November 30, 2004
Solving the Riddle of the Dan Rather Beating
Dan Rather is the sphinx of our time, and his riddle is “Kenneth, what is the frequency?”
Who can forget our collective shock and bewilderment when we opened the New York Times and learned of the event? October 1986. A cool evening, upper Park Avenue, in the Eighties. Newsman and reservoir of trust, Dan Rather, dressed casually, walks home from dinner at a friend’s house...
article [Harpers; originally from December 2001. By Paul Limbert Allman]
~Canoodling with conspiracy theory: the writer had me at 'reservoir of trust' as if the ancient gods, relegated to news-anchors and such-like, walked among us. Donald Barthelme is a national treasure who deserves a wider readership.
[Selections from 60 Stories by Donald Barthelme]
Clione limacina (Sea Slug)
yahoo news
Clione or 'sea angels' swim in a Tokyo aquarium The Clione, which lives mostly in temperate waters, can be found in the Okhotsk Sea, off the northeastern part of Hokkaido in Japan. @
When Limacina (max size 5cm.) makes contact with its prey it rapidly everts a set of six buccal cones, which are in fact eversible tentacles, which grab the shell of Spiratella and turn it around until its shell opening is facing the mouth of Limacina. At this stage large chitinous hooks are everted from a pair of sacs, called hook sacs, and grasp the prey animal. It takes about 30 minutes for Limacina to pull Spiratella out of its shell and to swallow it whole. more info/pix
via the sea-slug forum
~Sea Angel/Sea Slug is that like 'Madonna/Whore'?
This is an example of one of my favorite things about biology: accidentally humorous, often contradictory names.
Angels are everywhere these days. They're even in America....so light, so diaphanous...
This animal's feeding behavior is an added bonus.
Sutures of Ink
National (Dis)Identification and the Seaman's Tattoo
by CHRISTINE BRAUNBERGER
"...during the first half of the 20th century those ubiquitously visible tattoos--eagles and anchors, shields and ships, flags, daggers, and dancing hula girls--carried their own specific set of conflictual connotations. American culture at the time cathected the sailor's tattoo to national militaristic fantasies, desires for the exotic, and the penultimate masculinity of rugged bravery. When disembodied from the prideful flush of militarism, the tattoo became grotesque, that is, repulsive and provocative. The seeming irreconcilability of these attached meanings leads to several questions: What were all those tattoos DOING on all those bodies?1 Why did eagles, ships, flags and other icons to the civil religion of American nationalism take the form of tattoos? How did tattoos function to authenticate the military man? In what ways did tattoos become artifacts of consent for civilian men to be transformed into the physical protectors of democracy?"
Marcel Mauss: 'Give It Away'
[from the beyond-greed-and-selfishness/everything you were taught is wrong dept.]
Mauss' essay on "the gift" was, more than anything, his response to events in Russia — particularly Lenin's New Economic Policy of 1921, which abandoned earlier attempts to abolish commerce. If the market could not simply be legislated away, even in Russia, probably the least monetarized European society, then clearly, Mauss concluded, revolutionaries were going to have to start thinking a lot more seriously about what this "market" actually was, where it came from, and what a viable alternative to it might actually be like. It was time to bring the results of historical and ethnographic research to bear.
Mauss' conclusions were startling. First of all, almost everything that "economic science" had to say on the subject of economic history turned out to be entirely untrue. The universal assumption of free market enthusiasts, then as now, was that what essentially drives human beings is a desire to maximize their pleasures, comforts and material possessions (their "utility"), and that all significant human interactions can thus be analyzed in market terms. In the beginning, goes the official version, there was barter. People were forced to get what they wanted by directly trading one thing for another. Since this was inconvenient, they eventually invented money as a universal medium of exchange. The invention of further technologies of exchange (credit, banking, stock exchanges) was simply a logical extension.
The problem was, as Mauss was quick to note, there is no reason to believe a society based on barter has ever existed. Instead, what anthropologists were discovering were societies where economic life was based on utterly different principles, and most objects moved back and forth as gifts — and almost everything we would call "economic" behavior was based on a pretense of pure generosity and a refusal to calculate exactly who had given what to whom. Such "gift economies" could on occasion become highly competitive, but when they did it was in exactly the opposite way from our own: Instead of vying to see who could accumulate the most, the winners were the ones who managed to give the most away...
article by David Graeber Oct. 2002
~There are people who feel good about giving stuff away? That's all in the past, isn't it? (Or something a swinger might say?)
Remapping Our World
Six maps "based on global transactions not geography":
link @ International Networks Archive
via: change now list
Sex Dolls
"Dolls, realistic human forms, lend themselves to sexual alterations. Probably as long as there have been dolls, there has been the clever little brother or sister who thought they would look better with realistic genitalia.
Alta-Glamour recently unearthed these anonymous Polaroid photographs. The photo sets feature commercially-available dolls with added genitalia. The maker has set up tableaus and made photographic series that tell stories of straight, gay, and group scenes. We have not definitively dated them, but they are probably from the 1970s."
gallery thanks, diederick who reminds us: "note the mustaches."
November 29, 2004
DMV Chief Advocates Tax by Mile
New appointee has advocated a levy based on how much and where motorists drive. Idea is gaining support, but privacy advocates worry.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday appointed a new Department of Motor Vehicles director who has advocated taxing motorists for every mile they drive — by placing tracking devices in their cars.
In one scenario — currently being tested in Oregon — tracking devices send a signal to a GPS satellite following the car, and that information would be used to calculate the tax bill. Other devices send a signal directly from the car to the pump, which calculates the tax based on the odometer reading.
story LATimes archived Politech ("California DMV chief wants to track all drivers with GPSbugs")
~For state senators and congress-critters whose travel to and from the state capitol is subsidized, it's not difficult to imagine the benefits of such a tax.
Why not simply levy new sales taxes and license-plate fees on higher-priced cars and SUV's, assume those who invest more in their cars, use them more. Each optional-feature could have it's own tax and special tax breaks for hybrid-cars would spur consumer interest. No need to maintain a huge state-run GPS tracking-system for every car in California.
Put Some Clothes On
You're Giving Us a Bad Name, (UK) Naturists Tell Nude Charity Calendar Models By Elizabeth Day
They have replaced cake sales and sponsored walks as the most popular method for charities to raise money or generate publicity. But the naked calendar - immortalised in the film Calendar Girls - is giving nudity a bad name and should stop, according to Britain's naturists.
Organisations representing Britain's 25,000 naturists say that the hundreds of nude firemen, university students and Women's Institute members, who now feature in charity calendars, should put their clothes back on.
They say that the comical depictions of nudity - with a subject's intimate parts concealed behind an array of inventive objects such as cider presses, firemen's hoses or mortar boards - give the impression that the naked body is something to be ashamed of.
Francis Pickett, the director of the Association of British Naturist Clubs, called the current obsession with naked calendars "absolutely pathetic".
He said: "These calendars have nothing to do with naturism and I am worried that they will get lumped together in people's minds. They always show people covering up behind cricket stumps or whatever, as if they are ashamed of their nudity. It's gimmicky and it gives naturism a bad name. I'd like to see these calendars stopped. Enough is enough."
Andrew Welch, the commercial manager of British Naturism, a voluntary organisation that works to raise the public profile of naturism, said: "Just because something is naked, doesn't make it naturism. We don't wish to be associated with these calendars because they are not really nude. It's a shame that they have promoted such a proliferation of misnomers.
"The whole market has been flooded with 'nude' calendars and really, they are not nude or true naturists, they are still covering themselves with cider presses or whatever. We wouldn't want anyone to think that was naturism, because it's not."
The nude calendar has become a ubiquitous annual event since a group of women from the Rylstone Women's Institute stripped off to raise money for a leukaemia charity in 1999.
The black and white photos featured 12 naked WI members preserving their modesty behind trays of home-made cakes, hymn sheets and flower arrangements. The calendar, produced after a member's husband died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1998, went on to raise more than £1 million.
The exploits formed the basis for a highly successful 2003 film, Calendar Girls, starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters.
