Would you like an arms dealer to manage your cloud, sir?

New York Times: The largest single customer for computing goods and services, the United States government, endorsed the cloud model this year. Vivek Kundra, the White House chief information officer, wrote a “Federal Cloud Computing Strategy” report, and identified $20 billion, or one quarter of the government’s total spending on information technology, as “a potential…

This is what passes for “serious” Mid-East commentary in NYT

Columnist Thomas Friedman – whose understanding of the Muslim world involves staying at very expensive hotels and then speaking to the doorman to sense the “Arab street” – writes yet another article that shows how little he gets about the region. Want to speak to people who aren’t just in the elites, Friedman? When I…

Thinking very carefully before visiting Sri Lanka

Travelling isn’t an ethics-free zone. The places we visit are imbued with political and social meaning. Tourism in repressive states should be carefully navigated to avoid giving support to the regime (as much as possible). Sri Lanka, still in the grip of a political culture that refuses to acknowledge its massacre of Tamils and ongoing…

Why Arab revolutions are so unique (and don’t need or want Western “help”)

New York Times journalist Anthony Shadid on Democracy Now!: I think for the first time—absolutely, since I can remember, but perhaps that a lot of people can remember—the region [Arab world] is speaking with an indigenous vocabulary. You know, it’s speaking about its own vision. It’s articulating its own vision. It’s so radically, fundamentally different…

Obama defenders find ways to justify use of arms here and there

The New York Times, being an establishment paper, unsurprisingly backs Barack Obama’s military intervention in Libya. Much more revealing, however, is this interview with Samantha Power, a senior director on the National Security Council. I truly wonder if she believes the words she’s telling Politico: Obama “has used his pulpit and a number of speeches…

Tourism is not an ethics-free zone

The corporate press have little memory, so suggesting “hot” places to travel usually ignores human rights abuses in a country. Take Sri Lanka. The New York Times has written before, post the end of the civil war in May 2009, to visit this glorious nation. No comment is made about a nation run by war…

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