Julian took up a lot of space when he danced — almost like a tribesman performing some kind of ritual. He’d spread his arms and gallop across the dance floor, taking huge steps. He didn’t look very rhythmic or coordinated, and he didn’t seem to have that much feeling for the music, but he did possess a certain cool. He didn’t care what other people thought of him. You need space, he once told me, for your ego to flow.

Course there's more to Julian Assange than dance moves and the speculation about his personal life that's been doing the rounds on the web. Beneath is a video titled "Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks."

Centcom has awarded a $2.7 million contract to LA based Ntrepid with the aim of creating online "personae" to help get out pro-US spin in the social media sphere. The software will enable a given service operative to work up to 10 sock puppets anywhere in the world. The project would be based out of MacDill Airforce Base in Florida.

Guardian:

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries".

Operators looking to avoid detection will likely use tactics such as traffic mixing in order to provide cover and deniability. But no matter how 'authentic' they make it appear, this is a really dumb plan. For one thing it's nothing new and playing the fake ID game doesn't exactly add to your online credibility. Centcom's sock puppet software mirrors a favorite pastime of trolls and geeks with no lives. Kind of ironic since the cyber venture is believed to be part of a program with the high sounding name - Project Earnest Voice.

Aside from the ethics of running a pro-American sock puppet show online do the people behind this really imagine the fake id's won't be unmasked? High tech abilities aside, a sock puppet on an Urdu-speaking site is liable to be viewed with suspicion when its pro-American commentary keeps coming irrespective of back-up "supporting details."

There are a few related concerns.

Guardian:

The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

As of now Centcom says it has no plans to target English language or US based sites. Of course that could change. The faking of social media profiles for info gathering purposes isn't anything new as the war between HBGary Federal and Anonymous demonstrated.

A financier named David Rowland - once described in the British parliament as "shady" - paid 40,000 pounds off Fergie's debts. The money has the appearance of a cash-for-favors arrangement. In 2009 the duke made a special trip to Luxembourg in his role as British trade envoy and personally opened Banque Havilland - a Rowland bank in Luxembourg. Buckingham Palace has denied that the duke's visit was "connected with, or conditional on, any other arrangement”.

Will 'Air Miles Andy' be let go as envoy? Well he has a few things on his side. In the UK the royal family is still protected from public accountability by law. An amendment to the Freedom of Information Act makes royals exempt from the public's right-to-know.

Andrew's royal status essentially protects him from appearing before government select committees and fielding awkward questions. A rather bizarre state-of-affairs in an otherwise functioning democracy. After all royals take public money, influence policy but conveniently remain beyond accountability! Nothing like having your cake and eating it too.

Religious extremists of any stripe are off-putting - doesn't matter whether they happen to be Christian, Muslim, Jewish or any other brand of hardliner. It's one thing when they preach, but another when they ostracize those who disagree with them even to the point of issuing death threats.

As British imam, Dr Usama Hasan, discovered recently religious zealots are deeply threatened by those who challenge their orthodoxies with rational and scientific arguments.

Dr Hasan is a physics lecturer and a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. In January he delivered a lecture at London's Masjid Tawid mosque in Leyton. He put forward the view that the theory of evolution and Islam are not necessarily incompatible. This may sound like a fairly radical proposition but actually other Muslim scholars have taken similar positions. Before the theory of evolution made its mark on western thought, Muslim thinkers such as Ibn Khaldun and al-Jahiz developed theories related for example to the transmutation of species that had much in common with Darwin's later ideas.

Hasan addressed the topic of evolution in an opinion piece that appeared in the Guardian under the title "Knowledge regained":

One problem is that many Muslims retain the simple picture that God created Adam from clay, much as a potter makes a statue, and then breathed into the lifeless statue and lo! it became a living human. This is a children's madrasa-level understanding and Muslims really have to move on as adults and intellectuals, especially given the very serious scientific heritage of the medieval Islamic civilisation.

The mosque lecture in January was interrupted by roughly 50 protesters who handed out anti-Darwin leaflets. They were described by Hasan at the time as "fanatics". He was approached by one of the protesters and warned that he was an apostate deserving of death.

Hasan has been critical of Muslim clerics who have made negative pronouncements about evolution without understanding the science behind it. He said evolution "is not a matter of iman [belief] or kufr [disbelief], and people are free to accept or reject a particular scientific theory."

