Metacognitive Defibrillator & Nutwerx Squirrelizer; Surrealist Review of the World Nest (v2.3); Unofficial recycler of the disposable society; anti-judeo-christo-islamo-fascist-zombie-brigade resistance cell; Twenty Three Thousand Armed Buddhas; Nanobeachhead of Optimysticism; & future home of the manned mission to dwarf planet Eris. Nothing to see here, people; move along. Do not attempt to adjust your monitor. We control the html; we control the css. Submitted for your perusal. WTFWIT?
I hate to repeat hateful racist words, but here is why any discussion or debate about McCain as a viable candidate should be over. He's racist. He's stubborn. He's bitter. (He's also cruel, sexist, senile, ignorant, uniformed, and a hothead, but those are issues for another day.)
I wouldn't judge John McCain. He has a right to hate. He has a right to free (hate) speech, perhaps, even under McCain/Feingold. But he has no right to imagine he is qualified to be president with unresolved anger issues like those.
What is amazing to me is how is how the old white male Republican is graded on a curve, and can get away with things that would drive the media to end th Obama campaign if the boot were onto the other head. Discussion: FAIR Twin Cities Daily Planet Seattle PI
I think it is worth noting that Diebold Election Systems, which changed its name to Premier Election Solutions about a year ago (perhaps as a tribute to Premier Joe Stalin? or more likely because its brand name is dirt), has admitted now that its voting machines (not its ATMs, which it also makes) don't work. They drop votes. They can't count. Unfortunately, it is too late to change the machines for the next election.
OK, then. Can we have the last 4 years back now?
I think I'm going to spill some links here (due to the Help America Vomit Act of 2002).
Paper is the answer. It works and always has worked, around the world. If writing your candidate's name on a piece of paper is too challenging, a piece of paper on which you put an x in the box next to your candidate's name can be provided for you. Obtain paper. Have writing implements. If each person can count 500 ballots you will need one person to count for every 500 voters you get. 0.2%. It really isn't that hard (just like the notion of "health Insurance").
The images here are just a handful from a series of parody ads called the Diebold Variations by Rand Careaga/salamander.eps (c)2004-06.
The increased use of electronic monitoring bracelets provides a hi-tech solution for law enforcement personnel who seek alternatives to the traditional American answers of incarceration, taser, and the British third way of continuous CCTV surveillance. Here are three stories involving the use of electronic monitoring bracelets I've read in the last day or so:
Here in Japan we have CNNj on satellite TV. It was supposed to stand for CNN Japan. It has 0% Japanese content, unless you count the commercials. It seems that CNN came up with the name to mask the fact that it was just a direct feed from the US network, recycled. This year they have backed off from last year's programming. It seems that viewers in Japan didn't appreciate nonsense like Lou Dobbs any more than the failed Fox News. Instead, coverage shifts to Hong Kong in the early morning and to London later in the day.
Anyway, CNN is a network which is supposedly covering the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Their coverage consists of their own talking heads telling us how the convention is going. The convention is happening in the background, but they are ignoring 90% of it. Instead, we are expected to listen to the CNN talking heads telling us how the convention is going, when we can clearly see that they are neither watching nor listening to any of it.
While Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell was speaking, they were interviewing Rudy "9-11" Giuliani.
I am still monitoring CNN to document how miserable their coverage is. I won't be watching CNN until after the RNC is over thanks to them pulling that Rudy crap. CNN, you suck royally. What a massive waste of bandwidth.
Right now Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer is speaking. CNN has Wolfblitzer and a camera trained on Bill Clinton scratching his eyes.
Looked at the TV again. Wolf has shut up and they are now showing us Schweitzer. He is likely to get cut off in mid stream for a talking CNN head to lead us to the next commercial break.
1. Nationalism If 21st century Earth is a giant prison camp, nations are the gangs and their flags are the gang emblems. Watching people wave their banners is pretty depressing, just like watching what was that horrible movie Triumph of the Will? Why not allow athletes to compete as individuals? Alternatively, they could form teams based on blood type, favorite music, favorite color, or some other randomly chosen characteristic. Rotate it so while teams compete on the basis of blood type this session, they will go by favorite color four years from now.