There are now approximately 100 new naked calendars published every year. Recent examples include a calendar celebrating the naked flesh of Scotland's first gay-friendly rugby club (£7.99), a nude fund-raiser for Portsmouth Cathedral Choir entitled "Heavenly Hunks" (£8.99) and an "Embrace Men In Wellies" campaign sponsored by a wellington boot manufacturer that features Alan Duncan, the Labour MP for Rutland and Melton, dressed in a Father Christmas hat and preserving his modesty with a cardboard cut-out of Margaret Thatcher.
The prevalence of naked calendars has even caused some charities to shun the trend. In April, staff at the Magpie Cancer Centre Campaign in Hampshire refused a £3,000 donation from the sale of a naked calendar because it was deemed "too explicit".
Steve Gough, the "naked rambler" who completed a nude walk from Land's End to John o' Groats earlier this year, said that the calendars presented nudity in a negative manner.
"What grows out of these calendars can be really bad," he said. "The calendars present being naked as something sexual, with attention being drawn to the sexual parts by hiding them. People who buy them get tunnel vision about seeing nudity as something exclusively sexual. That's wrong.
"You can be naked just because you want to be and in a totally non-sexual way. I like to be naked to have a stroll and feel the wind on my body, but these naked calendars ram home the mistaken belief that nudity equals sex."
Tricia Stewart, one of the original Women's Institute calendar girls who posed manning a cider press as Miss October, said that nude calendars were not meant to be taken seriously.
"We just thought it was a funny idea," said Mrs Stewart, who was played by Helen Mirren in the film. "I feel that all the other people who have done naked calendars have done it for a good cause and had a fantastic time doing them.
"I don't see how that can give naturism a bad name because, if anything, it's helping people to be naked even if they don't have a wonderful body. Of course, some are more tastefully done than others, but the most important thing is to raise some money for charity in a tongue-in-cheek way."
~How sad is it, if your nudity offends nudists? ...if you can't do nudity right?
Rylstone calender story
(Didn't Monty Python [View image] do something similar?)
November 28, 2004
Huge Leap for Saddam Judges
SOME of the Iraqi judges who are being prepared to handle Saddam Hussein's trial haven't handled anything more complicated than a traffic case, says an American law professor who helped train them.
Despite the judges' lack of experience with complex litigation, Case Western Reserve University law professor Michael Scharf was impressed by their knowledge.
"They're lower-level court judges and the reason for that is because the higher-level judges were seen as corrupted...
Saddam will...be the first person tried for the crime of aggression since the Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials following World War II, and the case will define aggression for the International Criminal Court.
"The judges that I was working with were very conscious of the fact that they were going to be making history," Prof Scharf said.
~Does Mr. Scharf's observation on corruption have any basis in fact? In Chicago until recently the 'lower-level' traffic court judges took many more bribes than the judges who routinely fixed murder cases. Chicago's traffic-court judges were younger than the criminal court judges, in that way they were certainly 'less' corrupt.
Meteorite Photographed Hitting Earth
The chances of an impact being captured on film are millions to one.
The photograph was taken by keen amateur photographer Wayne Pryde as he stood near the Darwin Cenotaph on The Esplanade and looked down to Fort Hill Wharf on Monday evening. (Northern Territories, Australia)
The meteorite, which could have been as small as a grain of sand, would have been travelling about 30,000km/h.
Mr Pryde believes a tiny piece of space rock hit the top of a 20m lamp post on the wharf.
He said the explosion on impact could be seen clearly in the photograph.
The "tube" created by the meteorite as it hurtled towards Earth is harder to pick out.
"I was taking a series of time-lapse pictures of the build-up of clouds," Mr Pryde said.
"I did not realise I had snapped the meteorite until later.
India Pioneers the Webcast Cremation
An Indian crematorium is planning to give grieving but time-strapped relatives the chance to send their dear departed into the next world via live webcast.
The funeral establishment in Baroda hopes to offer the new service by next June. It will allow friends and family to watch cremations from the comfort of their own homes, and will further offer the opportunity to post condolence messages and chat to other mourners online.
The site is not yet go, but will reportedly live at www.mokshadham.org - a Sanskrit name meaning "abode of salvation".
Congress Seeks to Curb International Court
United Nations - The Republican-controlled Congress has stepped up its campaign to curtail the power of the International Criminal Court, threatening to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid to governments that refuse to sign immunity accords shielding U.S. personnel from being surrendered to the tribunal.
The move marks an escalation in U.S. efforts to ensure that the first world criminal court can never judge American citizens for crimes committed overseas...
~In case you're wondering how America's morality compares to those other countries'.
Candidate Kerry's "Real" Concession Speech
I concede that I overestimated the intelligence of the American people. Though the people disagree with the President on almost every issue, you saw fit to vote for him. I never saw that coming. That's really special. And I mean "special" in the sense that we use it to describe those kids who ride the short school bus and find ways to injure themselves while eating pudding with rubber spoons. That kind of special.
I concede that I misjudged the power of hate. That's pretty powerful stuff, and I didn't see it. So let me take a moment to congratulate the President's strategists: Putting the gay marriage amendments on the ballot in various swing states like Ohio... well, that was just genius. Genius. It got people, a certain kind of people, to the polls. The unprecedented number of folks who showed up and cited "moral values" as their biggest issue, those people changed history. The folks who consider same sex marriage a more important issue than war, or terrorism, or the economy... Who'd have thought the election would belong to them? Well, Karl Rove did. Gotta give it up to him for that. [Boos.] Now, now. Credit where it's due.
read more concessions / thanks, conscientious joerg
~Some people seem unwilling to get with the program: George Bush is our President; Jesus Christ is Our Lord. The Kingdom of God is here, now. (So many sinners, so little time.)
Billboard in Orlando, Florida put up by Clear Channel [story]
thanks also, joerg
November 27, 2004
Online Archive of California
browse images / about the archive/ site map
~Thousands of images.
GapingVoid
~Adman blogs about advertising/marketing. Scary but with cute drawings. (Billions of dollars are spent every year on specific products, services and ideas in an attempt to attract our attention and extract our earnings. Funny but I just don't feel the love.)
Nike Ads Spark Row in Singapore
A series of Nike ads in Singapore designed to resemble graffiti have stirred emotions in the Asian nation known for its obsession with cleanliness and civic order.
"We had a good laugh when we received this feedback," Henry Goh, a sales director at outdoor bus advertising firm Clear Channel, told the Straits Times newspaper.
~Its unfortunate that the sales director hasn't been forced to apologize for Clear Channel's bad taste. Obtuse piggy?
Police Apologize for Sending Child Porn
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian police apologized on Thursday after inadvertently sending Internet images of child pornography to 1,800 schools while trying to warn principals about children at risk of abuse.
The mistake came during a police crackdown on child pornography...
Police assistant commissioner Graeme Morgan...said the images of three young girls had been sent to the state's Department of Education. The photographs sent by police and found during the arrest of a man suspected of possessing child pornography, had been cropped to show only the girls' faces.
However, inadequate software had been used in the cropping process and the full images remained embedded in some files, which were later opened by a handful of recipients, he said.
~Well it's one way for the police to insure kiddie porn investigations continue. Should we assume they'll be needing a complete new computer system to make sure accidents like this never happen again?
November 26, 2004
African-American Sheet Music 1850-1920
Image 1 of 6 link
This collection consists of 1,305 pieces of African-American sheet music dating from 1850 through 1920. The collection includes many songs from the heyday of antebellum black face minstrelsy in the 1850s and from the abolitionist movement of the same period.
Unlike many other sorts of published works, sheet music can be produced rapidly in response to an event or public interest, and thus is a source of relatively unmediated and unrevised perspectives on quickly changing events and public attitudes. Particularly significant in this collection are the visual depictions of African Americans which provide much information about racial attitudes over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
home (search) / browse the subject index
(lyrics are found on photo-pages of music: "next image")
~A reminder that for most of America's history racism was a fact of everyday life. People who could afford pianos entertained each other for generations with vicious songs disguised as humor. It makes me wonder where did the bile, (the schadenfraude?) and the sense of entitlement based on skin color go? Since the first colonies, white Americans somberly legislated as well as gleefully celebrated their superiority over African-Americans. Who do their grandchildren scapegoat and mock now? What group of people can they acknowledge as their genetic inferiors? Who are todays 'coons' and 'pickininnies'? Do liberals & homosexuals help fill the void? (Does this have something to do with America's militarism and criminal justice systems?)
