July 9, 2011 archive

Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

July 4th marked the First Anniversary of The Stars Hollow Gazette. Over the next week we will be taking a look at that first week republishing some of our first diaries and talking about the future. Come join the celebration

Our regular featured content-

mishima‘s news digest 6 In The Morning will be on hiatus

These weekly featured articles-

Coverage of the British Gran Prix with the qualifying races this morning

Join us tomorrow morning for the Formula 1: Silverstone Live Blog at 6 AM EDT.

and continuing coverage of the world’s most watched and controversial cycling event, Le Tour de France

Join us for Le Tour 2011- Stage 9 at 7:30 AM EDT.

These were the featured articles on July 8, 2010

The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is an Open Thread

Shaken Child at the White House

SC4For this toddler the White House fence is just another jungle-gym, but for her father it’s a Very Important Location, so when the child simply would not stop running around in his picture, he picked her up and shook her.

Shaken baby injuries usually occur in children younger than 2 years old but may be seen in children up to the age of 5. Shaken baby syndrome can occur from as little as 5 seconds of shaking. The result is a type of whiplash, similar to that seen in some auto accidents.

When an infant or toddler is shaken, the brain bounces back and forth against the skull. This can cause bruising of the brain (cerebral contusion), swelling, pressure, and bleeding in the brain.

The large veins along the outside of the brain may tear, leading to further bleeding, swelling, and increased pressure. This can easily cause permanent brain damage or death.

Shaking an infant or small child may cause other injuries, such as damage to the neck, spine, and eyes. Eye damage is very common and may result in loss of vision (retinal hemorrhage).

Three cops within 50 feet and a hundred tourists, and all of them with their eyes wide open!

“That guy shook his child,” I said to the nearest cop, and he actually looked embarrassed.

“I didn’t see it,” he said, but five minutes later when somebody put down a little white bag to take a picture, the same cop was instantly all over it, shouting “Whose bag is this?”

It might be a bomb!

It might be a bomb at a Very Important Location!

Cartnoon

Sylvester and Tweety MysteriesIt Happened One Night Before Christmas, Episode 10, Part 1

How squeegees can help save America, and your sanity – going beyond blogging to the choir

I find the continued lack of visible, widespread, persistent, peaceful, effective actions by activists to be dismaying, if not depressing. (Please notice that I didn’t use the adjective “massive”. I have argued for a shotgun approach to reaching the public, where the activists can be in groups as small as 2 people. Or even go it alone.) Apparently, for some of us, when thing get tough, they either throw up their hands, or else call for more of the same (such as the “sternly worded letter/email/fax”), or else call for a complete failure of the system – hoping that a new Dark Age will provide a fertile ground for a subsequent Aquarian Age. (Say, now, there’s a plan!).

One would have hoped that political blogs would be a wellspring of encouragement for wider engagement with, and education of, the “unblogged masses”, but that is not the case. E.g., I was following the unfolding Obamacare fiasco, via FDL, and knew very well about Obama’s backstabbing deal with Tauzin, as well as other related healhcare betrayals. But at job where my coworkers were discussing Obamacare, I asked people what they thought about Obama’s deal with Tauzin, and nobody even knew who Tauzin was.

Not good. FDL had essentially no effect on the level of knowledge of most Americans. It’s effects are limited to a small sliver of the American public.

Well, a recent reply (#174) to ‘mymarkx’ in Call Members of Congress and Tell Them if They Cut Social Security, You’re Done With Them has prompted my to share an additional idea for exploiting public spaces, to both educate and develop political muscle. First, my post #174:

On This Day In History July 9

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

July 9 is the 190th day of the year (191st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 175 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1995, the Grateful Dead gave their last concert at Soldier Field in Chicago, IL.

For mishima

Obama Wants To Attack The Middle Class? Take Congress Hostage!

By now you have heard that President Obama has chosen to throw Social Security and the Medicare and Medicaid Programs over the side of his proverbial fishing boat as bait to see if he can get Republicans to give him another really lousy compromise, much as he did last December when he gave up billions upon billions of deficit reduction in order to help Republicans preserve tax cuts for billionaires.

And it looks like the President doesn’t really lose if you or I get hurt here: in fact, it seems that, in his eyes, it’s to his advantage to fight against his own base as he seeks to be “the adult in the room” in the runup to the ’12 election.

So we’re going to have to find a way to put The Fear on this guy – and I think I’ve got a plan to force this President to listen.

And it works like this: if this President ain’t gonna be moved by our message…we do it by holding the rest of his Party hostage.

Late Night Karaoke

Ten Reasons why I Shall Vote Republican Next Time 20110709

This is a rare piece, juxtaposed betwixt my regular pieces.  OK, now I got your attention!  I am sorry for the subterfuge.  However, this is actually a more important piece that the title indicates.  Unless you fall into one of the ten categories, there is NO reason to vote for a Republican.

I usually do not use satire in my pieces, except for small snippets, but this idea sort of  screams hyperbole.  I hope that this makes people think.  If it does, I succeeded.  If not, I failed.  You tell me in the comments.

Random Japan

Photobucket

GOTTA BOUNCE

After winning 10 straight national trampoline championships, 27-year-old Haruka Hirota decided to retire from the sport due to a rule change regarding how much time the athletes spend in the air.

Former Livedoor boss Takafumi Horie decided to go out in style, sporting a Mohawk haircut and wearing a T-shirt bearing the phrase “Go To Jail” as he began his prison sentence for fraud.

Forty-year-old tennis queen Kimiko Date Krumm gave Venus Williams a run for her money at Wimbledon, before finally bowing out 6-7 (6), 6-3, 8-6 in nearly three hours in the second round.

In Sapporo, four “Super Grandmas” aged between 75 and 88 set a world record in the 400-meter medley for swimmers with a combined age between 320 and 359 years. Their combined age was 322 years and they shaved a full 40 seconds off the record.

Doara, the popular mascot of the Chunichi Dragons baseball club, was sent down to the minor leagues to work on his flips after a few mishaps.

Yoshie Soma, a 69-year-old special adviser to the president of Kobe University, was named one of the “most distinguished women in chemistry and chemical engineering in the world” by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. She discovered a copper carbonyl catalyst in the 1960s that has been used in paint for cars and the bottom of ships.

Popular Culture (Music) 20110708: The Who Live at Leeds Part 2 of 2

Last week we examined the original vinyl record of Live at Leeds.  Due to the technological limitations of vinyl, it was only about 45 minutes, give or take a couple, long.  The album was rereleased in 1995 on CD, and because that medium is capable of much more time, around two hours, many more tracks were added that had been recorded at the time.

Tonight we shall listen to those tracks and discuss whether or not we think that they are good.  I think that they are all no worse than very, very good and that many of them are outstanding.  Please listen and tell me what you think.  For those of you who have not signed up for an account, please do so so that you can comment in future.

Let us get started.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann

If you do not get Current TV you can watch Keith here:

Watch live video from CURRENT TV LIVE Countdown Olbermann on www.justin.tv

If you can’t watch here Timbuk3 has supplied a link to DU