2. Competitivism Technically, that isn't a word, but the religion of competiveness is an empty shell. Races are won on the basis of hundredths of a second. Instead of laughing and giving everyone a prize, they give out the gold as though the one hundredth of a second really meant something. That whisker of a win was decided by how well someone shaved, whether they packed the right razor, or whether their clothes contained streamlined microfibers or not. What this is telling us is that everyone is pretty much equal and that the whole basis of the medals and awards is bogus. Maybe we need some kind of cooperative games or it is just time to retire the whole concept.
3. Regionalism By regionalism I mean the egotism of the capital region. Beijing is an idiotic place to hold the Olympic games. Basically it is the center of an industrial complex. Maybe they could have gone out of town to somewhere more rural and unpolluted (less polluted, let's say).
4. Spectaclism Just watching sports drives me crazy. I immediately want to move and wonder why I am trying to hold still and watch a screen and the people on the screen get to move. This is a general criticism of spectator sports. Unless you are handicapped, you should get out and move yourself. For every two hours you are playing, watch a game on TV for an hour, maybe. I suppose you could learn to improve your game, whatever your game is. There used to be community leagues for all kinds of sports; many of these dried up with the rise of spectatorism.
In connection with this is the crappy and nationalistic coverage of the media, and the bizarre kinds of games that exist. Subjectively evaluated "sports" such as synchronized swimming, and even basketball (sorry) are not real games. These are subjectively evaluated, scored, and refereed. A true game should have simple and self-evident criteria for winning. This is true of foot races, shot put, javelin throws, etc. Anybody can see who arrived first, which went farther, etc. It should be possible to measure the results with a machine such as a scale, sensor, or tape measure. The medieval Olympic games degenerated into circuses, too, and we are following that natural path of development or devolution. These circuses also distract people from useful social work which could be done on a global scale.
5. Class and Oppression The Olympic games are usually a good excuse to tear down old buildings, throw poor people out of their apartments to renovate them to rent to visitors, beef up the police force, spy on citizens, fly lots of helicopters over the city, etc. I could come up with a few more things I dislike about them, the environmental waste, the runaway corporatism, and so on, but this will do for now. It may seem like a good idea in principle to get the world's athletes together every once in a while for a massive series of games, but it has got to be overkill from the point of view of many. So many games are going on and most of them will not be watched or televised. It would be better to have a series of small competitions the way the world cup in soccer and other sports is done. I could probably be persuaded of some good effects of the games, but overall I find more to disgust me than inspire me.
Watching the Olympics makes me feel I am watching a row of dogs chained to their kennels, straining furiously at their chains, perhaps to see which one can get the closest to a passing cat. All the chains are the same length, but the cat may venture a little closer to one and one dog may feel that he really scared it and got the respect of the other dogs. The dogs are just hurting themselves the harder they strain to get the cat. Similarly, athletes are driven to do unhealthy things due to the money and politics of the games. The spectator fetish led to the corporate interest and money in the game, which led to athletes doping themselves, ruining their health and setting bad examples with their prostituted short athletic suicide lives, hopefully bringing down the whole decayed system to be replaced with the old family/neighborhood/community good-natured sports model, except now it is played with a Wii.
I do like China, though. And Taiwan. And the Dalai Lama. Long live Tibet! Can't we all just get along? I'm glad that China got a chance to hold the games, if it is important to them (and it is).
Cabaret Voltaire released "The Voice of America" in 1980. That was about half of the worthwhile music they did, as they were assimilated into new wave disco within a few years. I like the idea of them being beaten up by rock music fans at their live shows in Sheffield for producing industrial glitch soundscapes instead of the expected rock'n'roll. As part of our continuing series of nostalgic summer reruns, here is "Obsession" "Diskono" and "Badge of Evil". band site: http://www.brainwashed.com/cv/index.php wikipedia :
The assassination of John Lennon, election of Ronald Reagan, my moving to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and the release of "The Voice of America" are a few of the events that seemed to initiate the decade of the 1980s and its incessant nuclear warfare. It all looks so … cute (???) now. Back in the good old days, nurturing a paranoid and anti-social outlook was a goddess-given right, something our modern chemicals have taken away.
The Eels "Whatever Happened to Soy Bomb" kept running through my brain yesterday. I don't even like that song. I decided I needed to displace that song with a dose of some other Eels music. I went to YouTube to see if I could find something fresh. I came across some interesting live content which can be waded into at the Eels official YouTube channel.
But better yet, I stumbled upon a BBC documentary about Hugh Everett, the multiverse theorist, featuring his son, E (Mark Oliver Everett). It doesn't get much better. Here is the first part of the six part YouTube version of the BBC documentary --NOT available on DVD in this universe--while it lasts.
