The Israeli Defense Force is posting videos of its air force bombing runs against Hamas targets in Palestine on YouTube, while the campaign carries into its 5th day. The screen grab above is claimed to be an attempt to collapse Hamas-run smuggling tunnels running from Egypt to Palestine, a method by which Hamas gets most of its weaponry. While the tunnels are also used to smuggle everything from food aid to car parts, this is reportedly the same route that delivers the rockets that were fired into Israeli territory soon after the ceasefire agreement’s timeline had ended.

Israel has responded to the rocket attacks, which appeared to be unprovoked, with massive bombing of Hamas infrastructure, from tunnels to warehouses and mosques. Hamas has continued to fire the dumb rockets into Israel, which don’t have any targeting ability. They basically fly for a couple dozen miles and land wherever they land with a relatively mild explosion. Frankly, the technology on each side of this conflict is so disproportionate, it’s like SkyNet battling barbarian hordes.

Apparently the Israeli Defense Force has created its own YouTube channel to document its actions, on which its profile information says:

We thank you for visiting us and will continue to update this site with documentation of the IDF’s humane action and operational success in operation “Cast Lead.”

The channel includes videos from Israeli Navy missions, drone attacks and humanitarian aid operations. The latter, which claims that Israel was sending humanitarian aid into Gaza on December 28, is just a bunch of clips of flatbed trucks driving around with sacks of what’s presumed to be food. There’s no narration or anything, so it’s hard to tell what the video is attempting to communicate.

Truly a glimpse into the future of warfare and propaganda.

/Film’s Video of the Day. Hilarious, yet gives me chills. Must be the nostalgia.

Apparently the Burger King isn’t too happy about Twitter user @whoppervirgins making fun of his recent controversial Whopper Virgins campaign. The King sent a cease & desist order via his Twitter account to stop the user from updating.

The ad campaign, created by long-time BK ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, wraps around a mockumentary where a film crew travels to the most remote regions of the world to find cultures that have never tasted a hamburger. The crew’s goal is to find the last source of an honest taste test between Whoppers and Big Macs, from tribes in Northern Thailand, Greenland and a village somewhere in Eastern Europe. Many people found it a bit unbelievable and even offensive.

Perhaps user @whoppervirgins felt the same way when he/she created the account, documenting his/her new addiction to the Burger King Whopper. Apparently the cease & desist order hasn’t phased the user – he/she is still updating as of today. I wish I’d thought of that – I’d be planning a month-long narrative by a Greenlandic seal-eating tribe member right now. Oh the fun times I would have.

Twitter’s terms & conditions allow people to make accounts named after others (like celebrities) only in the case of parody. Google CEO Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs, Condi Rice, Chuck Norris, Darth Vader and dozens of others are parodied on Twitter. I’m a big fan of Cobra Commander myself. A few celebrities actually responded to the parodies by making their own accounts. @the_real_shaq is a recent example. I added him immediately, so I could get all the updates where he quotes himself using horrible spelling and grammar.

@whoppervirgins is obviously such a parody, and although that alone doesn’t give the user legal protections, the Burger King doesn’t have much of a case here. Maybe instead of throwing their lawyers at Twitter users, they should refrain from buying Crispin Porter’s wacky and possibly offensive ideas next time around.

What an embarrassment. President Bush ducked from a pair of shoes at a press conference in Baghdad yesterday, thrown by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi while he screamed “This is a farewell… you dog!” in Arabic. Even showing the sole of your shoe to another person in Islamic cultures is considered an insult, so we can imagine the significance of actually taking both of your shoes off and throwing them at somebody’s head. At the president of the United States. During a formal press conference.

This is reminiscent of Baghdad post-invasion, when the statue of Saddam Hussein had its head torn off and dragged through the streets, while children slapped it with the soles of their shoes.

Funny thing is, Bush may deserve to have all of Iraq’s shoes thrown at his head, but if this reporter tried to make such a statement to Saddam Hussein during a press conference (did he even have any?) the reporter would’ve been shot on the spot. So in responding “that’s what happens in free societies where people try to draw attention to themselves,” Bush did make a good point, in his typically simple and stupid way. Ugh. So there’s our bookend to the Bush legacy: the soles of the world’s shoes to the American face.

Watch and cringe at the video here.

Danny Choo runs a fantastic blog for Japanophiles. He frequently posts photo essays of his discoveries throughout Japan, including this bike storage solution that uses an underground robotic retrieval system.