February 6, 2010 archive

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

Random Japan

WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT

A 52-year-old man who was offered a job as a school principal in Yokohama was later found to have a criminal record-for snapping pics of a woman’s cleavage on a bus. The man, whose cellphone was found to contain dozens of such images, said it was just his hobby, but he did turn down the teaching job “for personal reasons.”

A 52-year-old Nagoya municipal worker was acquitted of groping a 28-year-old woman on a local train. The woman said the ojisan rubbed his leg against hers, but cops were unable to find any fiber from the accused on the alleged victim’s clothes.

A group of 1,200 companies that goes by the catchy name The Japan Stone Industry Association has entered a project with researchers from Kyushu University to try to make headstones at gravesites sturdier in the event of an earthquake.

In Kyoto, a small dog named Boo is attracting his share of tourists after being dressed up in ninja gear, complete with a small sword.

Accessory After The Fact

Mayer on Rahm

By: emptywheel Friday February 5, 2010 5:13 pm

I first teased out Rahm Emanuel’s role in reversing Obama’s early efforts to reclaim our country from torture last July. In August, my comments at Netroots Nation focused on Rahm’s role in preventing accountability for torture. I kept tracking Rahm’s campaign to prevent accountability here, here, and here.

Today, Jane Mayer has an extended profile of Eric Holder that fleshes out what we’ve all known: Rahm’s the guy who killed accountability for torture.

All along Rahm’s campaign against Greg Craig and Holder he left complaint after complaint that they had ruined the relationship with Congress. This, I suppose, is what Rahm means: doing anything-even those actions dictated by international law-that offend poor Lindsey’s sensibilities is a mistake, tantamount to ruining the President’s relationship with Congress. And I guess Rahm is okay with that-ceding the President’s authority on national security and legal issues to Lindsey Graham.

And look what you get out of that: Lindsey in a snit, pouting that the Attorney General of the United States determined to try criminals in a civilian court. And in response, refusing to close Gitmo.

In other words, we can’t close Gitmo because Obama’s “crack” Chief of Staff has willingly ceded the authority of the Attorney General of the United States to one Senator from the opposing party, and that single Senator is pouting because the Attorney General might choose law over Kangaroo Courts.

These people are War Criminals.

They are Torturers.

They are Murderers.

All the way up the Chain of Command.

Yes, that includes George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama.

Just as guilty as the grunts who at their command raped children with chemical lightsticks in front of their family and sliced up Binyam Mohamed’s penis.

And anyone who doesn’t support their prosecution to the full extent of the law is no better than a Good German.

“If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.” Robert H. Jackson

On Being A Human Cannonball

PhotobucketI’d rather be a rocket than a launching pad.  I’d rather be a hammer than a nail.  I’d rather be a human cannonball.  That would be best.  That would be unbelievably exciting.  That would be the way to live.  No safety nets.  No crash helmets.  Blasted through the air.  But first before the launch, there’s some important research.  Research, as Mr. Toad once said, is my life.

Hugo Zacchini may have been the first human cannoball.  Born in Peru on October 20, 1898, he died on the same day in 1975 in San Bernardino.  His wiki is only a stub but it tells the following about him:

*”He was known for being a daredevil and a painter, and for being litigious.”  This is quite a sentence for a two paragraph biography.

*He was an interpreter of as many as 11 languages.

*He received two engineering degrees from the University of Florida, was educated at the Rome Arts Academy, and got a master’s degree at Jamstown (NY) Academy.

*He was the victorious named plaintiff in Zacchini v. Scripps Howard, 433 U.S. 562 (1977), decided by the US Supreme Court:

“Zacchini sued Scripps-Howard, the owner of an Ohio television station, when it filmed, and then broadcast on the evening news, Zacchini’s entire act of being shot out of a cannon at a county fair. The United States Supreme Court sided with Zacchini, ruling 5 to 4 that the publicity rights overrode the First Amendment rights in this case where the entire act was shown on television.”

Snowy TGIF: What is Your Favorite Classic Rock Song?

Crossposted at Daily Kos

The Who — an important band from the 1960’s ‘British Invasion’ — is scheduled to perform during the half-time show at this Sunday’s Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts.  

Anyone who is a classic rock and music aficionado has to wonder: what accounts for the popularity of such rock groups formed almost fifty years ago?