In 1957, this young and brilliant physicist published a paper which used some heavy duty mathematics to predict the existence of parallel universes.
Although the concept of parallel universes seeped into popular culture, it was considered too way-out for mainstream physicists; and for many years, it remained in the scientific wilderness.
Now, 50 years on, Hugh Everett's son has travelled across America for a BBC Four documentary to find out more about his father's theory, and why it has now been accepted by many physicists as the work of a scientific genius.
I haven't even had time to watch all of it yet myself, though. Planning to go to Kagurazaka Matsuri tonight despite possible thunderstorms and watch this later during the weekend.
Update: OK, where are the "Related" links? OK, here is the whole program.
It's not my background picture; I found it on the internet.
Surely if I retrieve for them, these godlike yet doglike superior beings will recognize my usefulness and not toss me in their stir-fry. If only I could decode their signal system and uncover the meaning of the plastic discs they keep throwing over me.
From The Raw Story :a report of electoral fraud that may be behind the defeat of Georgia Senator Max Cleland and Governor Roy Barnes. Whether true or not, we may never know due to the lack of a paper trail.
7/18/2008 @ 12:10 pm Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
A leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections.
Stephen Spoonamore is the founder and until recently the CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an information technology policy and security firm that serves Fortune 100 companies. At a little noticed press conference in Columbus, Ohio Thursday, he discussed his investigation of a computer patch that was applied to Diebold Election Systems voting machines in Georgia right before that state's November 2002 election.
In 1995, Spoonamore received a civilian citation for his work with the Department of Defense. He was again recognized for his contributions in 2004 by the Department of Homeland Security. Spoonamore is also a registered Republican and until recently was advising the McCain campaign.
Spoonamore received the Diebold patch from a whistleblower close to the office of Cathy Cox, Georgia’s then-Secretary of State. In discussions with RAW STORY, the whistleblower -- who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation -- said that he became suspicious of Diebold's actions in Georgia for two reasons. The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. The source states that Cox was not privy to these changes until after the election and that she became particularly concerned over the patch being installed in just those two counties.
The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.
Some critics of electronic voting raised questions about the 2002 Georgia race even at the time. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case.
Concerned by the electoral outcome, the whistleblower approached Spoonamore because of his qualifications and asked him to examine the Diebold patch.
That's such an interesting paragraph. If aides on both sides say it was a shouting match, maybe it was a shooting match. Maybe there was some wrestling going on. It sounds a lot like an episode of Dick Cheney: CONFIDENTIAL.
Recent polls show Barack Obama leading in Nevada. With this, the best guess as to the electoral vote is now 325 to 199 in favor of Obama. Perceptive observers will also note that the red states have contracted considerably and have now taken the form of a 3-headed snake, with the rattle, or tail being Arizona, and the three heads formed by Louisiana, Alabama, and Kentucky. Students of mythology may note the resemblance to Cerberus, the three-headed dog (with the tail of a snake) that guards the gates of hell in Greek mythology, and a private New York based equity firm which recently bought Chrysler back from Daimler. Interestingly, McCain promised to take America "to the gates of hell" if necessary, to pursue Osama Bin Laden during breaks between naps, golf, and campaign fundraisers.
McCain's price on Intrade has fallen to 29 or 30 cents. It may be worthwhile to invest in McCain as a hedge. In the increasingly unlikely event that he wins, you will be able to use the money you receive to leave the country.
Some crazy names are being thrown around for VP, even on Intrade and Rasmussen. I think Obama will choose Dodd, but Richardson or Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer might be a possibility. Only Richardson is registering on Rasmussen. Dodd had a 1-2.5% chance on intrade. McCain could generate some excitement and interest with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
Vice Presidential Markets To Win Democratic Vice-Presidential Nomination Hillary Clinton 14.7 Kathleen Sebelius 18.5 Evan Bayh 12.0 Joe Biden 11.0 Tim Kaine 11.0 Claire McCaskill 8.6 Bill Richardson 9.3 Ed Rendell 5.2
To Win Republican Vice-Presidential Nomination Mitt Romney 32.0 Tim Pawlenty 16.0 Charlie Crist 7.5 Sarah Palin 13.9 Mike Huckabee 12.1 John Thune 15.0 Mark Sanford 6.0 Carly Fiorina 10.0 Bobby Jindal 7.5
Savage Republic is a Los Angeles band that I became familiar with during the 1982 - 1986 time frame of my life in Los Angeles. Legend has it they developed their sound in the steam tunnels and parking garages of UCLA. They have been playing together again since a 2002 reunion and even have a CD and EP out, 1938 and Siam. Since the band seems to operate somewhat outside of space, time, and culture, their 1982-1986 releases could have just as easily been 2002-2006. (Actually, it would be much more believable if they were.)