Scoop
~James observed: "what gets me is how the light filters in through the window white and bright as the the deed is so effortlessly, so easily framed by those already dead spooning the right corner, holding fast to the nearest companion ceasing breath.
i'm beginning to think that tolerance must indeed be very wide; it's justice great indeed. to continually lose and yet to never be defeated. inside, is out: one's tag always showing and yet no one says a thing."
Related: A Voluntary Tic in Media Coverage in Iraq by Normon Solomon
November 25, 2004
How to Create a WIA: Worthless Intelligence Agency
After the 9/11 attacks and the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, the focus shifted from ignoring unwanted intelligence to actively creating false intelligence. The critical item was the NIE of October 1, 2002, entitled "Iraq's Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction," which became known inside the CIA as the "whore of Babylon." It explicitly endorsed Vice President Cheney's contention of August 26, 2002 -- "We know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons" -- and was signed by DCI George Tenet with "high confidence." "The intelligence process," writes CIA veteran Ray McGovern, "was not the only thing undermined. So was the Constitution. Various drafts of the NIE, reinforced with heavy doses of 'mushroom-cloud' rhetoric, were used to deceive congressmen and senators into ceding to the executive their prerogative to declare war -- the all-important prerogative that the framers of the Constitution took great care to reserve exclusively to our elected representatives in Congress."
article by Chalmers Johnson
~This mini-history of the CIA is chock-full of gems like the above. (I'm sorry world! I apologize for our lying leaders.)
For the hell of it: Chalmers Johnson: On the CIA and a Blowback World
"There is a direct line between the attacks on September 11, 2001 -- the most significant instance of blowback in the history of the CIA -- and the events of 1979. In that year, revolutionaries threw both the Shah and the Americans out of Iran, and the CIA, with full presidential authority, began its largest ever clandestine operation: the secret arming of Afghan freedom fighters to wage a proxy war against the Soviet Union, which involved the recruitment and training of militants from all over the Islamic world."
~Now that's 'real-politik'.
Applause for the British
It seems that a coalition of organizations and governments leaded by the UK government will pre-buy millions of the malaria vaccine the Spanish researcher Pedro Alonso is evaluating for GSK ensuring with it it's distribution in third world countries that suffer this disease. I wonder what would happen if all the coalitions were like this one.
The government would offer to buy enough malaria vaccine to immunize 873 million people for HIV/AIDS, 642 million people for malaria, and 1,534 million people for tuberculosis in covered countries over ten years. The commitment would be backed by a legally binding contract. In the base case scenario, 2643 million DALYs would be saved for HIV/AIDS, 1,114 million DALYs would be saved for malaria, and 983 million DALYs would be saved for tuberculosis. (This is equivalent to 89 million lives for HIV/AIDS, 37 million for malaria, and 33 million lives for tuberculosis.)
This is by far a better way of erradicating malaria than previous campaigns.
Full report
@ - Translated by Google
Three Kings
As Edward Saïd, a leading Palestinian-Western scholar puts it:
The last permissible racism here [in the United States]—and by permissible, I mean it’s okay publicly in the media and elsewhere—is to be racist against Arabs. You can say the most outrageous things in the most respectable magazines and newspapers and even on the air about Arabs, things you would never dare to say about any other ethnic or racial group..
In Three Kings, viewer positions are set up to create a sense of identification (the viewer’s feeling a sense of “self”— I’m briefly in that person’s shoes) or to see characters or situations as safely “other.”
...the film presents the protagonists as coming to a realization that the United States has failed to save Iraq and destroy Hussein’s regime. According to the film, the United States is mistaken not because it intervened in the Middle East but rather because it did not follow through in its mission to save the good Arabs and crush the bad Arabs, a mission perpetuating neocolonial ideals.
The heroes of Three Kings, in terms of the film’s logic, right the wrongs of the United States by saving a small group of Iraqi civilians, thus reproducing “the [neo]colonialist structure of the heroes’ relation to the native… [to] sort out the problems of people who cannot sort things out for themselves”
all of this review via jumpcut
other reviews can be found @ MRQE
~A dark humorous movie celebrating the 'white man's burden'. The feminists made us laughable and the free market redundant but there's places all over the world where our fathers' values rule. Dude.
Doubts About School Computer Use
Students who use computers a lot at school have worse maths and reading performance, research suggests.
The belief that there is an educational benefit - and not just better work skills - has underpinned huge investment by governments, and many parents, in information and communication technology [ICT].
The new study was done by Thomas Fuchs and Ludger Woessmann of the CESifo economic research organisation in Munich.
They used the test performance and background data from the 2000 PISA study involving tens of thousands of students in 31 countries, including the UK..
~Learning involves something more than reading & responding to educational software programs? Who knew? Schools will need to change their tests to eliminate this pre-ICT bias.
November 24, 2004
Fun with Photoshop
The Commemorative Wave
(and/or chocolate-wrapper prototype)
Bill Could Criminalize Fast-Forwarding DVD Ads, Trailers
A new bill before Congress may eventually have DVD-viewers thinking twice before fast-forwarding through the ads and previews.
The proposed legislation would make fast-forwarding through those ads illegal -- not only in theaters, but also at home, NBC News reported.
The bill allows technology that lets families edit out explicit scenes or material to track the DVD use. But broadcast companies have lobbied hard to keep commercials and movie trailers off limits.
~Kathy Fisher at Unknown News remarked: "So do I get this right, the DVD is watching us?"
Ad*Access
2X
browse the subject categories
~Hundreds of ads that allow us to marvel at the gullibility of our parents and grand-parents. You've come a long way homeland consumers!
Almost Half of Americans Believe God Created Humans 10,000 Years Ago
Only about a third of Americans believe that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is a scientific theory that has been well supported by the evidence, while just as many say that it is just one of many theories and has not been supported by the evidence. The rest say they don't know enough to say. Forty-five percent of Americans also believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago. A third of Americans are biblical literalists who believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word. Gallup via: Harpers Weekly
~for Spitting Image context see: Faith-Based Parks below
Apotheosis of Washington
Liberty George Washington Victory
The United States capitol dome interior has an overhead painting in the "heavens." Figures in the overhead painting - an allegorical glorification of the first President - were drawn as much a 15 feet high to seem life-size from the Rotunda floor 180 feet below. The "Apotheosis of Washington" covers 4,664 square feet of concave surface. Constantino Brumidi worked the fresco in 1865. Gods and mortals mingle in the Dome's fresco heaven...
link
For Spitting Image context see: Heavenly Concurrence below
Texas Officials Wary of Plan to Hunt by Internet
Hunters soon may be able to sit at their computers and blast away at animals on a Texas ranch via the Internet, a prospect that has state wildlife officials up in arms.
A controversial Web site, www.live-shot.com, already offers target practice with a .22 caliber rifle and could soon let hunters shoot at d
deer, antelope and wild pigs..
The idea came last year while viewing another Web site on which cameras posted in the wild are used to snap photos of animals...
~I'm waiting until the site offers blowing-up animals via the internet.
Soviet Space Battle Station
Soviet Union was developing laser space battle station Skif from beginning of 80's. Length: 37 meters; Diameter: 4.1 meter
Weight: around 80 tons
Unarmed prototype filled with scientific equipment was created around 1985 and launched 15 May 1987. It was failed to start operations and with the fall of Soviet Union project was scrapped.
link to photos /comments via: slashdot
November 23, 2004
Lei Gao Photography
mother and son
from Israel & Palestinian Territories (115 photos)
[photos appear on right, scroll down for page numbers]
Government Uses Laser Printer Tech to Track Documents
According to experts, several printer companies quietly encode the serial number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including the United States, already use the hidden markings to track counterfeiters.
Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox, says his company's laser printers, copiers and multifunction workstations, such as its WorkCentre Pro series, put the "serial number of each machine coded in little yellow dots" in every printout. The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins.
