Category Archives: Just Plain Weird

Iranian Leader a Jew? – Fact is always stranger than fiction

Posted on by Brad Heap

The UK Telegraph reports this morning that the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have a Jewish Past

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/6256173/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-revealed-to-have-Jewish-past.html

Now I am not going to immediately believe it, but if it is true then it is quite amazingly funny, at the same time immensely sad that someone would turn on their past so much and hate people purely because of what they believe.

A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.

A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.

The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.

The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad’s birthplace, and the name derives from “weaver of the Sabour”, the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran’s Ministry of the Interior.

Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad’s track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.

News Press attacks TV Press

Posted on by Brad Heap

This is quite a good read, despite the subject matter: http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv/2897074/TV-review-Are-those-big-boobs-really-news

It would have been hard to avoid Bobs on Bikes if you watched the news the other night, it was the lead item, and despite other years fully uncensored. I guess TV Standards have really gone out the window now.

Anyway the article that has been linked to go into this in a good amount of detail of the back story. But this is the key message.

But where many of us will have felt distinctly ill-used in being shown this item was the bit right at the end when Close Up disclosed that the woman was here to participate in porn king Steve Crow’s annual Boobs on Bikes event.

So just as with Readers and Writers Week, the Ellerslie Flower Show and a conference on mental health, during which the media quite rightly features visiting foreign luminaries, now it is perfectly normal for visiting porn stars to get on the media circuit.

Because it wasn’t just Close Up giving the porn business oxygen. Over on TV3′s Campbell Live, they were featuring Lisa Lewis, a young woman who got a teeny bit famous for agreeing to read the news topless on an obscure TV channel, and who now calls herself a porn star.

Call me a prude, but when did we stop treating commercial pornographers with suspicion, and regarding strippers and porn stars with regretful – if fascinated – pity? Suddenly they’re newsmakers as of right.

News and current affairs reporters do have to cover other events that run close to the bone for some people, like the Hero Parade, or an artwork or movie that has offended some religious faith or other.

But that’s not about money or exploitation, but, in the case of Hero, a community celebration, and in the art world, a genuine controversy. Take it or leave it.

There’s no denying porn folk – the very fact they exist in little old NZ – give us a frisson. Even if it’s a frisson of horror, that’ll lift telly news ratings every time.

And every extra piece of publicity of the event gives Steve Crow just a little more free advertising for Erotica. From a marketing perspective the man is a genius. Even if half his empire is now in liquidation.

The conspiracy gets deeper

Posted on by Brad Heap

Last month I blogged on the missing Russian Cargo Ship. (http://www.brad.net.nz/blog/2009/08/conspiracy-anyone/)

Today the story gets deeper: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10595173

Voitenko posted an article about the ship’s disappearance on 8 August and later speculated that the ship might have been carrying a secret cargo, possibly weapons.

Russia’s government sent naval vessels to search for the ship in the Atlantic Ocean on 12 August.

Days later, the government said it had found the Arctic Sea and arrested eight hijackers but many questions remain.

Speaking to the BBC from Turkey, Voitenko said he had received a threatening phone call from someone he suggested may have been a member of Russia’s intelligence agency, the FSB.

Dubunking 9/11

Posted on by Brad Heap

In a weeks time it will be 8 years since the 2001 attacks on the states. Today the herald published a list of top 10 conspiracy theories: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10594797

It makes for interesting reading but the best link in it is a popular mechanics article on debunking 9/11 myths, the article is 4 years old but still very interesting: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=1

Birthers Debunked Yet Again. NBC.

Posted on by Brad Heap

Okay a week or so ago I blogged about Jon Stewart and The Daily Show taking the mickey out of WND.com and a variety of other nutcases.

However the issue will just not go away so here is another news article that shows the reality of the situation.

Hey I paid for that!

Posted on by Brad Heap

Interesting post on the New York Times blog site: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/some-e-books-are-more-equal-than-others/

It turns out that when you buy an ebook through Amazon’s new Kindle ebook reader you actually don’t really buy it and furthermore at a later date they can decide to remotely delete it off the mobile device.

This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned.

But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price.

I suppose that it is a good thing that the accounts were credited. But to just go onto someones mobile device and delete things. Now that is scary. What other data do they have access too?

This is ugly for all kinds of reasons. Amazon says that this sort of thing is “rare,” but that it can happen at all is unsettling; we’ve been taught to believe that e-books are, you know, just like books, only better. Already, we’ve learned that they’re not really like books, in that once we’re finished reading them, we can’t resell or even donate them. But now we learn that all sales may not even be final.

You can’t resell or donate them, but Amazon can unsell them and delete them without your permission.

As one of my readers noted, it’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table.

You want to know the best part? The juicy, plump, dripping irony?

The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were “1984” and “Animal Farm.”

Scary.

And ironic. But this brings up a more pressing issue. What happens if someone does something or releases something really controversial say an Album or Book no longer can you be one of the few in possession of the item because it can be removed from you. What happens when the government decides to censor our books or music, could they delete all our iTunes files overnight in secret?