Andy Singer, Politicalcartoons.com, Buy this cartoon

Obama Waits Open Thread

Obama To Wait For Next Bruce Springsteen Album For Word On Economy

WASHINGTON-Faced with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the White House announced Tuesday that a cautious President Obama is awaiting the release of the next Bruce Springsteen album before moving forward with additional economic stimulus initiatives.

“If Mr. Springsteen puts out an E-Street Band project with one rave-up and several tracks containing an overarching theme of redemption, the president will certainly take that as a strong indicator of economic recovery,” said press secretary Robert Gibbs, adding that an album cover featuring an American flag would be “extremely promising.” “However, if he records a stark, haunting, Nebraska-esque exploration of blue-collar life, then it is time to lower interest rates and take immediate steps toward drastically reevaluating our current strategy.”

The president has reportedly eschewed the supplementary Mellencamp Little Pink Housing Index used during the Reagan administration, as economists now widely believe it conveys a derivative, shallow view of the American fiscal landscape.

Dancing In The Dark

Pictures of the Great Recession

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has posted a very illustrative discussion of the current recession on their website, and for readers confused by the simultaneous decline in jobs and the official measure of unemployment, 20,000 fewer jobs while “unemployment” declined from 10% to 9.7%, one picture may be more informative than so many curiously defined statistics.

Ugly

The shaded area in the graph shows the upper and lower bounds of all recessions after World War II. The purple line is the current recession.

And meanwhile in Sacramento, Reno, and Seattle…

Tents

FRIDAY NIGHT DISTRACTIONS

Here we are at Fri. again.

Today`s distractions are about fields & fences.

The fields presented are not necessarily those one might imagine as where cows are “grinding”. (eating)

They may be fields of color, fields of dreams or fields in paintings, but not any from the “field of politics, or planetary evolution”.

The fences though, where we usually find sitting politicians, are represented here, not as a restraining device in a negative way, but to capture the essence of how we box ourselves in for our own peace of mind or to protect our selves from unwanted intrusions. (A remote control gizmo allows one to fence themselves off from Faux news)

Anyway, why don`t I just post these for you, without further delay.

Have a great week end.

I`ll open with a little stone wall that simply directs one, without restraining.

The image is from an old friend`s Orchid Ranch.

Note the large plant growing on the Sycamore branch.

LOW STONE WALL

 VIRGIN JUNGLE DSCN0932

Fight! Food Fight For Life!

Food, Inc. Pictures, Images and Photos



This is my first time posting an essay here.  This is too important to not spread around.

Cross posted at
http://www.myleftwing.com/ and  http://firefly-dreaming.blogsp…

One of my favorite things about the Oscar nominations is the new list of documentaries to see, on this list this year is Food INC.

Watching Oprah interview Michael Pollan, http://www.michaelpollan.com/ the other day talking about the Oscar nominated documentary Food INC. which he narrated, I was so intrigued I ordered the movie and watched it today.

For the sake of you and your families health, for the sake of the health of the planet, for the sake of the soul of the human race please I beg you to watch this documentary. You can get it through amazon for 10 bucks here: http://www.amazon.com/Food-Inc…

It is priceless in terms of what you get and you can pass it on to everyone you know.  Yes it is that important!

You know how you get little snippets of what is going on and you think you know but this documentary pulls it all together starting with the seed all the way to the plate and the grave.

It is gripping and had me shaking just like you do when you are cold.  I kid you not this film of where we are is like a cold splash of reality.  The bottom line message is we vote for this every time we buy something to eat.  If everyone saw this movie and we changed our buying habits the change would be powerful and swift.

Enough about the movie you just have to see it and get back to me.

More about this amazing man Michael Pollan after the jump……. talk about heroes this guy is way up there on the list!

Friday Philosophy: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happinefs



We all grow up with a vision of what is right and just in this world.  Many, if not most, of us grow up with the idea of pursuing “the American Dream”.  For some that has meant the pursuit, as when it was first enunciated in 1931 by James Truslow Adams, of achieving a “better, richer, and happier life”.  In his book, The Epic of America, Adams stated it this way:

that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.  It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it.  It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

Oddly, in view of today’s circumstances, Mr. Adams was a banker.

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