Lorelei Pagano, a counterfeiting specialist with the U.S. Secret Service, stresses that the government uses the embedded serial numbers only when alerted to a forgery. "The only time any information is gained from these documents is purely in [the case of] a criminal act," she says.
article thanks conscientious joerg / archived/comments @ Slashdot
On Social Justice & Political Struggle
"Americans pride themselves on their individuality, yet that individuality is largely a myth. While we have choices as consumers, larger structural forces condition our public morality and impel conformity. The most despicable acts are perpetrated by people who are otherwise moral, productive, well-socialized members of a civilized community (such as in the recent Abu Ghraib Prison scandal in which the American and British government acknowledged the widespread torturing and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by their military forces.). As Kenneth Burke reminds us, the devastation wrought against Vietnam by the United States in the 1960s “was made possible by humble, orderly, obedient, peacefully behaving job-holders, who raise their families in the quiet suburbs, and perhaps do not even spank their children.”
article by Omar Schwartz via: woods lot
~I apologize, I'm sorry.
War College
yahoo news
U.S. Marines sit behind school desks at a primary school in the war-torn western city of Falluja, November 21, 2004.... @
Naked Bandit/Here, Not Here
Global information technologies (Satellite, GPS und Data Surveillance) are producing new territorial principles of order, new logics of space and are constituting forms of transnational power and sovereignty.
Transnational sovereignty is emerging from permanent processes of exclusions and inclusions of territories and people on a global scale.
Extraterritoriality describes a logics of space which is defined outside of the state and it’s law systems but are yet controlled by the referring state power and sovereignty.
Extra-territorialities are constructed as “non-publics” which are external to the existing protocols which govern our civil conflicts.
These means zones in which legal status can be suspended, in which citizenship is invalidated, in which the assumption of innocence is thrown away, in which representation is denied. Any person or territory is in the context of the ”war of terror” under permanent threat of being excluded, becoming an unlawful subject or an extraterritoriality.
welcome to my world
November 22, 2004
Shrinking Cities Projekt
"Shrunken cities contradict the image, familiar since the Industrial Revolution, of the "boomtown", a big city characterized by constant economic and demographic growth. Shrunken cities spur a reconsideration not only of traditional ideas of the European city, but also of the future development of urban worlds.
The drastic changes in cities caused by shrinking thus present not only an economic and social, but also a cultural challenge..."
Bush Gets Separated from Bodyguard at Banquet...
Shoving Match Ensues
President Bush stepped into the middle of a confrontation and pulled his lead Secret Service agent away from Chilean security officials who barred his bodyguards from entering an elegant dinner for 21 world leaders Saturday night.
The president, looking irritated, walked away with the agent. The incident was shown on APEC television.
"Chilean security tried to stop the president's Secret Service from accompanying him," said White House deputy press secretary Claire Buchan. "He told them they were with him and the issue was resolved." story
Several Chilean and American agents got into a pushing and shoving match outside the (SANTIAGO, Chile) cultural center where the dinner was held. The incident happened after Bush and his wife, Laura, had just posed for pictures on a red carpet with the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and his wife, Luisa Duran.
As Bush stepped inside, Chilean agents closed ranks at the door, blocking the president’s agents from following... story (MSN)
(One of US President George W. Bus's Secret Service bodyguards (L) is prevented by Chilean security from entering the Mapocho cultural center...@)
Bush's security at the 21-nation summit has been a big story in Chile, where many have complained the security measures are excessive. U.S. officials have said the measures are necessary to protect a U.S. president when traveling.
Bush was posing for photos with first lady Laura Bush in the Estacion Mapocho Cultural Center when he heard a commotion and saw that one of his plainclothes security agents was being forcefully restrained from entering.
Bush reached into a small crowd, where people were arguing and pushing one another, and pulled the agent through the door of center.
Bush then turned around, cocked his head proudly at his maneuver and began to greet his hosts. story
Chile Calls Off Bush Dinner After Security Dispute
SANTIAGO, Chile (CNN) -- Plans for a state dinner for President Bush at Chile's presidential palace were scratched Sunday after the United States insisted on security measures that Chile called unacceptable.
The change came a day after Chilean security guards temporarily blocked one of Bush's Secret Service agents from entering an official dinner.
For the Sunday event, the Secret Service insisted all guests -- totaling more than 230 -- pass through a metal detector, a top level Chilean Foreign Ministry official told CNN. U.S. officials did not dispute this account.
President Ricardo Lagos believed the measure was humiliating for guests, the Chilean official said. story
~He can't walk into a banquet hall of world leaders without ALL of his bodyguards. One might wonder how many bodyguards each of the other 20 leaders found necessary for their security that night? (At $50. a plate those extra bodyguards really add to the cost.) You think maybe Mr. Bush and his entourage were (also) more than fashionably late or were the locals jealous because his posse was the biggest posse there?
Smirken McGerken was ready to throw down. Word.
(Such a thin veneer of civility they operate under. I've got new respect for rappers.)
Belgrade Underground
The existence of a huge secret underground complex in the Serbian
capital of Belgrade was disclosed earlier this month following an
investigation into the deaths of two soldiers who were guarding its
entrance.
[An initial army finding that they had shot each other was greeted with derision in the media. Reports suggested they were really killed because they saw a top war crimes fugitive being sheltered inside the complex.
The paper said the bunker was built on a "Chinese walls" principle; various contractors, private and military, carried out various parts of the design without any one of them getting to know the overall layout. story reuters]
More like a city than a mere bunker, the structure was reported to
occupy six levels over two square miles. It was built in the 1960s
as a military shelter for Yugoslav officials.
See "Labyrinth City Under Dedinje" from the Belgrade newspaper Vecernje Novosti, November 13, 2004 (translated by FBIS): via: Secrecy News
November 21, 2004
Bush Uses Presidential Pardon
"This is an election year and Biscuits (the turkey) had to earn his spot at the White House," Bush said... at an annual Rose Garden ceremony at which he pardoned the 44-pound white tom turkey from a center-stage appearance on the Thanksgiving dinner table.
The president, who won re-election on Nov. 2 after a tight race against Democrat John Kerry, joked that Biscuits and his running-mate, "Gravy," had run "neck-and-neck" against a rival ticket of "Patience" and "Fortitude."
story
~As President he has the power to save many lives. Here's one.
Related: ...during his prior term as Governor of Texas, George W. issued fewer pardons than any Texas Governor since the 1940s (16 up to January 2000, as opposed to 70 for his immediate predecessor Ann Richards, 822 for 2-term governor Bill Clements, and 1048 for John Connally, Texas governor from 1963-69). [more from On the Law of Presidential Pardons]
And more curious yet: This Wikipedia entry on Bush Adminstration Presidential Pardons.
~That's one lucky bird.
We Don't Do That Here
Huynh Thi Thanh Huong (L), sister of Ho Thanh Tung, one of six sentenced to death in Vietnam's biggest ever corruption case, cries outside the Ho Chi Minh-City's Court where the sentences were handed down. yahoo News photo
~("It was the best if times, it was the worst of times?"
I apologize to the world that there are governments who execute their citizens for all sorts of offenses.)
Sorry Thoughts
"If seems the outcome of America's recent presidential election has given rise to a very interesting crop of web sites that allow grieving American people to apologize to the rest of the world.
While some measure of comfort may come from reading the contrition, forgiveness and solidarity being expressed globally on sites like, http://sorryeverybody.com/, it is quite compelling to think about the oppositional potential if all of these voices could be organized into an effective instrument to restore sanity to the leadership of the country that is presently the world's most powerfully pugilistic.
-pld
ps: I too wish to take a moment and apologize for the conservative
capitalistic 'oilgarchy' setting about carving up the world to feed the ugly appetites of its children.
Peace and Love,"
-Phil Duncan via: change-now-escapearts.net list
See the hundreds of photo-apologies at the Sorry Gallery
[click a number then scroll down]
~Here's my contribution for SorryEverybody.com:
Don't Blame Me, Blame Her.
State Chairman of the Illinois Republican Party
and State Treasurer of Illinois, Judy Barr Topinka
And for those simpering Americans afraid to utter the names or show the faces of the people most responsible for the sorry state of our politics, don't waste time apologizing to each other for the behavior of gangsters and morons. (Unless you are one.) You think Ms. Topinka would ever apologize for anything her president might do?
