Open Thread
April 8, 2010 archive
Apr 08 2010
Late Night Karaoke
Apr 08 2010
Congrats to Nederland, Colorado: 1st town in US to legalize marijuana
On April 6, Nederland voters decided – by a vote of 259 to 218 – to legalize marijuana and paraphernalia completely for anyone over 21 years old. Good for them.
The mountain town’s residents went further than Breckenridge, which last year legalized possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, and by a vote of 259 to 218, removed all criminal penalties against buying, selling, possessing, consuming, growing and transporting marijuana for anyone age 21 or older.
H/T to Polizeros.
Apr 08 2010
NBC News: Airline bombing attempt foiled
United flight from Washington, D.C. to Denver lands safely
A passenger attempted to light an explosive device but was subdued by a federal air marshal aboard an airliner flying from Washington to Denver on Wednesday night, sources close to the House Homeland Security Committee told NBC News.
United Flight 663, a Boeing 757 with 157 passengers and six crew members aboard, landed safely at Denver International Airport, airline and airport officials said.
Apr 08 2010
Christopher Miller Ad Wrong!
Have you seen the new ad narrated by Christopher Miller, Iraq veteran, on why we need clean energy?
The ads feature an Iraq war veteran who was injured six years ago by a roadside bomb. Christopher Miller says that using less oil will take money away from enemies like Iran, which has supplied increasingly destructive roadside bombs to militants in Iraq.
I just saw the ad run during Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and my jaw hit the floor. We need clean energy because buying Iran’s oil funds their supplying IED’s to Iraq? Really?
We all know that we need clean energy and that major energy conglomerates are only willing to support it if they control the new energy, just as they controlled the old energy. This is not debatable.
It is the argument used that is wrong.
Apr 08 2010
Pony Party
Apr 08 2010
For Your Consideration: Supreme Court Replacements
Justice John Paul Stevens has announced his intentions to retire during the Obama administration. This is not unexpected news, he is 89 years old. There is now discussion and much speculation about his replacement. The three names most prominently being discussed are:
The White House has declined to comment on its preparations for selecting a successor, but those close to the process repeatedly have mentioned three names as likely to merit close consideration.
One is Mr. Obama’s solicitor general, Elena Kagan, a former dean of Harvard Law School who was considered for the nomination that ultimately went to Justice Sonia Sotomayor […]
Liberals see a surer voice in another finalist for last year’s vacancy, Judge Diane Wood of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. On a court known for its intellectual heft, Judge Wood has proven a serious counterweight to such influential conservative judges as Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, legal observers say […]
A third oft-mentioned name is Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
As a Justice Department official in the Clinton administration, Judge Garland oversaw investigations into the Oklahoma City federal building bombing and the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski.
There is some wariness about SG Kagan who has defended executive power
This will not necessarily shift the Roberts Court but it will have a long term impact for the next generation.
h/t to David Dayen @ FDL
Apr 08 2010
Ommmmmmmmmmm
I have now re-read this and most of the comments and some of the many, many comments at GOS and the counter-diary at GOS and some of the comments. Inhale. Exhale. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
It was 90 degrees in New York today. The sun was out. Daffodils are open here. Tulips are coming. It looks like the bees may be returning. You can smell mother earth, pachamana, santa madre tierra. You can smell her as she carries us on her belly. Inhale. Exhale. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
When I turn off the computer, push the keyboard under the desk, and stand up, I can almost touch the ceiling in this old room. The ceiling is low. This room has been here since 1841. It originally belonged to the Petersons and the Nileses, who were dairy and wool farmers. Now it belongs to me. It deserves to be taken care of. I don’t think I do that enough. Inhale. Exhale. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I am happy to have this electronic community. I am happy to have this group blog. I am happy that I don’t own or administer or have any obligations to stay or fix it or change it. I am happy to be here just because I want to be here. If I write an essay, it’s because I want to tell you something. If I leave, I will not write a GBCW essay. Ommmmmmm. Inhale. Exhale. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I am filled with gratitude for a million small things. Some are matter, others are not. I could write them all down if I had time, but I prefer just to go from thanks to thanks, from thought to thought, like a bee crawling into a daffodil. Inhale. Exhale. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the world. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by its cruelty and ugliness. Sometimes I am concerned that we don’t see things that we should. I write about these things and I post them here. And at my blog. And elsewhere. I want you to read what I write. Inhale. Exhale. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading. May you all be happy. May you all be free from suffering. May you all be safe. May you all be well. May you all realize your enlightenment.