The campaign against him appears to have been orchestrated by Saudi-influenced hardliners who are out to close down developments in UK Islamic circles that appear to be 'modernist' or 'progressive' in nature. In addition to their issues with Hasan's views on evolution, they were offended by statements he made that were supportive of Muslim women uncovering their hair in public.

Guardian:

A statement from the secretary of the mosque, Mohammad Sethi, that was leaked to extremist websites, said Hasan had been suspended after his lecture resulted in "considerable antagonism" from the community and for his "belief that Muslim women are allowed to uncover their hair in public".

Sethi's letter, dated 24 February, said Hasan's views were in "violation of the constitution of the Masjid Trust" and that the decision had been made for the "safety and security of all parties". But Suhaib Hasan, who is the imam's father and chairman of the mosque, posted a counter-statement on the mosque's website on Thursday. It claimed his son had been the victim of a "vicious and predetermined agenda" by a "faction of trustees" and their decision to remove him was void because their meeting was inquorate.

It can't be easy to stand up for your beliefs in the face of intimidation. Unfortunately the tactics of his detractors appear to have succeeded to some degree. Through his father - chairman of the Leyton mosque - Hasan issued a notice that read in part: "I seek Allah's forgiveness for my mistakes and apologise for any offence caused..." It's difficult to believe this retraction wasn't in part a response to the negative reaction his views stirred up. Perhaps he should consider finding another mosque.

Hasan's views on evolution and Islam are thought provoking, especially given the superstitious beliefs peddled by orthodox scholars in places such as Saudi Arabia. The orthodox hold to the creation myth - the belief that Adam and Eve were the first walking, talking clay people produced by the hand of the great unseen potter. The findings of modern science are so far removed from their thinking many continue to promote discredited ideas - for example the belief that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

For more on the story link to Guardian - Independent - Pickled Politics - Irtiqa - Pharyngula

Racial slurs appear to come easily to Galliano. Tossing off remarks about genocide while sipping a mojito seemed to come naturally. Believing that two Italian women at a nearby table were Jewish, he tells them "I love Hitler" adding that their relatives would have been eliminated under the Nazis... "People like you ought to be dead, your mothers, your forefathers would all be fucking gassed." He seemed coolly indifferent to the possibility of any recording devices in his vicinity.

Some have said he was acting out because he was drunk. Maybe so, but he was obviously getting off on it and had little difficulty stringing the words together. Being under-the-influence is a poor excuse for supporting genocide.

You can link to the Galliano video here.

Does the permission Galliano gave himself  say something about attitudes and tolerances in the fashion industry? The industry with its image obsessions and in some sectors, exploitative labor practices, is arguably sketchy on a number of different fronts. There is evidence to suggest that when it comes to the hiring of models things get equally sketchy, if not outright racist.

Naomi Campbell, the first black model to make it onto the covers of French and British Vogue has been pointedly critical of industry practices. She claims that little has changed over the years and that she still feels like a token model-of-color in a business that overwhelmingly favors white models. Earlier this year she made the comment: ‘You know, the American President may be black but, as a black woman, I am still an exception in this business.’

Is this indicative of racism in the industry? Some argue that no it is just a matter of preferences on the part of some designers and/or houses who prefer a certain look for aesthetic and marketing reasons. One designer actually told Maya Schulz, director of Acclaim models that 'black people don't suit my clothes'.

Such comments aren't altogether surprising, bookers often deal with race-based preferences. Casting briefs have been known to include instructions along the lines of "no ethnics".

A young British model named Jourdan Dunn has raised a similar question with respect to fashion in the UK:

London is not a white city, so why should our catwalks be so white? I go to castings and see several black and Asian girls, then I get to the show and look around and there is just me and maybe one other colored face. They just don't get picked. I hope it's because the designer just did not think they were good enough as a model, but I don't know.

A documentary titled "The Colour of Beauty" directed by Elizabeth St. Philip follows a black Canadian model named Renee Thompson in the course of her daily routine. Thompson comes across as smart, witty and game... instantly likable. She has all it takes in the looks category and yet has to go the extra mile to get work. The film asks why it should be that instead of reflecting the reality of the multicultural, multi-ethnic society around us the fashion industry still heavily favors white faces.

Check out "The Colour of Beauty: Exploring racism in the fashion industry" beneath.