the Paranoya of Gods Own Perverts

and the Al Jazeera English Magazine report:

Art student's car vanishing act

A design student made a battered old Skoda "disappear" by painting it to merge with the surrounding car park.
Sara Watson, who is studying drawing at the University of Central Lancashire (Uclan), took three weeks to transform the car's appearance.
She created the illusion in the car park outside her studio at Uclan's Hanover Building in Preston.
The car is now being used for advertising by the local recycling firm that donated the vehicle.

'Just amazing'

Ms Watson, a second year student, said: "I was experimenting with the whole concept of illusion but needed something a bit more physical to make a real impact."
She was given the Skoda Fabia from the breaker's yard at local firm Recycling Lives.
Owner Steve Jackson described her work as "amazing".
"When I first saw the photos I was convinced it was something which had been done on the computer," said Mr Jackson.
"But when you look more closely you see the effort and attention to detail she has put into it. It is just amazing."

President Obama's Press-conference (100 days)

Late, but still important, Pointer found the transcript of President Obama's 100 days press conference on The Christian Science Monitor.

GOP (Gods Own Perjurers): Not So Innocent

Summary
A group called Conservatives for Patients' Rights began airing a television ad this week that criticizes government-run health care and falsely suggests Congress wants a British-style system here in the U.S.:

* The ad neglects to mention that President Obama hasn't proposed a government-run plan and, in fact, has rejected the idea.
* It claims that a research council created by the stimulus bill is "the first step in government control over your health care choices." The legislation actually says the council isn't permitted to "mandate coverage, reimbursement, or other policies."
* The ad quotes a Canadian doctor who has been critical of his country's system, but leaves out the fact that the doctor has praised other government-funded systems, such as those in Austria and France.

Analysis on FactCheck.org

watch what Dr.Brian Day really has to say:

Video with transcription

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Defamation - The Film

Is anyone who expresses anti-Zionist opinions necessarily also anti-Semitic? Is anti-Semitism itself still an endemic and dangerous global problem? Has remembering the Holocaust become an unhealthy obsession, perhaps with a hidden agenda? Will readers regard a Jewish critic as a self-hating Jew just for considering Israeli helmer Yoav Shamir's personal, occasionally irreverent "Defamation" an ace slice of provocative, timely docu-making? No doubt the first three questions -- and many more -- will stir up red-hot debates wherever "Defamation" unspools, which is likely to be at numerous further fests (although some Jewish-themed ones may balk) and on upscale channels.

Shamir, whose previous docu features ("Checkpoint," "5 Days," and "Flipping Out") explored various aspects of current Israeli life, lays his cards on the table from the start by saying he's never directly experienced anti-Semitism himself. After a comical interview with his own 92-year-old grandmother (who claims Jews abroad really are lazy and make money off others so they don't have to work), Shamir sets out to assess whether anti-Semitism still lurks underneath the surface of supposedly civilized societies, or is just a scarecrow used to drum up political support for right-wing Zionism.

Judging by the evidence offered here, both opinions look plausible. Shamir engages thinkers from across the spectrum, from Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, which collects evidence of anti-Semitism, to left-wing academic Norman Finkelstein, whose controversial book "The Holocaust Industry" argues that what the Nazis did is used today to justify Israel's maltreatment of Palestinians.

As journalism, pic is impressively evenhanded (as were "Checkpoint" and "5 Days"), even though the filmmaker never attempts to disguise his own left-leaning sympathies. He can't resist skewering the ADL a bit, making Foxman look somewhat sinister and Machiavellian behind his front of affability. Then again, persuasive but embittered Finkelstein, caught ranting about the "warmongers of Martha's Vineyard," doesn't come across too well either.

Quotation from Berlinale Press

..... Like Yoav Shamir, whose Flipping Out was in last year’s programme, and whose entry this year, Defamation, is pretty provocative stuff?

Defamation starts out as a film about anti-Semitism and about people who have set out to expose and fight anti-Semitism around the world. In the course of his research, however, the director discovers that insisting on anti-Semitism can also be a profitable business. The other, perhaps even more dramatic finding of Shamir’s film is the systematic indoctrination of young people in Israel, who are taught on a mass scale that the whole world hates Jews and that the only way to define oneself as an Israeli is on the basis of this worldwide animosity. Defamation is about the use and production of these kinds of negative stereotypes.

That sounds like a difficult subject, in the sense that there’s always the risk of getting caught up in a vicious discursive circle.