The crisis of our country is not caused by external forces. The danger lies within. And the forces are real. And the danger is ever growing. It lies within. The forces of oppression are a danger we all feel when you remove the ignorance. And you find the crisis is real. And the danger is ever growing. It lies within.
This post is content from a month ago, but it is relevant until the Bush-Cheney regime installed by judicial coup in 2000 and maintained in power by Diebold has been removed from power, its officials punished for their crimes, and its laws and appointees stricken down. I agree with Dennis that the Vice President and President should be impeached as soon as possible.
The Supreme Court has ruled that our ancient rights of habeus corpus are now extinct; that the president has the right to arbitrarily pick any person and detain them indefinitely for no reason. This and their many other official and underground powers make the two traitors in the White House not only (nuc-u-lar) armed but also extremely dangerous. Will they voluntarily surrender these powers on inauguration day to a president who may very well have them detained, if he has a brain? Or is it more likely that mister Cheney will ask some of his Saudi friends to fly a 747 into the Capital so he can declare a national emergency and suspend the inauguration indefinitely? It's not over 'til it's over. We will fight them in the snow, we will fight them in the rain, we will fight them in the sleet, keeping to our appointed rounds, in the meadows. Political power comes from the barrel of a gun. Thus spake Winston Churchill, Mao Zedong, and a delirious postal worker as transcribed by an astral traveler and Dennis Kucinich fellow traveler. My point is, why not fight them in the legislative chambers, too? We got to fight 'em over there in the legislative chambers so we don't have to fight 'em here in our living rooms. Impeachment should have never been taken off Nancy Pelosi's table. It should have been the mission #1 on day one. The fact that it was not tells us that the Democratic Republican Party is a single monolithic ruling party with probably less internal dissent than any of the world's ruling parties in one-party states.
For the record, I also favored the impeachment of Bill Clinton for his perjury involving minor improprieties with imperial consort Monica L-. These things would get you fired from night manager at McDonald's but somehow are to be overlooked in his majesty. Fair enough, but the right way to handle that was the way David Paterson did.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes. Well, Ohio Congress member and former Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich is vowing to continue his impeachment efforts against President Bush despite attempts to bury it in committee. On Wednesday, Congress voted 251-166 to send Kucinich’s bill to the House Judiciary Committee, where it’s unlikely to be considered before Bush leaves office. A similar resolution against Vice President Dick Cheney that was introduced last year was also sent to the House Judiciary Committee, where it still remains. Kucinich spent four hours on the House floor Monday reading out thirty-five articles of impeachment against the President. • REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now from Washington, D.C. by the Ohio Congress member, Dennis Kucinich. Welcome to Democracy Now! REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Good morning. AMY GOODMAN: Why have you chosen to do this now? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: We have 4,000 of our brave men and women who have died in Iraq. Over a million innocent Iraqis have been killed. We’ve had torture policies, rendition, illegal detention, wiretapping, spying, subversion of global climate change science. I mean, I went on and on and on with these articles the other night, but what it adds up to is that there has to be accountability. And for the leadership of the Democratic Party to say that impeachment is off the table is to essentially put on hold the United States code, international law and the Constitution of the United States. There is no rational, logical reason why the Judiciary Committee should not hear—have hearings on these articles. JUAN GONZALEZ: Congressman, some of your colleagues in Congress have said that they would be willing to consider impeachment should President Bush move to begin a war with Iran without consulting Congress. Senator Joe Biden has said so, and the House Judiciary Chair John Conyers has said so. Do you think that this is in essence a reaction to your continued pressure over the issue of impeachment? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, you know, this isn’t golf. You don’t get a do-over. We can’t let this president wage war and kill more people in violation of international law, in violation of the Geneva Convention. His conduct has been totally in alignment with violating the Nuremberg Principles. We need to hold him to account. And if we do that, there won’t be an attack on Iran. We must not wait for more carnage and for more jeopardy to the peace of the world. We have enough information right now to offer incontrovertible proof that this president lied to take us into a war, worked with others to manufacture a false case for war, falsely stated to the American people that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and told the Congress that there was an imminent threat, thereby subverting Congress’s power under Article I, Section 8, with respect to a declaration of