Lipstick Fetish Page
~I don't get a fetish vibe from this collection of images. Maybe if there were a few photos of women who weren't models?
Doll Mouth Series by Diana Thorneycroft
Rose
gallery blurb w/photo / magazine blurb w/photo
One Sex
turn inward, so to speak, and fold double the man’s,
and you will find the same in both in every respect"- Galen
@
"From this perspective male and female genitals are not essentially different in kind but merely located in different places, one inside and one outside, each possessing identical elements.
In Galen’s model each element of the generative system is common to both women and men, a mirror image of each other. The vagina an interior penis, labia as foreskin, uterus as scrotum, ovaries as testicles. Galen uses the same term to describe each element ie "orcheis" which refers to what we would term separately the ovaries and testes. Until the late 17th century it is often impossible to determine from medical texts which part of the female anatomy a particular term refers. The language of the "one-sex" universe constrains the conceptualisation of our modern notions of absolute sexual differentiation... Even the words used when referring to female organs ultimately refer to male organs. Terms which emerged in the eighteenth century which refer specifically to female organs (vagina, uterus, vulva, labia & clitoris) do not have their renaissance and ancient equivalents.
-from Sexuality & Modernity The Pre-Modern European Concepts of Sexual Difference an Isis Creation
November 20, 2004
Faith-Based Parks?
Creationists Meet the Grand Canyon
In National Park Service (NPS) affiliated bookstores, they can find literature informing them that the great chasm runs for 277 miles along the bed of the Colorado River. It descends more than a mile into the earth, and along one stretch, is some 18 miles wide, its walls displaying impressive layers of limestone, sandstone, shale, schist and granite.
And, oh yes, it was formed about 4,500 years ago, a direct consequence of Noah’s Flood. How’s that? Yes, this is the ill-informed premise of "Grand Canyon: A Different View" a handsomely-illustrated volume also on sale at the bookstores. It includes the writings of creationists and creation scientists and was compiled by Tom Vail, who with his wife operates Canyon Ministries...
article [Time Magazine] thanks, Devin
~There's nothing new here with Christers pushing their god-given ideas onto unsuspecting tourists in National Parks. Didn't Hanna-Barbera open that door in the 1960's with a nationally syndicated tv Yogi at Jellystone Park?
Fun with Photoshop
the marriage of true minds @
large
[open in new window]
The 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
~Who knew so many different unmarketable living-things existed?
Is it possible we all sense the extermination of species, the shrinking of the biomass, like a universal source of energy, an invisible sun, sputtering out?
Porn Bus Investigation
After finding out that a mobile porn studio is being used on the streets of South Florida, Local 10 (tv news) wanted to find out if the business is legal.
Police spokesperson Delrish Moss..watched video trailers from Ox Ideas' Web sites showing two men in a mini-bus offering girls money to get inside...But Local 10 learned in an undercover investigation, the women are actually paid performers, and the incidents are all set up in advance. Ox Ideas producer Olivier Caudron told a Local 10 producer that the women are paid $700.
Moss said, "This (pornography) is one of those hard crimes to deal with."
~Local 10 News needed to conduct an undercover investigation to discover the women are paid performers?
Alexander in Images
Thumbnails and links to over 200 images of Alexander from ancient to modern times. Read About the project, or select a gallery.
link to Alexander the Great on the Web
~I'm reminded that our ideas about war are based on the story of Alexander. Still.
And why is it that images of men in togas aren't automatically hilarious? (Senatorial?) The memories of bad Shakespeare movies and boring plays negate the fun of "Animal House" and toga parties?
November 19, 2004
Haunted by Science: Ted Taylor
"I have tried, I thought successfully, to hold on to a vow of just not
thinking about new types of nuclear weapons any more. And what's happened, to put it simply, is that it has gone from my conscious to my unconscious, and it's emerging as a dream; I cannot shut it off.
People make shifts like that; they try to put something out of their minds and it comes in dream-wise. But this was extremely intense and explicit. And I got up for about three hours; I woke up at 2 and went back to bed at about 6 o'clock, and when I started writing I wound up filling up a page with notes, of not just the dream but things that it triggered, that is, some new thoughts. I don't know whether the concept itself is of any importance but it made sense in the dream and it made sense when I was sitting down writing about the dream, and it still makes sense. So it wasn't some weird possibility that I cannot describe, but I don't see any point in doing anything but just keeping that in my head, and, if I could, getting rid of it.
The possibilities of new ways of disabling or killing people in huge numbers, or in small numbers from a long distance away, make me think of the sort of prototypical example of what directed energy can do, making the transitionf rom a pile of high explosive to a gun, as the Chinese did, after they invented it."
"What I am afraid is in the offing is people figuring out how to make a transition that's as spectacular as trying to kill a deer at 200 yards with a pile of high explosive, or by shooting at it..."
Thoughts from Ted Taylor (1999 phone conversation)
See also his 1996 article on the Waging Peace website.
~Ted Taylor 1925-2004 : R.I.P. (Obituary)
Fallujah in Pictures
"Pictures from Fallujah that probably won't be on your television".
~Cryptome calls this 'war gore', but there's nothing wrong with seeing how our tax dollars are spent bringing democracy to Iraq. (Or as an e-mail friend remarked: how the US is "stopping the extremists from taking over".)
Interesting Optical Illusion
link thanks Devin
~I like the languid motion. I have this feeling sometimes that my eyes bounce inside their sockets like ping-pong balls, and this illusion seems to dispell that.
Could Kinsey's Sex Research Be Done Today?
According to the research—compiled from some 18,000 testimonials—37 percent of U.S. men (and 13 percent of women) had had at least one homosexual experience, while 62 percent of women (and 92 percent of men) masturbated. Premarital sex was common. Half of married men and a quarter of married women had cheated on their spouses.
More than 50 years later, Kinsey's research remains very controversial. His detractors say he was biased by his bisexuality. They also fault his methodology, because he relied only on volunteers (many were prisoners), so his sampling was not representative of the general population. Most controversial of all is the fact that many of Kinsey's findings about the sexual behavior of children came from interviews with an anonymous pedophile.
Where did Kinsey's information about children's sexual responses come from?
"The bulk of this information was obtained from adults recalling their own childhoods," the Kinsey Institute Web site says. "Some was from parents who had observed their children, some from teachers who had observed children interacting or behaving sexually, and Kinsey stated that there were nine men who he had interviewed who had sexual experiences with children who had told him about how the children had responded and reacted. We believe that one of those men was the source of the data listed in the book."
The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago published an updated report on American sexual behavior in 1998.
story [National Geographic]
Related: Kinsey Institute Sexuality Information Service for Students
~Isn't it sad that this man is most often (was ever) cited as an expert on sexuality in America?
The Institute has few images available on-line however here's the Categories List for the collection of photographs at the Kinsey Institute. There's separate categories for Dance and Dance Ballet along with Analictus and Male Genitalia (but no Female Genitalia) photographs. Now that's what I call Science.
"We are the recorders and reporters of facts - not the judges of the behaviors we describe." Alfred Kinsey
We Don't Do That Here?
Child Porn Navy Doc Can Keep Job
A SHAMED Royal Navy doctor who admitted downloading almost 5,000 pornographic pictures of children has been allowed to keep his job.
...he said he ended up looking at child pornography after he clicked on a pop-up icon on an adult pornography site which read "click here and see a sick website".
The ex-Manchester Grammar student said his curiosity led him on to the website which was being monitored by the FBI.
(Dr Stuart) Ruthven said that the first time he looked at pornographic images of children in 1999 he likened it to doing 40mph in a 30mph zone.
Ruthven will serve as a medical officer at HMS Drake naval base in Plymouth working under close supervision. He is banned from working privately or as a lone GP for two years.
~Is this story an example of compassionate law-enforcement or the power of the Royal Navy to protect one of it's own? From what I understand about the US Military's use of pedophiles, I'ld have to say 'the club' trumps enlightened compassion everytime.