It is a very difficult subject, and I doubt the film will make many friends in Israel. We nevertheless think this film is absolutely worth showing,...

The most comic and disturbing sequences spring from footage of Israeli high school students visiting extermination camps in Poland. Struggling to come to grips with what the Holocaust means for their generation, they eat candy while watching archive footage of emaciated Auschwitz victims (a moment worthy of "Seinfeld"). Later, some kids confess they're scared to leave their hotel rooms because they've been warned by their teachers and the Secret Service agents accompanying them that the country is fit to burst with anti-Semites who mean them harm.

Use of hand-drawn graphics to identify onscreen figures amps up the comedy effectively, as does editor Morten Hojbjerg's deadpan use of abrupt cuts, which dampens subject matter's potential grimness. End result is at once intelligent, wry and -- there's no way around it -- quintessentially Jewish, in the best sense.

A 100 Days Genesis of "Marxist Dictatorship"

Fueled by the screeds of radio hosts Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and the lesser-known but increasingly influential online conspiracist Alex Jones, many gun-show attendees I spoke to were convinced Obama planned to usher in a Marxist dictatorship. They warned that the president’s power grab would only begin with mass gun seizures. “If Obama takes away our guns,” a young, .45 pistol-toting man from Reno told me, “it’s just a step into trying to take away everything else.”

Indeed, in their minds, average Americans opposed to the Obama agenda would be herded into FEMA-run concentration camps by a volunteer army of glassy-eyed liberal college graduates. “When they start imprisoning Americans, and people start seeing that we’re the enemy, then that’ll make it hot,” predicted one Antioch-based young man sporting a button for former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul. “People talk about a revolution,” the young man continued, “an armed revolution. I think police crackdowns on individuals will tip the scales.”

More than a few gun dealers and attendees echoed the young man’s seeming enthusiasm for armed revolt. One Contra Costa, California-based gun dealer named Rich predicted during an otherwise casual off-camera conversation that “some nut” would assassinate Obama within one year of any Democratic attempt at gun-control legislation. While the prospect of organized right-wing violence against the federal government seems far-fetched at this point, the paranoid rhetoric I documented suggests the militia movement that organized against President Bill Clinton’s policies during the 1990s could experience a dramatic resurgence by mobilizing resentment against Obama.

If a new militia movement coalesces, its members will have no shortage of sophisticated assault weapons to choose from. At the gun show in Reno, I witnessed the sale of rocket-propelled-grenade launchers and bazooka guns; I watched a California-based dealer demonstrate how rapidly he could field strip his .308-caliber sniper rifle, then stash it in a deliberately innocuous-looking backpack and a briefcase that “looks just like a camera case.” Nearby, I interviewed another dealer retailing a brand of .50-caliber assault rifle that was banned in California because it could supposedly down an airplane. He told me by slightly altering the bullets his gun fired, and by converting the gun from semi-automatic to bolt-action, he was able to sell it in California once again.

Though big guns were the main attraction, a handful of retailers in Reno appealed to some visitors’ apparent enthusiasm for Nazi memorabilia. Swastika-emblazoned flags, photographs of Hitler and his henchmen, and anything related to the Third Reich were available at several booths. There was obviously no way to gauge the percentage of show attendees who adhered to the racist fringe, but the prominence of so much Nazi regalia suggested they maintained a significant presence. In fact, I learned about the gun shows I attended from a Web site that features a prominent banner ad for the Council of Conservative Citizens, America’s largest white-supremacist group.

On April 4, a neo-Nazi wannabe named Richard Poplawski murdered three Pittsburgh police officers with a high-powered assault rifle. By all accounts, Poplawski was an avid follower of right-wing talkers including Alex Jones and Glenn Beck who “grew angry recently over fears Obama would outlaw guns.”

In the wake of Poplawski’s massacre, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report warning of the mounting threat of “right-wing extremism.” “Heightened interest in legislation for tighter firearms control,” the DHS asserted, “may be invigorating right-wing extremist activity, specifically the white-supremacist and militia movements.” With its focus on right-wing gun culture, the report compounded the already palpable paranoia of gun-show enthusiasts. An organizer of the Antioch show told me the heightened specter of government scrutiny prompted numerous dealers to demand a total ban on cameras of any kind inside the show.

Even with the restriction in place at both shows I attended, I managed to record enough footage to provide what I think is a vivid journalistic report on gun culture mentality during the first 100 days of the Obama era. Was the DHS report on right-wing extremism credible? See my video report, “Gun Show Nation,” and judge for yourself.

Some former first 100 days