Obama's notes during his first briefing

via wulffmorgenthaler.com

GREECE'S MAELSTROM OF VIOLENCE

REUTERS

A riot policeman in flames runs to escape during a riot in Athens on Dec. 12: Dashed hopes and opportunities

The Revolt of a Disappointed Generation

By Manfred Ertel and Daniel Steinvorth

The violent unrest that followed the shooting of a 15-year-old boy has driven Greece to the brink of a political crisis. The rioting marks an explosion of rage by the country's young people who have few prospects of carving out a place in a society where all initiative is stifled.

The mood in the jam-packed auditorium was reminiscent of the student protest movements of 1968. Hundreds of young people thronged their way into the dark room, sat on the steps or stood on tables. They shouted "murderers" and "pigs" -- and thunderously applauded calls for revenge. Cigarette smoke and the smell of sweat hung heavily in the air.

Jorgos Barutas, 29, had to struggle to make himself heard. The computer engineer, sporting a five-day beard and steel-rimmed glasses, stood at the foot of the steep rows of seats and shouted up to the audience with a throaty voice. "We have to hold out until the government steps down." Applause. "We have to transform the protests into a political movement." Applause. "We have to formulate political objectives." Followed again by thunderous applause. Barutas stepped down from the stage, feeling satisfied, and the students poured out of the hall.

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SOLIDARITY WITH ATHENS

Police Squash Violent Hamburg Protest

While police and demonstraters continued to battle on the streets of Athens over the weekend, German police broke up a large sympathy protest after it grew violent.

Scores of German riot police confronted an estimated 950 protesters in Hamburg over the weekend who were expressing their sympathy for student protesters in Greece by marching under the banner of "Solidarity is a weapon."

Police reported that the protest actions -- which allegedly included numerous members of the far-left anarchist scene -- were broken up on Saturday after they escalated to rioting, with special police units and journalists being pelted with bottles, iron rods and fireworks. Four police officers were reported injured.

Photo Gallery: Rioting Continues in Athens, Hamburg:

12/22/2008

1 of 12

Protest actions, some violent, continued to bring chaos to the streets of Athens over
the weekend as police battled street-fighting sparked by the Dec. 6 police killing of
15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

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Merry Christmas

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7002

7002 from HOTEL on Vimeo.

The vacuum echo of sound silently retreats from the milk bottle manifest. Hidden away in the shadow of light the leading role is cast for unseen immorality as the logic of thought lurks fallow in your cerebral membrane. A milliard bacteria are keeping time to tennis play, drawing shapes in rhythmical sequences under the soles of innumerable shoes. Do you ever think about what that means? How life’s myth gains shape the moment our concluding thoughts stop our senses. Under the screeching sound of hand breaks we translate our perceptions, 7002 is a film made for the unconditioned senses.

In the past Hotel & Duvel have earned their credits creatively in the concrete jungle and in the present they stretch the boundaries of street and urban clichés. They’re responsible for a film that will engage the minds of future thinkers. Life is not linear for those who walk the asphalt with a free state of mind.

7002 had its première in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam in September 2007 and was screened at several international filmfestivals. For more information please contact info@project7002.com

2007, 10 Min, 35mm, 16:9 Anamorphic

Written & Directed by Ferry van Zijderveld and Jay Sunsmith Sound Design Duvel D.O.P. Lennert Hillege Gaffer Luuk Zonnenberg Production Manager Remke Annnema Editors Govert Janse and Joris van Grunsven Art Director Jaqueline Oostveen and Seabert Deuling Styling SELCYA Food Styling Claartje Lindhout Producer Julius Ponten Executive Producers Sasha Dees, Philip Powel Co Producer HOTEL Produced by Triomf & John 106

© Hotel & Triomf 2007. All rights reserved. This film is protected under national and international copyright laws. Reproduction or broadcasting of (parts of) this film, is prohibited without the prior written consent of Hotel. info@project7002.com

How Jewish is Hollywood?

A poll finds more Americans disagree with the statement that 'Jews control Hollywood.' But here's one Jew who doesn't.

So I've taken it upon myself to re-convince America that Jews run Hollywood by launching a public relations campaign, because that's what we do best. I'm weighing several slogans, including: "Hollywood: More Jewish than ever!"; "Hollywood: From the people who brought you the Bible"; and "Hollywood: If you enjoy TV and movies, then you probably like Jews after all."

December 19, 2008
Joel Stein
I have never been so upset by a poll in my life. Only 22% of Americans now believe "the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews," down from nearly 50% in 1964. The Anti-Defamation League, which released the poll results last month, sees in these numbers a victory against stereotyping. Actually, it just shows how dumb America has gotten. Jews totally run Hollywood.

How deeply Jewish is Hollywood? When the studio chiefs took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, the open letter was signed by: News Corp. President Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton (surprise, Dutch Jew), Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM Chairman Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish). If either of the Weinstein brothers had signed, this group would have not only the power to shut down all film production but to form a minyan with enough Fiji water on hand to fill a mikvah.