Americans Expose Russian X-Ray Girl
Natasha Demkina from Russia's Saransk first got popular in London and then disgraced in New York
The world learned about the unique ability of the 17-year-old girl at the beginning of the year. Newspapers reported about the X-ray girl who could see through people like a medical apparatus. Natasha"s talent became evident at the age of 10.
story [Pravda]
~What's really amazing is that her supposed X-ray talent got her trips to London and New York. (I knew a woman who could see through her boyfriend's pants and tell if his penis was recently in someone else.)
November 18, 2004
Clothes-Switch Day Dropped at Schools
November 17, 2004
SPURGER, TEXAS -- A homecoming tradition in which boys dress like girls and vice versa in this tiny Texas school district won't be held Wednesday after a parent complained.
As a substitute, the schools ranging from elementary to senior high decided to hold "Camo Day"--with participants wearing black boots and Army camouflage.
The clothes-switch tradition, hosted by Spurger schools for years, was to give students a chance to reverse roles and let older girls invite boys on dates, open doors and pay for sodas.
Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute issued a news release Tuesday reporting that it "came to the aid of a concerned parent" over an "official cross-dressing day" in the school district, 150 miles northeast of Houston.
[Chicago Tribune]
Theocracy Watch
"Christians are mandated to gradually occupy
all secular institutions until Christ returns
-Definition of Dominion Theology by sociologist Sara Diamond
The Real CSI: DNA Profiles Often Languish
WASHINGTON (AP) - Thousands of DNA profiles in unsolved criminal cases experience long delays before they are added to a national FBI database, jeopardizing their value in identifying suspected murderers, rapists and others, according to a Justice Department report Monday (Nov.15, 2004).
The report by Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general, identified more than 2,500 completed DNA profiles in unsolved cases that had not been added by state and local crime labs to the FBI's Combined DNA Index System in a timely fashion. Some had been waiting for nearly a year.
Earlier this month, President Bush signed legislation providing $775 million over five years in grants for states to use in clearing up the DNA testing backlog.
Toy soldiers
Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, the USA, Sudan, Colombia, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
I bet you thought one of the countries above listed didn't recruit children as soldiers. I thought that too but Amnesty International says that all those countries used children as soldiers since 2001.
The Western countries that legally recruit children aged 16 and 17 are Australia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and, again, the USA.
I hope these countries join the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and sign the UN Security Council Resolution 1460 on children and armed conflict.
Read AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE @
Photo: Martin Klejnowski Kennedy
Alberto Gonzales: America's Top Law Enforcement Officer
Bush names torture advocate as Attorney General
George Bush named Alberto Gonzales, the White House lawyer who advised him he could disregard the "obsolete" Geneva conventions, as America's new attorney general yesterday.
Unveiling the first new cabinet appointment since his re-election... Mr Bush said the 49-year-old had already been instrumental in the war on terror.
"His sharp intellect and sound judgment have helped shape our policies in the war on terror," Mr Bush said.
story by Julian Borger (The Guardian)
~"It's the morality stupid".
Words of Christian Reconstructionists
~Bush owes these people.
Under Our Feet
"Those who are obedient to His commands will rule the world, reconstructing it for His glory in terms of His laws. Psalm 2 shows God laughing and sneering at the pitiful attempts of the wicked to fight against and overthrow His Kingdom. He has already given His Son "all authority in heaven and earth," and the King is with His Church until the end of the age (Matt. 23:18-20)! Is it possible that the King will be defeated? He has, in fact, warned all earthly rulers to submit to His government, or perish (Ps. 2:10-12). And the same is true of His Church. The nation that will not serve us will perish (Isa. 60:12); all the peoples of the earth will be subdued under our feet (Ps. 47:1-3)--promises made originally to Israel, but now to be fulfilled in the New Israel, the Church."
~Neo-con Christianity for morons.
The Peter Principle & the Neo-Con Coup
... incompetence begat by ideological blindness has been rewarded. The neoconservatives who created the ongoing Iraq mess have more than survived the failure of their impossibly rosy scenarios for a peaceful and democratic Iraq under U.S. rule. In fact, despite calls for their resignations - from the former head of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. Anthony Zinni, among others - the neocon gang is thriving. They have not been held responsible for the "16 words" about yellowcake, the rise and fall of Ahmad Chalabi, the Abu Ghraib scandal, the post-invasion looting of Iraq's munitions stores and the disastrous elimination of the Iraqi armed forces.
... by successfully discarding those who won't buy into the administration's ideological fantasies of remaking the world in our image, the neoconservatives have consolidated control of the United States' vast military.
article by Robert Scheer (The Los Angeles Times)
yahoo photo
~Look out world, here we come.
November 17, 2004
Afghanistan's TV Networks Ordered Off Air
An appeal from the country's top Islamic judge this week prompted the Cabinet to order television networks temporarily off the air - just three years after a Taliban ban on TV was lifted.
Alberto Gonzales: America's Top Law Officer
A Trusted Lawyer and Friend to the President
Alberto R. Gonzales, the son of Texas migrant workers, can be counted on to put the interests of the White House first, observers say.
In 1996, midway through his first term as governor, Bush was a rising star in Republican circles. The son of a former president, he was seen as having a clear shot at the White House in 2000 if his tenure in Texas proved to be a success.
That fall, the governor was called to serve on a jury in Austin in a trial of an accused drunk driver. "I'm just an average guy showing up for jury duty," Bush told reporters when he arrived at the courthouse.
But while Bush stood talking in the hallways, his counsel, Gonzales, was meeting behind closed doors with the judge and the defense lawyer, David Wahlberg. Gonzales argued that because the governor had the power to pardon a defendant, it would be inappropriate to have him also decide his guilt or innocence.
While the contention seemed novel, the defense lawyer agreed to dismiss the governor as a potential juror. Bush thus avoided the need to answer questions under oath about whether he had ever been arrested for drunk driving.
story via: Harper's Weekly Nov. 16, 2004
~"Its the morality stupid".
Maria Marshall
pinocchio [movie still]
"Since the end of the 90's, Maria MARSHALL has been working on big video projections that revive the psychological dimension of cinema. Their impact consists of a fragile balance between fascination related to the visual charm of pictures and the uneasiness produced by underlying violence.
Maria MARSHALL's videos aren't explicitly autobiographical, even though she often uses her two sons in the main roles. This artist takes us back to the world of childhood as a pretext in order to evoke the anxiety of adults. Images that at first charm us will create feelings of uneasiness. Realising the unavoidable, that eventually these faces will be confronted with the world of adults, and that their innocence will be partly lost, is the cause for this insidious malaise. In this way the artist tackles the fundamental subjects of motherhood, socialisation and life experience."
link (Cosmic Gallery) thanks, diederick
Are You Genetically Up to the Job?
Germany's cabinet is due to discuss a law that would regulate limited genetic testing for employees in jobs like public transportation. Ethicists warn of dangerous terrain.
[Note:] ...scientists say the tests currently on the market to determine common genetic diseases, such as diabetes or hypertension, are unreliable and probably never will be completely accurate.
[Also:]
Many countries have taken the step of outlawing access to genetic tests for employers and insurers outright. Beginning with France and Norway in 1994, Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria have passed laws that either severely limit or outright forbid the use of a person's genetic information for anything other than medical or scientific purposes.
German opposition politicians said they want a similar law. Parliamentarian Hubert Hüppe, the deputy chair of the Ethics and Law in Modern Medicine commission in the German Bundestag, said that the results of genetic tests, no matter what type, belong in no one's hands but the person tested.
Whether a person is fit for the job "can be fulfilled through medical examination but without performing genetic screening," wrote the 12-member European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies. "Thus, employers should not in general perform genetic screening nor ask employees to undergo tests."
~Another of the 'problems with socialism' stories. Here in the states we're so keen on individual privacy employers attempting genetic testing would soon be sued. Unless insurance companies and medical suppliers first take a few years to acclimate consumers to the health/information benefits of private genetic tests through massive advertising campaigns, celebrity endorsements, 'tv stories' and HMO coverage. Only then could employers quietly adopt the most popular tests (and then some) for their 'family of employees'.