war. So what are we waiting for? AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Kucinich, the head of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, said voters did not hand Democrats control of Congress two years ago in order to impeach President Bush. REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Is that what he said? Well, you know what? Howard Dean ought to check with the people where he lives with in Vermont, because the people in Vermont understand this. And people all over this country understand it. This isn’t a political question, by the way. The appropriate response for Howard Dean would be that this is a matter that’s beyond politics. This is a matter that relates to a democratic system of government and whether or not our Constitution is just a piece of paper. So this has to go beyond politics. It’s not for the Democratic Party to decide to overlook violations of US law and international law. We cannot let our political system trump the requirements of the law. AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s go to Nancy Pelosi. This is the House Speaker in late 2006, shortly after the Democrats took over Congress. • REP. NANCY PELOSI: No, impeachment is off the table. • LESLEY STAHL: Off the table. And that’s a pledge? • REP. NANCY PELOSI: Well, it’s a pledge in the—yes, in that it’s a pledge—of course it is. And it is a waste of time. • Democrats are not about getting even. Democrats are about helping the American people get ahead. And that’s what our agenda is about. So while some people are excited about prospects that they have, in terms of their priorities, they are not our priorities. I have said, and I say again, that impeachment is off the table.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Nancy Pelosi. Well, last December, I asked House Judiciary Chair John Conyers about impeachment. • REP. JOHN CONYERS: Unless we’re going to impeach the Vice President and the President within this space of time, I think we could be very seriously compromising the greatest important—most important thing, in addition to documenting any misdeeds that may have happened, whether we continue to have Bush enablers continue to shatter and tear the Constitution to shreds. And so, all of this, academically, is great. I’ve got a number of books from my friends about which articles would be best and which ones we should go after more. But it seems to me that the time element and also the feasibility of whether or not there is any possible chance of success—there is a very stark reality that with the corporatization of the media, we could end up with turning people who should be documented in history as making many profound errors and violating the Constitution from villains into victims.
AMY GOODMAN: That is the House Judiciary Chair John Conyers. Dennis Kucinich, your response? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: There is arguable evidence that President Bush has committed war crimes. We have a moral obligation to have hearings in Judiciary to make a determination whether or not this is so. This goes beyond politics. I have a great respect for John Conyers, I have a great respect for Nancy Pelosi, but this goes beyond politics. This is not—you know, our whole government rests on moral principles, not just on political principles. And so, we need to evaluate what Congress’s rightful role is here. You know, one of the founders of our nation made it very clear that Congress had a role that was not simply to pass laws, but to ask questions of the executive. This is what helped to create a powerful three-branches-of-government concept that was imbued in the Constitution, co-equality, so that we wouldn’t have a monarch. George Bush has acted in a way that has separated him from the rule of law. Congress must hold him accountable. And to say, “Well, we have more important things to do”—what could be more important than finding out whether or not the President of the United States has committed war crimes, whether or not he’s violated United States law and repeatedly violated the Constitution? You know, you look at the price of gasoline today. Does anyone have any idea that the United States invaded Iraq for oil, that there were meetings with the oil companies laying out maps of oil fields in Iraq, that Congress has not been able to get full documentation from the Vice President as to what was said in those meetings? What about the pressures that are being put on the Iraq government right now to try to get it to turn over its sovereignty so that the United States can facilitate the control of Iraq oil for the international corporations? We have to stand up for this country and for its people, and that’s what I’m doing. And I am going to be challenging my colleagues to look at the evidence. And if they look at the evidence, I think that they’ll want to do what’s right. JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Congressman, you vow to continue reintroducing your proposal now if it’s—every thirty days unless action is taken. Your response to those who say that there’s no—there isn’t enough time in the calendar, given everything else that is going to be occurring, the presidential election, over the next few months, to even be able to deal with this issue? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: George Bush has enough time to bomb Iran on another pretext. He has enough time to continue policies of torture. He has enough time to continue policies of eavesdropping and wiretapping. He has enough time to continue to ignore critical science with respect to global climate change. He has enough time to help facilitate more violations of election law for the 2008 election. We don’t have enough time. We can’t spend any more time temporizing, while the Constitution, the United States laws, international laws, are being shredded. AMY GOODMAN: Dennis Kucinich, you said President Bush is guilty perhaps of war crimes, and that’s what you want to get to the bottom of. What war crimes? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, it’s waging illegal war, attacking a civilian population, knocking out the access to electricity and water. The Geneva Conventions and protocols to the Geneva Conventions make it very clear that there are questions that need to be answered by the Judiciary Committee. That’s Article VIII of the impeachment resolution, points out that the first protocol to the Geneva Convention says that someone who is in civilian command is within the reach of war crimes prosecution if he or she had a direct responsibility for ordering troops—or ordering an attack on another nation. If you read the Nuremberg Principles, you know, our president has brought himself within the reach of prosecution for war crimes. And the Congress of the United States should take this responsibility to—not just to look into it, but to take action, because if we don’t take action, what would it say to American history if later on, after this president left office, he was brought up by either an international tribunal or by the laws of another country? It’s not as though he’s going to be able to escape justice. AMY GOODMAN: And the argument that John Conyers made, if you’re not impeaching Cheney at the same time, that he could be president? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, who says that Dick Cheney should be beyond the reach of impeachment? I mean, I’ve already introduced that resolution. You know, we know that there was a rapid change of the guard that occurred during the time that Spiro Agnew left office in disgrace, that President Richard Nixon resigned before articles were presented to the House and the door was open for Gerald Ford to become president. The personality shouldn’t matter here. What should matter is whether or not crimes have been committed. And to turn a blind eye to that, to say, “Well, you know, it’s off the table. We’ve got other things to do,” is to unwittingly be an accomplice in this. We have to realize our responsibility here to protect this country from corruption. And it’s being—the Constitution and the nation, the national governance, is being corrupted by Congress’s unwillingness to look into this. Why are—what are we afraid of, that we’re afraid to look into violations of law by this president?
and in Pasadena last month around the solstice playing Hold My Hips (incomplete…)
and some of the same Pasadena moments from a different angle with some zooming, editing, few mini-interview questions:
That's very L.A. It's nice to see them playing out in the sunlight and see how they (look when they) play together.
an interview at Sasquatch Music Festival, late May 2008:
and another backstage sasquatch moment/interview:
Tiger Phone Card from something called Fuel(ish)TV:
Seeing Hands via Brightcove via The Daily Habit (Fuel TV?):
There is pretty bad audio (PBA?) throughout all of these (even the ones off tv), but I was looking more for the pretty bad video (PBV) which is better than no video at all (NVAA). To my surprise, these videos have small numbers of Views, like 78 and 111. I guess Dengue Fever has not yet become totally mainstream. Or should I say that the mainstream has not yet become Dengue Fever? FWIW.
Afterdenken: Gotta include a live version of Sober Driver, too, one of my favorite songs on Venus On Earth.
Alternatively, see this bluradelic version from at the Independent in San Francisco on April 18, 2008, substituting "San Francisco" for "Echo Park" in the lyrics.
On May 28, 2008, Nepal officially abolished the monarchy, declaring itself a republic. As the world's newest secular republic, no longer will currency be imprinted with "In Shiva We Trust," nor will schoolchildren be forced to pledge allegiance to "one kingdom, under the divine protection of the deity Shiva, and his representative, our holy king." But, of course, I am joking. They never had those things. I just made that up. Even an officially Hindu kingdom didn't force you to swear an oath of loyalty to Shiva in order for you to attend public schools there. You would have to go to the United States to find "In God We Trust" printed on the currency and children (of all and none faiths, even non-citizens) obliged to swear an oath of allegiance to the "Republik Forwitchitstans, One-Nation Undergod".
Hindu children moving from the newly secular republic of Nepal to the United States would find themselves in public school classrooms where their polytheistic beliefs are, like the beliefs of atheists, pantheists, agnostics, secular humanists, mystics, and others, ritualistically disrespected daily by the imposition of the judeo-christo-islamic unigod Pledge "Oval Lesions".
To be fair, I think you could argue that it is more offensive to have the images of national heroes, the local Attila the Hun, on your national currency, than it is to have dedications to the more universal and abstract deities. On the other hand, monarchs and the like have their function in places like Thailand, where they represent and draw power from the people and are a powerful force to check the power-hungry generals from myanmarizing the kingdom.