The person they were yelling at in that ad was SAG President Alan Rosenberg (take a guess). The scathing rebuttal to the ad was written by entertainment super-agent Ari Emanuel (Jew with Israeli parents) on the Huffington Post, which is owned by Arianna Huffington (not Jewish and has never worked in Hollywood.)

The Jews are so dominant, I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. When I called them to talk about their incredible advancement, five of them refused to talk to me, apparently out of fear of insulting Jews. The sixth, AMC President Charlie Collier, turned out to be Jewish.

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Victor & Susie: a snail tale made of type

Posted by Mark, 15 December 2008

Victor and Susie is a new children’s book from design studio Brighten the Corners, illustrated entirely from type. The story concerns Victor – a snail with a hole in his shell – and Susie, who decides to help him get better…

“The main idea was to stress the images and text equally,” explains the book’s author, Billy Kiossoglou of BTC, “and play with the fact that they’re both made out of the same ‘ingredients’, which are simply arranged and subsequently read differently. Children’s books often treat text and images like they belong to altogether different worlds and we wanted to avoid that.”

Kiossoglou also wanted to create a narrative that evoked the sense of rhythm and pacing found in comic books. “I didn’t want to rush the story,” he says, “but allow time for dialogue, and let Victor & Susie have the odd exchange about little things that weren’t really crucial for the story.

“Keeping the conventional third person narrative in the text, as opposed to speech bubbles, meant a parent could read the story to a child, while at the same time, the text treatment was sufficiently unobtrusive, not to annoy a ‘trained’ adult comic reader.”

And as for the type used in the book: “There’s quite a bit of Futura, for its good circular Os and Cs, VAG for it’s rounded edges, a few Greek letters when I needed them, and anything which suited the shape I was looking for,” Kiossoglou explains.

Victor & Susie is a pocket-sized 72 page edition, printed on recycled paper. The comic book is available in bookshops or from the Brighten the Corners online shop (£5).

Designed and published by Brighten the Corners
Written and illustrated by Billy Kiossoglou
Typography by Frank Philippin

U.S. Plans to Sign Nuclear Pact With U.A.E.

Wall Street Journal

• DECEMBER 12, 2008, 12:00 A.M. ET

Proposed Cooperation With Middle Eastern Nation Would Face Hurdles in Congress on Proliferation Fears

"This is a real counterexample to what Iran is doing," said the senior U.S. official Thursday. "We're seeking commitments from nations within the Middle East that they're going to rely on the markets for nuclear fuel."

By JAY SOLOMON

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration plans to sign its first nuclear-cooperation agreement with a Middle Eastern nation within the next few weeks, according to a senior U.S. official, raising concerns among congressional critics who say the deal could fuel nuclear proliferation in the region.

The proposed deal with the United Arab Emirates has attracted attention because the U.A.E.'s largest trading partner is Iran. The U.A.E. has served in the past as a transshipment point for technology with military applications headed to Iran.

The move could place President-elect Barack Obama in a political tight spot with a Middle East ally by forcing him to decide whether to push Congress to ratify the agreement. He hasn't taken an official position on the deal. An Obama spokesman declined to comment. The Bush administration has championed the nuclear agreement with the U.A.E. as a model for promoting peaceful nuclear energy while guarding against weapons proliferation.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, ranking Republican in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced legislation this week that would set conditions before Congress could approve the agreement. It would require that the next president certify the U.A.E. has taken extensive measures to cut off the flow of financing and sensitive technologies into Iran.

The U.A.E. says its nuclear-power program will have extensive safeguards to protect against nuclear materials being diverted. It has pledged to purchase nuclear fuel for its reactors from outside suppliers, rather than developing its own fuel. It says it would store nuclear waste externally. Also, it has agreed to allow monitoring and snap inspections by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency.

In recent months, the U.A.E. signed agreements with two American engineering companies -- Thorium Power Ltd. of Virginia and CH2M Hill of Colorado -- to oversee the development of its nuclear-power program. The U.A.E. has also hired a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, William Travers, to help run the U.A.E.'s nuclear regulatory body.

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Chop Shop

Dir: Ramin Bahrani

My Winnipeg

Dir: Guy Maddin

Ella Fitzgerald (live in Berlin -- 1968) -- Summertime

Sofa Surfers - Can I Get a Witness

Change.gov - The Official Web Site of the The U.S. Presidential Transition

From the begining -- Obama's campaign was tech-driven -- setting new precedents for all campaigns to follow. Indeed, the campaign's use of internet was instrumental in galvanizing support among the young and the technocrats.

Somewhere along the line I even read the term: "GeekPower"-- although not a new term -- but rather used for the first time in a positive, even proud (well, I was) connotation. As a follow up, now apparently the Obama team is going to take the White House Full Digital -- another first. Follow this link to the transition team's website, Not only providing detailed information about the team members with unequal transparency, but also encouraging participation by everyone with their suggestions, and their particular stories. Another first -- and truly welcome CHANGE.