Who cares if they're inaccurate? (Flu shots are wasted on the majority of people too.) If they ever get the unit-prices down below $100., WalMart will be selling over-the-counter (like pregnancy and drug tests) various at-home genetic tests. ("Are You My Dad?", or something like it, would be a big-seller.)
The Greatest Dutchman of All Times
Pim Fortuyn, the flamboyant anti-immigrant Dutch politician who was murdered in 2002, has been voted by television viewers in his home country as the "Greatest Dutchman of all time."
The flamboyant Fortuyn was shot five times at close range as he left a radio studio in the central town of Hilversum on May 6, 2002, just 10 days before general elections with his far-right party set to make sweeping gains.
He had rattled the Dutch establishment with his open homosexuality and fiery anti-immigrant rhetoric based on his belief that the Netherlands could not absorb more foreigners. He also demanded tougher integration policies and criticised Muslim views on homosexuality and women and was widely accused of tapping into a wave of fear after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States by his detractors.
Update: "salient detail, counting votes received after the final TV show (which celebrated Fortuijn) would have celebrated arch-royal Willem van Oranje [Wikipedia's entry] as the winner, a today press release says...But TV shows apparently rule..." D!
~Noteworthy story: It shows that Americans are not the only people who are full-of-themselves (Is dumbing-down contagious?).
Also, right-wing gays are so rarely featured in the American media that one might have the impression that all gay people are of the liberal and left persuasion. Which is a very sad state of affairs if you stop to think about it. (Don't Nazis have orgasms?)
November 16, 2004
The Soldiers at Lauro
Young are our dead
Like babies they lie
The wombs they blest once
Not healed dry
And yet - too soon
Into each space
A cold earth falls
On colder face.
Quite still they lie
These fresh-cut reeds
Clutched in earth
Like winter seeds
But they will not bloom
When called by spring
To burst with leaf
And blossoming
They sleep on
In silent dust
As crosses rot
And helmets rust.
Spike Milligan
link to The Spike Milligan Tribute Site [photos/ bio./ tributes/ more poems/ etc.]
Wireless Sensor Implant for Heart Aneurysm
Surgeons at The Cleveland Clinic have developed a new technology that involves implanting a dime-sized wireless sensor into the aneurysm sac. The sensor measures pressure in the sac and picks up even the slightest change. This is something existing technology like CT scanning cannot do. Doctors activate the sensor by holding a tennis racket-shaped device over the abdomen. The device displays pressure readings... The sensor can remain in a sac forever and is sewn into the stent graph.
George Bush vs. the CIA
The traditional relationship between intelligence providers and intelligence consumers is this. Policy is based on intelligence and information. It is the professional and legal obligation of the intelligence agencies to provide, as best they can, objective intelligence and analysis.
It is Peter Goss’ mission to change that.
The lead in Sunday’s Newsday article [also here] on the subject says it all: “The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden...
article by Randall Risener
~Should we expect a Watergate-type scandal to crush the Bushies in the next four years?
UK: TV Advertising Ban on Junk Food?
Advertising junk food on television before 9pm could be banned if proposals in the Government's Public Health White Paper, to be published tomorrow, become law.
Dr John Reid, the Health Secretary, had been expected to propose banning such advertising during children's programming, in response to the increasing incidence of obesity in Britain.
But figures from Ofcom, the communications watchdog, showing that 70 per cent of television watched by four- to 15-year-olds is between 6pm and 9pm, mean that Dr Reid is likely to propose harsher restrictions and, unless food manufacturers agree to a voluntary code, they could face legislation.
"What people want in today's world is as much support and assistance from the Government as possible to help them make the healthy choices that will give them a better quality of life," he said.
story [Telegraph]
~We don't do that here in the USA. We ban boobs and smutty talk not advertising directed at children and we don't want "as much support and assistance from the Government as possible". Socialists.
U.S. Land Crossings Test New Security Measures
Gateways from Mexico at Laredo and Douglas, Arizona, have been chosen to begin testing the Homeland Security Department's increased border security technology on Monday. The Canadian border city of Port Huron, Michigan, also is participating.
The technology -- which calls for fingerprinting, photographing and running checks on suspicious visitors -- has been in place at U.S. airports and seaports since January 5,
Digital fingerscans and photos are matched with databases to determine if visitors might be wanted for immigration problems and crimes or are on lists barring them from entering the country because of suspected terrorist ties.
The information will be stored indefinitely in a national database, but Homeland Security officials promised its use would be restricted to ensure privacy.
Homeland Security is spending $340 million implementing inkless fingerprinting machines, digital cameras and computer equipment. Another $340 million has been allocated for 2005.
Laredo each year has 4.6 million pedestrians, 1.4 million trucks, 6.8 million private vehicles and more than 40,000 buses cross its four international bridges, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
"At the very beginning we were led to believe... that this program was going to be bad for us," Laredo Mayor Betty Flores said. "From what I witnessed ... the program is going to be good for us."
~Laredo's share of the $340.million offsets any losses from reduced tourism?
November 15, 2004
Operation Phantom Fury
via yahoo news
U.S. Marines of the 1st Division pass by dead bodies in the western part of Fallujah, Iraq, Sunday, Nov. 14, 2004. U.S. military officials said Saturday that U.S. Forces had now 'occupied' the entire city of Fallujah
A US marine from the 3/5 Lima company walks past two bodies lying along a street in the restive city of Fallujah. US troops tackled Fallujah's last tenacious insurgents but were still days away from completing major search operations...
~That's a man and a woman? He was shot (deliberately wounded?) and when she came to his aid, she was killed? By US snipers? (Which might explain why the bodies were left in the street. i.e. they're 'insurgents')
Has her head been removed by photoshop? His shoes are missing, while her's are not. Phantoms.
Update, Dec. 3, 2004 from this article: "Colbert's team, along with the rest of the platoon, speeds up the road toward the outskirts of Baqubah. Headless corpses—indicating well-aimed shots from high-caliber weapons —are sprawled out in trenches by the road."
~Men or women those people were killed by US snipers?
These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep
One out of six soldiers returning from Iraq is suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress - and as more come home, that number is widely expected to grow.
The Pentagon, which did not anticipate the extent of the problem, is scrambling to find resources to address it.
A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research found that 15.6% of Marines and 17.1% of soldiers surveyed after they returned from Iraq suffered major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder - a debilitating, sometimes lifelong change in the brain's chemistry that can include flashbacks, sleep disorders, panic attacks, violent outbursts, acute anxiety and emotional numbness.
...the Army initially sent far too few psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers to combat areas, an Army study released in the summer of 2003 found. Until this year, Congress had allocated no new funds to deal with the mental health effects of the war in Iraq...
~Does the military also offer counseling for those soldiers who enjoyed it a little too much over there?
November 14, 2004
Crissy Cranks Cars
""free pedal-pumping web site"
~Crissy also sells video/dvds/cd-roms.
for example: Barbie DVD Item Price:$ 27.99
This is Barbies first movie, and it is a keeper. A full half hour of Barbie cranking and revving in the 1966 Pontiac Tempest Wagoneer. This movie containes the most revving than any of our movies! Barbie starts up the Tempest, but she can not keep it running no matter how much she revs. Barbie is a big hit on DVD with bonus features that include outtake revving and cranking clips that you will love!!
~Does this fetish help explain the NASCAR-Dad phenomena? (Think about it.)