Interestingly, Novus Ordo Seclorum and Annuit Cœptis both come from poems to the Roman god Jupiter. Via Wikipedia:
"Annuit Cœptis" and the other motto on the reverse of the Great Seal, "Novus Ordo Seclorum," can both be traced to lines by the Roman poet Virgil. "Annuit Cœptis" comes from the Aeneid, book IX, line 625, which reads, "Iuppiter omnipotens, audacibus adnue cœptis." It is a prayer by Ascanius, the son of the hero of the story, Aeneas, which translates to, "Jupiter Almighty, favour [my] daring undertakings." According to the ancient state religion of Rome, properly called the Cultus Deorum Romanum, Jupiter was head of the pantheon of Gods.
"E Pluribus Unum" is Latin for "Out of Many, One." Never codified by law, it was considered a de facto motto of the United States until 1956 when the United States Congress passed an act (H.J. Resolution 396), adopting In God We Trust as the official motto.
At currently projected rates of spiritual degradation, in one scenario, Jesusland will declare "Jeezus Iz my Master" as its official motto in the year 2025.
In the matter of making a"motto" for the government, if one were needed, I would recommend referring somehow to the positive contributions desired from government: Peace, Justice, Security, Democracy, Liberty, Tolerance, Knowledge, Science, Self-realization and the like. Depending on your government, matter-of-fact affirmations of Genocide, Conquest, and Enslavement may be powerful national anthems, too. Any references to gods or goddesses are probably best read as a giveaway sign that the people are living under an oppressive, parasitic, exploitative, superfluous, redundant ruling class that's pulling the wool over the sheeple's eyes. Governments can and do exploit their subjects while paying lip service to democracy and so on, but it's a little bit harder and keeps the ideals alive.
Lo-budge ways to mark Int'l Zombie History Week w/o leaving your secure undisclosed zombie-resistant location except perhaps to open the door to pick up the groceries you ordered on the internet --particularly well-suited for the rainy season--
I recently got the dvd for I Am Legend. No choice really. I like zombie films, science-fiction, apocalyptic scenarios, and Will Smith (though I am not sure he is really an actor, he is at least a person who people readily identify with, an everyman wise-guy).
I killed some time watching the animation on the disk while waiting for my son. Then I couldn't navigate back to where I thought the feature was. Ejected, re-inserted. It's back to a menu for the animation. Wrong disk? I popped in the other disk of the 2-disk set.
I hadn't really noticed the large lettering in Japanese that said this 2-disk set had the alternate ending. I just thought it was another bloated 2-disk set to try to justify the price. The second disk had no English subtitles, just subtitles for Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and a long list of Asian languages. I thought that was odd since Japan shares a dvd region code with the UK, not Asia. Whatever, though. Turn on Japanese subtitles. Play. At the end, my significant other, who wasn't really watching, having seen it on a plane, was shocked and said it was nothing like the ending she had seen on the plane. I eventually realized I had watched the alternate, (=original) ending, so we watched the theatrical (movie-house) ending after that. I appreciate having them both. My head was already confused by the fact that the scripts I read online had nothing in common with the newest movie. It's just a big branching tree of alternate versions in my head now. I think I prefer the alternate ending (on dvd to the theatrical version on dvd).
Like every known human, I agree that the CG hemacytes (or mutants or infecteds or vampires or zombies or whatever) were pretty badly done. Use human actors! Do the CG special effects in post-production later the way, for example, Haley Joel Osment's blinks were entirely removed for A.I. (Hey, HJO is 20!). I don't like the way I Am Legend has been reduced to a twitchy gotcha kind of horror thriller.
Unfortunately, I haven't read the original book by Richard Matheson, (82 and living in NJ), preferring to feed on the brains of the free online media over the costly cellulosic carbon versions (no known free e-text version of it yet), so I can't evaluate it in terms of being true to the original form. Obviously these versions have not been.
Prior to seeing the film, I had googled for the scripts one day and read quickly through them (though I haven't read The Omega Man version yet).
I was surprised and pleased to find the first movie version of I Am Legend, The Last Man on Earth, is in the public domain.
The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Based on the chilling Richard Matheson science fiction Classic "I am Legend" and later remade as "The Omega Man" starring Charlton Heston. This classic features Vincent Price as scientist Robert Morgan in a post apocalyptic nightmare world. The world has been consumed by a ravenous plague that has transformed humanity into a race of bloodthirsty vampires. Only Morgan proves immune, and becomes the solitary vampire slayer.
According to IMDB and most reviewers, The Last Man on Earth was better than The Omega Man. However, I have to agree that (what one reviewer called) the "fruity, overwrought" Vincent Price was horribly miscast for the role (although his voice in particular is uniquely suited for other roles), and Charlton Heston or Will Smith are both better choices for Robert Neville aka Robert Morgan.