Apr 08 2010
Einstein and How to Time Travel Into the Future
When things look really, really bad, it’s always comforting to me to stare at the stars. It provides a good dose of perspective to think about how fleetingly insignificant our little existence is in the cosmic big picture. I don’t know why. The eternity of the universe should offer no more comfort to me than it would have to a dinosaur. If they could think about such things.
But comforting it is. And even more comforting is to look out on the universe through the lens of science. Just as a pair of vice-grips enhance the strength of your hand, science enhances the ability to see and understand the universe.
I suppose part of the comfort lies not with the view that science affords, but with the science itself. To think we have come so far, the Hubble Telescope, the Principle of Relativity, spacecraft zipping around our solar system, only to be taken down by lesser minds such as the assclowns infesting the nations capital and Wall Street. On good days anyway.
Fun With Einstein
Many people don’t realize that perhaps Einstein’s greatest discovery, encoded within his Special Theory of Relativity, is that time travel is a real phenomenon. I was fifteen when I was first exposed to this concept and I refused to believe it. But over the years I slowly came to grasp the theory and eventually concluded beyond all reasonable doubt that it was a fact.
Of course, the phrase “time travel”, within the framework of Relativity is somewhat misleading. The fact is, we are all traveling into the future, as we speak. And we are surrounded by countless physical processes, serving as clocks to mark this fact.
So what Einstein really discovered was that we can travel into the future at different rates. This has been proven.
One way to think of it is like audio recordings being played back at different speeds. We’ve all heard a tape play back in slow motion, or sped up like chipmunks. Well, the Principle of Relativity demonstrates that when certain conditions are met, different observer’s “tapes” will play at different rates relative to others.
Most people think of time travel in terms of going into the past. I’m sure there are many events we would all like to undo. But Einstein’s Principle of Relativity strictly prohibits traveling back in time. There are many ways to describe why this is so, and many books on the subject, but it works just fine to think of it in terms of us all traveling mandatorally into the future, only at potentially different rates.
So we are all like little tape recordings in progress, and depending on certain conditions, those recordings can run faster or slower relative to someone else’s recording. Varying degrees of chipmunkization or being slowed down. So what are those certain conditions? Well, there’s really just one: go really really fast through space and you will go faster into the future. But watch for astroids.
Apr 08 2010
Obama Tells CIA to Kill US Citizen
The Obama administration has lowered another legal barrier shielding Americans from extrajudicial punitive action by their own government, in this case authorizing the CIA to kill a US citizen suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda in Yemen and links to two attacks inside the United States last year.
Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric born in New Mexico but now living in Yemen, may be the first US citizen targeted for assassination by the CIA under a counter-terror policy established by President George W. Bush and since embraced by President Barack Obama.
Awlaki was previously viewed simply as an Islamic preacher espousing a radical religious viewpoint, but the reassessment of his status began last year when it was disclosed that Army Maj. Nidal Hassan had been communicating with Awlaki via e-mail before the Army psychiatrist allegedly shot and killed 12 soldiers and one civilian at Fort Hood in Texas last November.
A month later, on Christmas Day, a young Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jetliner over Detroit, and US intelligence officials revealed that Abdulmutallab had been a student of Awlaki’s in Yemen. Though Awlaki denied ordering the attack, word began to spread that the CIA was adding Awlaki to a list of about two dozen people targeted for assassination.
Multiple press reports now indicate that Awlaki has been put on the death list, a move that the Obama administration justifies by claiming to have information that Awlaki has shifted from denouncing the United States to plotting violent acts against Americans.
Read all of it here:
Obama Administration Authorizes CIA to Kill US Citizen
by Jason Leopold, April 7, 2010
Apr 08 2010
Afternoon Edition
Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Kyrgyzstan government ousted in violent revolt
by Matt Siegel and Tolkun Namatbayeva, AFP
5 mins ago
| BISHKEK (AFP) – Opponents of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev took control Wednesday of Kyrgyzstan after a day of spectacular violence that ended with Bakiyev fleeing the capital of the strategic Central Asian state.
Opposition protesters seized the presidential administration Wednesday night and announced on state radio that they had formed a provisional government with former foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva at its head. A worker at Bishkek’s international airport told AFP that the 60-year-old Bakiyev had fled the capital aboard a small plane as his opponents consolidated their grip on key national institutions. |
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