News of the Weird
Excerpts from #875 'ProEdition'
The sheriff in Tucson, Ariz., warned the public in August
of a gang of women who lure horny men via newspaper ads into
believing that they can buy a starring role in an adult video, citing
the recent case of a man who was enticed to send $1,100 to set up a video shoot, then $7,000 more, then $8,000 more, and then another $8,000; he quit only when he learned that the women had
persuaded his parents to pay $20,000 more for their son's "acting"
career. [Tucson Weekly, 8-26-04]
The Muscular Dystrophy Association, a Tempe, Ariz., real estate
firm, and two charity promoters were sued in September by Keith
Schott, a golfer who had apparently legitimately made a fully-
witnessed hole-in-one during a charity round but who was
allegedly turned down for the widely-advertised $1 million prize,
when the sponsors imposed a rule that the money shots had to be
videotaped. "Remarkably," said Schott's lawyer, "the defendants
changed the rules on the spot." [Arizona Republic, 9-25-04]
The Wall Street Journal reported in September that Spain's El
Pais newspaper, in a now-discontinued ad for a 90-day
subscription, had run photos of the New York City skyline, before
9/11 and after, with the tag line, "You can do a lot in one day. Just
imagine what can happen in three months." [Wall Street Journal, 9-
17-04]
In September, a Roanoke (Va.) Times story documented the
righteous complaint of Melissa Williamson, 35, that street
construction noise outside her home in southeast Roanoke,
especially by jackhammers, would have a harmful effect on her
unborn child, then two months from term. The published Times
story ignited a firestorm of reader mail because it was accompanied
by a candid photo of Williamson in her front yard, looking annoyed
at the construction mess, but puffing away on a cigarette. [Roanoke
Times, 9-27-04]
Police in Edwardsville, Ill., charged David Wroten, 20, with
fraud in September after, they say, he took out membership in an
online dating service by paying with a check drawn on the county
jail, where he had been held earlier this year for theft. Wroten, like
all inmates, had been issued a check for the cash he had on him
when he was booked, and he allegedly copied the check form.
Police were confident Wroten was their man because, naturally, he
had posted a photograph of himself on the dating service site.
[Belleville News-Democrat, 9-30-04]
Police in Red Bank, Tenn., filed charges against Paul Eugene
Levengood after 2 female employees complained about the
spanking policy he has (in writing) to punish worker screwups at
his Tasty Flavors Snow Biz shaved ice business. One said she
once forgot to put a banana in a smoothie drink and got whomped
20 times. Levengood also allegedly had a vanity board of
snapshots of women's butts.
Civilization in Decline:
And, well, EPA used to be in decline, but this week suspended
its pesticides study with human infant guinea pigs that was
announced last month. (Families with small children, in
Jacksonville, Fla., would have been offered $970 and a camcorder
if they let EPA monitor the kids' absorption of household
chemicals over 2 yrs. Seriously.)
Gossip Ordinarily Beneath Yr Editor's Dignity: In his recent
$100m wrongful-firing lawsuit, Liza Minnelli's
chauffeur/bodyguard says she beat him up when he refused her
demands for sex, but that he did give in sometimes and has
"physical evidence" of the sex. [Ed.: If that evidence were photos
or recordings, I'd think he'd call them that. Therefore, "physical
evidence" would be something different, maybe really intimate,
i.e., gross (or maybe even challenging the frontiers of science).]
Yr Editor long ago No Longer Weirded the criminal who dropped
his ID at the scene of the crime, but this week in Rapid City, S.D.,
two guys dropped ID at the scene in separate burglaries on the
same night.
Most Effective Press Release: [from the PETA Media Center]
"Angry protesters dressed as giant tampons will lead a
demonstration against experiments at Columbia University in
which metal pipes are sunk into rhesus monkeys' skulls so that
experimenters can study the effects of stress on the menstrual cycle
(undercover video available)."
November 13, 2004
The Roland Collection of Films & Videos on Art
The Roland Collection is the work of 230 film makers from 25 different countries and consists of more than 640 films and videos on art available for sale worldwide for institutional and individual use.
300 hours free viewing of complete films/ 7 hours of video clips
[REALVIDEO and Mpeg1]
Tanks at LA Peace Protest
Four More Years
LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM two armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood. The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered.
blog entry/video thanks joerg
~They were just practicing and logging necessary time (so many hours a month) behind the wheel. Being in the streets with civilians around, the tank crews probably get a bump in pay and certainly extra points towards promotions.
November 12, 2004
A Thousand Fallujahs(?)
In 1999, the Russians bombed and destroyed Grozny, the Chechen capital, a city of originally 400,000 people. Five years later, Chechen guerrillas are still trapping Russian troops in a living hell there. The same scenario will be replayed in Fallujah - a city of originally 300,000 people. All this destruction - which any self-respecting international lawyer can argue is a war crime - for the Bush administration to send a brutal message: either you're with us or we'll smash you to pieces.
The Iraqi resistance does not care if thousands of mujahideen are smashed to pieces: it is actually gearing up for a major strategic victory. The strategy is twofold: half of the Fallujah resistance stayed behind, ready to die like martyrs, increasing the already boiling-point hatred of Americans in Iraq and the Middle East and boosting their urban support. The other half left before Phantom Fury and is already setting fires in Baghdad, Tikrit, Ramadi, Baquba, Balad, Kirkuk, Mosul and even Shi'ite Karbala.
~This story is too speculative for my tastes. Let's label it 'worst case scenario'. The best case scenario is that Fallujah is captured right on schedule; by Saturday the Brits are doling out free tea and crumpets (picture skinny Iraqi children holding tea cups the size of their heads, and chocolate, lots of chocolate); soon the rest of Iraq is so impressed by Fallujah's 'iron hand in the velvet glove' treatment that insurgents in every city and hamlet, in every mud-hut and spider hole, as if answering a call to prayer, spontaneously drop their weapons and raise their hands in a mass surrender imitating the Gulf War turkey-shoot. The elections are held peacefully, our troops are redeployed and the draft is deferred, while Iran and/or Syria appears more frequently on the front pages of American newspapers.
Hideout Destroyed
A suspected insurgent hideout is destroyed during heavy bombardment of Fallujah. @
~Compare the size of the blast to the buildings in the foreground. Aren't they being modest reporting that a single insurgent hideout was destroyed? Looks like they got about a dozen. (I heard on public radio that some of bombs we drop on Iraq have a 'kill ratio' of 400 meters, a third of a mile.)
Targets
Smoke billows from US targeted areas in the restive Sunni Muslim Iraqi city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad.(AFP/Patrick Baz)
~It's uncanny how those targets were blown up in succession like that.
In Fallujah US Declares War on Hospitals, Ambulances
US troops appear to be including the restriction of civilian health care services as a primary objective in the current assault on Fallujah, including the bombing and seizure of clinics and confiscation of ambulances.
"If a Marine feels that it is necessary, to protect the lives of his fellow Marines, he is empowered to engage a moving vehicle; he’s empowered to destroy whatever needs to be destroyed." [Col. Ramos ]
In contrast, standard rules of engagement, which were written based on international law, dictate that troops determine a target is actually a threat, but make no mention of how the soldier feels.
Church Split: Will Jimmy Carter Democrats Take On Karl Rove Republicans?
By beginning and ending their moral arguments in someone else's bedroom, the Republican right leaves itself vulnerable to attack on a variety of fronts. How can conservative Christians denounce homosexuality so loudly while barely uttering a word about Abu Ghraib, which Rush Limbaugh dismissed as "fraternity hazing"? Why do those who say they want to protect the sanctity of life focus only on abortion, and not the loss of innocent life in Iraq or the fate of the innocents facing capital punishment?
And how can it be moral, in the richest country in the world, that millions of children can't even be taken to the doctor when they are sick because their parents have no health care?
Such questions give the Jimmy Carter Democrats an opportunity to move the issue of morality out of the bedroom and into the boardroom. After all, greed shares equal billing with lust on the list of seven deadly sins.
~Will main-stream media acknowledge 'dueling' Christians? They haven't yet. So far US Christianity appears as monolithic as Islam.
Crossing the Church-State Line
From the White House, Rove operated a weekly conference call with selected religious leaders. Evangelical churches handed over their membership directories to the Bush campaign for voter registration drives. According to the Washington Post, "clergy members attended legal sessions explaining how they could talk about the election from the pulpit." A group associated with the Rev. Pat Robertson advised 45,000 churches on how to work for Bush. One popular preacher alone sent letters to 136,000 pastors advising them on "non-negotiable" issues - gay marriage, stem cell research, abortion - to mobilize the faithful. Perhaps the most influential figure of all was the Rev. James Dobson, whose radio programs are broadcast daily on more than 3,000 stations and 80 TV stations, and whose organization has affiliates in 36 states, and this year created a political action committee to advance "Christian citizenship."
article by Sidney Blumenthal [also in Salon]
~Isn't it time chuches that are involved in promoting specific issues or candidates pay taxes? See About: Tax Exemptions & Churches. Pay to play.