I found what seems to be an illegal upload of the movie on a site with lots of small discretely annoying ads at http://media.putfile.com/The-Omega-Man-1971-Part-1 --findable via google-video. Having just watched some of that, I think it may be the best of the three film adaptations. I've mentioned Vincent Price and should also say the S-L-O-W "vampire" aspects seem a throwback to the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. The Omega Man downplays vampirism, blaming the outbreak on germ warfare between Russia and China. Charlton Heston is given an automatic weapon (of course), rather than making wooden stakes on his home workshop lathe. The colors and 1970s look are somehow light years ahead of The Last Man on Earth. Charlton Heston picks through trash and finds lots of dessicated bodies as he searches for the infected. It wouldn't have to be that way. I mean, Night of the Living Dead from 1968 and Dawn of the Dead, from 1978 were both well-done for their times despite the changes in film production values and budgets.
Classic Cinema Online and Flick By Flick have nice collections of copyright-free movies. Laurel and Hardy, Felix the Cat, Popeye, and various other sci-fi, horror, cartoon, drama, and films of assorted genres are there. Some of these are simply streamed off of Google video, but they are more organized and easier to find than the anarchic free-for-all at Google-video/YouTube.
This is by Herk Harvey, the Centron Productions actor, director, and producer from Lawrence, Kansas. Many of his educational and industrial films are in the Prelinger Archive. BTW I've noticed that Rick Prelinger has a blog: BLACKOYSTERCATCHER. Might be worth checking out.
In response to a question pos(t)ed by Mac at PostHuman Blues, I offered a solution to the misbehaving banner on the Tic-Tac template. My solution didn't work on that template, however. To figure out the answer, I made a test blog called Blueberry Taster, (or tester, or taste-tester? I forgot already) and got into the css just enough to find a fix, or maybe two. I have noticed that there was still a visible glitch in my solution -- look at the right column top! I think I should have displaced the header banner down from the top a bit more. Anyway, I think Mac has the situation well in hand, and I have deleted the blog I made. I am experimenting with another template, "Stretch-Denim", which has variable rather than fixed column widths, and I may investigate migrating to another blogging platform for several reasons.
Even when I tried to google for a solution, my entry never appeared among the search results, so I don't think it will actually be of any use to anybody else. Personally, I'm not so interested in that template, either. Before I deleted it I took 2 screen shots to preserve it just in case, and I guess that can live on here until I run out of Google/Blogger/Picasa space and delete it. I doubt that anybody will ever read it, but …
…for what it's worth.
By the way, the leaf-with-rainfall in that picture is from a biwa (fruit) tree in my adjacent park. The fruits are in season now, and I sometimes taste a tiny bite just to see how it is. This is the rainy season, and the hydrangea and bamboo are obligingly omnipresent as expected.
Once in a while you need a break. How many years has it been since you tried generating some anagrams? It's good for at least 10, 15, maybe even 20 minutes of amusement. Internet Anagram Server = I, Rearrangement Servant Beijing Olympics = Bicep Smiling Joy
George W Bush = Whose Bugger? Barack Obama = Boa Cab Karma
John McCain = Chin Jam Con
Dick Cheney = Chicken Dye = Check ID Yen
Richard Bruce Cheney = Debauchery Cinch Err
The President of the United States = Hotheaded Serpentine Testis Tuft = A Detested Pretentious Tenth Fish
La Ciudad de los Angeles = Undisclosed Algae Deal = Casual GeodeLandslide = Ogle Caused a Landslide
Michael Crichton = Chromatic Lichen = Chimerical Notch
Internet Movie DataBase = Vomit a Seabed, Entertain = Debase a Vomit, Entertain
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? = Impersonators Reached Coded Field
Taste that? It’s the wind…
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Please preserve our culture and tradition of flavor… Photo courtesy of
Meier Carolin. Sandwich wrapper spotted in Japan.
The post Taste that? It’s the w...
Mix: The Best of Shibuya-kei, Volume One
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The time has been right for a new mix that showcases, celebrates, and
reintroduces the best tracks from Shibuya-kei’s peak years: dj david, mon
amour - “Th...
Five years, that's all I've got
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*NEW BLOG HERE*
Loyal readers of this blog, if there are any left, may have noticed that I
have departed from my original purpose in 2011 of writing about ...
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