say anything you wanted to under the protection of the ultimate free speech weapon, anonymity.

If so then consider this your wake up call. Obama loves the Internet, that much is very clear. However first and foremost Obama loves America He wants a safe America, he wants an Internet that’s safe for Americans to use and he is quite clearly listening to the likes of
Olympia Snowe and Jay Rockefeller (yes he is a real Rockefeller) when they say things like:

[Snowe] "If we fail to take swift action, we, regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina."

[Rockefeller]"We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs. From our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records – the list goes on."

Not concerned? Listen to what Leslie Harris CEO at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) has to say:

“This is pretty sweeping legislation,” says Harris. “Seems the President could turn off the Internet completely or tell someone like Verizon to limit or block certain traffic,” she said. “There is a lot to worry about in this bill.”

To put this in layman’s terms. Obama is creating traffic laws for the Internet, very real traffic laws like you’ve never seen before, with very real traffic police and Obama and his traffic police will be able to block the roads control the flow of traffic and if they decide to – stop you from going to the wrong part of town.

Also you need to understand, that these kind of objectives can only be achieved through extensive monitoring of the traffic. Sure he means to protect your civil rights online, sure he means to protect your privacy, but you can’t hand out fines to people for traffic violations, if you don’t know where they live can you?

In good American tradition to be a real president and get what you want you really should have a war to fight and I think its quite clear – from the way he is gearing up – that Obama plans to fight his war online.

• Attacked violently
• Struck on the head with a baton.
• He was rushed from behind by a riot officer with a helmet and shield
• Flung by the arm, to fall forward on his head.
• He hit the top front area of his head on the pavement.

Now, thanks to the wonders of digital imagery, investment fund manager, 38 from New York – who surely risked life, limb and sanity amidst the howling mob of anti-capitalist papparazi to capture what is amazingly the only available footage of the savage police attack on Mr Tomlinson you too can know the truth. Watch closely:

Now call me an insensitive bastard if you like, but after reading the wildly descriptive allegations about the extent of police brutality extracted on Mr Tomlinson I can only describe my reaction to investment fund manager, 38’s footage as a complete bloody let down.

But wait, there’s more.

Not content with trumping the right wing media with their shocking footage of a ‘baton wielding’ Officer X giving Mr Tomlinson a bit of a smack on the leg and then violently ‘throwing him to the floor’, the Guardian provides us with a follow up article detailing the accounts of the various ‘eyewitnesses’ who were hinted at in the original story. This is such a startling display of journalistic integrity with direct quoting of previously paraphrased statements that I’m left puzzled by only two small details:

• Why did the Guardian not go through these statements and replace some of the bigger words with smaller ones?
• And secondly why did they not provide these accounts in a braille format?

The reason for these questions?

Because the relationship between these wild accounts and the video footage is so incredibly thin that I am forced to deduce that the Guardian believes its average reader to not only be particularly dull-witted, but also just about fucking blind.

Allow me to elaborate.

Marcus Bensasson, 30, photographer, south London

“One image shows a bystander being shoved in the back with a shield at the very spot Ian Tomlinson collapsed.”

At the very spot…

Dr Justin Meggitt, 40, senior lecturer in religious studies, Cambridge University

Whom I shall not quote directly, tells a gripping tale of a police force drunk with power, unleashing their hounds of oppression on dashing young male protestors who’s only crime is the lobbing of the odd plastic bottle at the establishment lackies, but where oh were Dr Meggit is Ian Tomlinson? Did you see him, or was your attention too heavily focused on the plight of those young men?

Anna Branthwaite, 36, freelance photographer, south London

“It wasn’t just pushing him – he’d rushed him. He went to the floor and he did actually roll. That was quite noticeable. It was the force of the impact. He bounced on the floor. It was a very forceful knocking-down from behind. The officer hit him twice with a baton when he was lying on the floor.”

“So it wasn’t just that the officer had pushed him – it became an assault. And then the officer picked him up from the back, continued to walk or charge with him, and threw him. He was running and stumbling. He didn’t turn and confront the officer or anything like that.”

Anna, oh Anna. If only your experienced camera had been as swift as investment fund manager, 38’s…or your imagination.

Recall with me the footage, We quite clearly see Mr Tomlinson standing by the bicycles unpropelled by the forces of police brutality, His hands are in his pockets his expression is something I can only describe as grumpy. no doubt he is bloody annoyed at having to walk a detour around the mess protesters and police have made of his route home. He does not show any signs of having just been in a scuffle, he has no visible blood gushing head wounds. He then instead of moving smartly out of the way, walks deliberately and slowly in front of the biggest clump of them and for this visibly annoying act delivered unto him is a quick smack about the leg with a baton and a shove in the back that sends him falling forward onto his hands by the looks of it after which he sits on the ground, has a word or 6 with the officers and then is helped up and wanders off.

So please Anna, please would you care to elaborate for me at exactly which point he was beaten while laying on the ground and then picked up and violently propelled forward to be thrown to the floor again?

Kezia Rolfe, 27, NGO researcher, east London

“I saw him suddenly fall back as though flung down with force. It was as though he had been spun. He fell and hit the top of his head hard. I was shocked. He lay on the ground for around 30 seconds without moving before a protester helped him up.”

Kezia mate, with respect, did you spend the day researching lager? The whole incident captured on video barely takes 30 seconds. The man was pushed and fell forward. If you look at the stop motion he gets his hands out palm down just before falling out of the frame. For him to have spun around and struck the top of his head in that last foot that is off camera would have been in complete defiance of the laws of physics.

Amiri Howe, 24, actor/musician, west London

Another stirring tale – Amiri will no doubt be capturing all of this in the script for his one man performance art show, perhaps he’s started already…

“We saw a couple of scuffles happening. Our friends were inside trying to get out – no water, no food, we wanted to get them out. Police started coming forward. Missiles started to be thrown.”

I like this about Amiri, because he wasn’t afraid to admit that people were throwing stuff at the angry law enforcers.

“The guy [Tomlinson] was stood there. He got hit near the head with a baton. It was like a pencil, he just fell to the floor and hit his head again when he hit the floor.”

The other thing I like about Amiri’s story is that it’s almost as creative as Anna’s and yet fundamentally different.

Finally lets hear the words of investment fund manager, 38 – perhaps the only sane person there at the time:

“I saw him wandering around [before he was attacked]. He was just taking a look. He just got too close to the police line. [When he was attacked]” …

“Then I looked at the footage again and thought ‘my God, it’s the man they pushed to the ground’. It must be him it was minutes later who collapsed.”

There are numerous other accounts of the events after Mr Tomlinson collapsed, what’s important to note about them is this:

• No-one indicates seeing any signs of a visible head trauma or of any blood on the man’s head, face, or clothing.
• No one seems to indicate that he was attacked again after the incident caught on video.
• There is very little to suggest in the way that he, or the police behave on the video to suggest that this was the continuation of a previous incident.

So really in conclusion can we see this as anything other than the tragedy of a man with a weak heart in the wrong place at the wrong time, being handled a bit roughly by a police officer who was most likely already at the end of his tether after a bloody long day of dealing with angry slogan chanting, bottle throwing protesters.

We all have the right to be human beings who make mistakes, even the ones who end up carrying riot shields for a living.